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Billy Bragg says he was “stitched up” by The Times over Corbyn quotes
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 17 August 2016
Billy Bragg has said that he’s been “stitched up” by The Times, after the newspaper claimed that he no longer supports Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party.
Earlier this week, The Times published an article using quotes from a Q&A with Bragg at the Edinburg International Book Festival, in which he said: “I worry about Jeremy that he’s a kind of 20th century Labour man. We need to be reaching out to people. We need to be working with everybody we can because you can see what happens to a political party that becomes tribalist. We can’t afford to go down that route if we are to retain the ability to represent ordinary working people”.
You could read that quote as consisting of suggestions for how Corbyn could improve his leadership of the party, but The Times went with Bragg having decided that Corbyn should be kicked to the curb.
Responding on Twitter, Bragg said that he had “joined the long list of people stitched up by the Murdoch papers”.
“Don’t believe the b/s about me in the Times”, he added. “I’m still supporting Corbyn, just want more talk about devo for England and fair votes for all”.
Responding to another Twitter user who accused him of doing “a sell-out interview” with The Times in order to promote his new album, he noted that it was “not an interview. It’s a quote twisted out of context to beat Corbyn with. Don’t let Murdoch sow discord”.