At the festival there’s a background hum of grimness and a deep commitment to unconditional love. Will hope or hopelessness win out?
You can’t miss the fact at Glastonbury that there is an election coming. For one, there is a lot of “get the vote out” messaging. A large black box saying: “Use your superpower: vote,” funded by Dale Vince, the founder of the green electricity firm Ecotricity and a Labour party donor, sits in a field. Yellow stickers on tables read: “Crash the party, vote.” One archway is more overt in its message: “Vote out to help out.” Damon Albarn made a surprise appearance to perform with the Bombay Bicycle Club on Friday, enjoining the audience midway through the set to talk about “the importance of voting this week”.
A couple of signs make oblique reference to the fact that people don’t feel that enthusiastic about the democratic offer: “Politics isn’t about them. It’s about YOU,” reads a sign on one booth. However, Albarn was more explicit: “I don’t blame you for being ambivalent,” he said. “But it’s still really important … maybe it’s time we stopped putting octogenarians in charge of the world?” Some here may have missed the Biden and Trump debate that struck fear into the hearts of progressives everywhere. But there is no question that Biden is an octogenarian – and Trump is not far behind him.
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