Hopefully safe in the knowledge that he doesn't share a fan based with the Dixie Chicks, Elvis Costello yesterday told an audience in America that a musician's right to speak their minds is ever important in these "fairly dangerous times" and added that Americans should guard against "any attempts by people who swindle their way into office." He was speaking at an event in Beverley Hills where he was being honoured by songwriters society ASCAP. But he handed out a harsh critique to the UK political system too - saying there was too many cases of "privileged people handing wigs to one another making the laws of the land."
"We all live in fairly dangerous times in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of expression," he said. "A lot of the songwriters that I've admired and learned from ... are people who spoke in matters of conscience as well as matters of the heart. I think that it's essential that we defend that right."