This week, I’ve had two very different political interviews published: one with the old face of the British left-wing, and one with the new face of the British right-wing. My Word To The Wise interview with Tony Benn is in the latest issue of The Word Magazine (http://omg.ly/g9Wp), after I spent a lovely hour with him in his Notting Hill home a few weeks ago. Earlier this week, I spent a very different hour in the company of chick-lit author/Tory MP Louise Bagshawe in Portcullis House, as she waited to vote on the Finance Bill for the Emergency Budget. My interview with her – where she presents herself as a massive fan of indie-rock band Foals, Margaret Thatcher, and, oddly enough, Yvette Cooper – is in today’s Times. Find it somewhere behind the paywall (http://omg.ly/mnpW).
I’ve also been writing about other formidable women, this time women we know for making music. Very different beasts they are too. I interviewed the mother-and-daughter pillars of modern folk music, Norma Waterson and Eliza Carthy, about their first album together, for The Guardian (http://omg.ly/3grv), wrote about BBC Radiophonic Workshop founder Daphne Oram for The Guardian’s special on unsung heroes of British music (http://omg.ly/wKA7), and also reviewed Louise Wener’s brilliant book about Britpop, Different For Girls, for the New Statesman (http://omg.ly/sAJp).