Rage: this campaign can teach us something

By James Mills

Last week, some Labour colleagues moaned to me about the Rage Aganist the Machine Christmas Number 1 campaign; “It won’t work” or “They are no better than Joe McElderry” or “Even if they win, Joe will be No. 1 next week and Cowell will have more money and publicity”. I am sure you have heard people say the same.

In my opinion, my colleagues’ Christmas humbug was an even worse than that of which Simon Cowell accused the Rage campaign. Even though here is a song with possibly the most radical lyrics you could find, from a genre that is not exactly chart-friendly, stealing the No. 1 slot against those who the same group of people would often say are their ultimate nemeses – manufactured pop – they still complain.

They respond:

“well Rage’s music is owned by a ‘mega-corporation’ like Sony BMG! It’s just a marketing strategy by a mega-corporation that’s just exploiting you”.

Talk about being super picky! Would those self styled grumpy fellow lefties have grumbled, if they had been around at the time, about the setting up of the NHS as simply lining the pockets of doctors?

Ok – so Rage are signed up to Epic which is a subsidiary of Sony BMG and Simon Cowell runs another subsidiary label of Sony’s, but what’s wrong with that? Neither will receive a penny from the other’s sales. And how would I as a kid in the 90s ever have heard Rage’s music if they did not have the platform provided to them by Sony? The same applies to the Doors, The Eagles, and others; if they had stayed on small labels in the ’60s and not moved on they would never have broken onto the international stage for the simple reason that small labels don’t have the reach.

No PR agency forced people to join that million strong Facebook group; it was driven at its heart by a desire to have a more tangible say in things. I wonder if the same people who criticise Rage Against the Machine for being signed up to a major label would say the same if we were talking about the book sales of the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, which have risen over the last few years and are owned my major publishing companies?

But if that still doesn’t change your mind at least focus on either the bookies who have taken a hit over this – or even better still the fact that Shelter was set to receive £50,000 earlier last week and are currently expecting well in excess of £72,000, as a direct result of this campaign and at a time when it will be most needed this Christmas.

What we on the left should take from this campaign is that if we can reconnect and use people power through Labour Party based issues – utilising social media outlets as we did with the We Love The NHS campaign earlier this year – then anything is possible. Because the vast majority of the British people care passionately about the issues which drive activist like us to go out on winter mornings to deliver leaflets and knock on doors. We know that the more people we can get out come polling day, the more likely we are to win.

We also know that, historically, the Tories can’t match us in activist numbers and that the more people who meet a Labour activist the more likely they are to vote Labour. So, like Rage and those who campaigned for this underdog, let’s tell the Tories: “We found your weakness, and it’s right outside the door”. Because: “it has to start somewhere; it has to start sometime; what better place than here; what better time than now?”

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