Why did BBC show Stormzy shouting ‘f *** Boris’ at Glasto crowd?
As Corbyn claims rapper’s performance ‘will go down in Britain’s cultural history’...
STORMZY and the BBC faced criticism last night for fuelling a culture of personal abuse after the rapper led a 100,000-strong crowd shouting ‘f*** Boris’ during his headline Glastonbury performance.
The performance was aired live on BBC2 on Friday night despite bosses knowing the Croydon rapper’s recent hit Vossi Bop includes the line: ‘f*** the Government and f*** Boris’.
It was the second personal attack on the Tory leadership front-runner during Stormzy’s highly political set. The grime star’s second song of the night, Cold, featured the words ‘tell Boris Johnson – suck your mum, we don’t care’.
The line generated a loud cheer from the audience.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn – whose name the Glastonbury crowds gleefully chanted two years ago – hailed the performance on Twitter, without referring to Stormzy’s personal abuse of Mr Johnson. He wrote: ‘Tonight @ Stormzy made history by being the first black solo British headliner at Glastonbury. The performance was political, iconic and the ballet was beautifully powerful.
‘It won’t just go down in Glastonbury history – it’ll go down in our country’s cultural history.’
But Tory MP David Davies accused Stormzy – whose real name is Michael Omari – of helping to fuel the culture of highly personal abuse aimed at politicians.
‘Words do have impact,’ he said. ‘A lot of politicians at the moment including Boris Johnson, myself, people on the Left, Right and centre, are facing all sorts of verbal abuse and physical threats.
‘And it doesn’t help when millionaire pop stars in a concert, made up of people who can afford to pay £250 a ticket, seem to be jumping on the bandwagon.’
Stormzy, 25, is the youngest Glastonbury headline act since David Bowie in 1971. He strode on to the Pyramid Stage on Friday night wearing a stab-proof vest emblazoned with a Union Jack, designed by street artist Banksy.
Posting a backstage picture on Instagram of Stormzy wearing the vest, Banksy wrote: ‘I made a customised stab-proof vest and thought – who could possibly wear this? Stormzy at Glastonbury.’ Later, during Vossi Bop, Stormzy held out his microphone and the crowd chanted the song’s lyrics: ‘F*** the Government and f*** Boris.’ He then restarted the song so they could do it again.
Nimco Ali, a campaigner and friend of Mr Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds, said Mr Johnson had done more to help young black men as London Mayor than the hard-Left had.
‘I think what (Stormzy) keeps saying about Boris is more for hype. I think his mum and other people will be disappointed but I don’t think it comes from a place of malice,’ said Miss Ali, who was at Glastonbury and saw the performance.
‘He did very well because Boris was Mayor and, if and when Boris becomes Prime Minister, a lot of the young men like him will do well in this country.’
ITV presenter Piers Morgan tweeted that it ‘takes a rare genius to get a bunch of howlingly woke doped-up lefties who treated Corbyn like the Messiah to abuse a Tory’.
Stormzy last year turned down an invitation to perform at Labour’s socialist summer festival. At the time sources denied that it was because Labour refused to pay £100,000 for the performance.
The BBC defended its decision to broadcast the controversial set and declined to say whether there had been any complaints. ‘The headline slots at Glastonbury 2019 are broadcast live and the audience expects artists to have scope for individual expression in their performances,’ a spokesman said. But Mr Davies added: ‘If somebody had been up there shouting abuse about religious groups or racial groups, I’m pretty certain the BBC would have had any number of commentators jumping all over them.
‘It just goes to show that basically if you support Brexit or a right-ofcentre political opinion you can expect to be abused by everyone and nobody’s going to say or do much about it.’
During his set at last year’s Brit Awards, Stormzy asked Theresa May about ‘money for Grenfell’, referring to the London tower block blaze which killed 72 people.
‘It takes a rare genius to get a bunch of howlingly woke doped-up lefties who treated Corbyn like the Messiah to abuse a Tory.’ – Piers Morgan