Got a link?
Unfortunately not. I read it when fellow member Stratmad published the photos of the interview, just before they got taken down by the mods. I'm sure he still has it, so try to contact him
Yes, I have it, but didn't scan it at the time (for copyright reasons). It was only the cover and my summary.
But in fact, MK painstakingly avoided stating his own political views throughout the interview! He would always quote what someone else might think, what someone might feel or be afraid of, what some people might believe etc.
Excuse my directness, but have you ever read any interview he did? I mean, he's been doing that since he became famous!
Whenever he gets asked something about politics or religion he gives his own opinion, but never directly. He always makes it look as if it's other people saying what he thinks, in a somewhat vague way. But he always let's out enough for people to understand. So, when he says "ah, some people think it's not good", I know that's his personal opinion. It's just a clever communication tactic to avoid any backlash from the public.
Read all his interviews, especially the ones from 1980-1985, or watch the Mark Lawson interview, and you'll see what I mean.
Edit: Watch also the Hardtalk
2018 interview, that's a brilliant example of Mark's communication strategy
People will see what they want to see I guess. Like all the Americans pumping their fists to Born in the USA.
Yes, that's precisely my point.
Of course he would rarely make a true, first-person political statement on any controversial topic. There have been a few very clear political messages, but those were hardly controversial statements or they came a long while afterwards (e.g. on Margaret Thatcher, Apartheid, the war in Ukraine).
Most artists with a world-wide audience simply cannot afford to voice their private political views, because that might mean losing part of their audience. So I agree, of course most artists will try and avoid backlash from the public, because that's the hand that is feeding them.
So it's up to us to read between the lines, as you say.
But in that particular interview, that isn't really possible either! His usual strategy of "you may say that, I can't possibly comment" shows up in a few places, but the rest of it is rather more philosophical than political.
They talk about a few extreme positions (e.g. railworkers on strike, some alleged connection between immigration and crime), but I can't see a coherent picture even in the examples that he uses. And it's very clear that he doesn't share those extreme views.
There is one short sequence when they are talking about people who complain about not getting the same cancer treatment as the King, not getting a dentist's appointment etc, and he says: "How long will it take until people will stop blaming all sorts of things for their own situation?!"
The other one is about the railworkers, where he says that a young doctor can't get to the hospital because of the strike, and he spent six years at university to study medicine, while those railworkers only learned to say "Mind the gap!" and are paid quite good money for that.
That's about as political as it gets in that interview.
The only thing he does make clear is that the ideas of the far left and those of the far right are becoming more and more similar, and that you always have to see both sides of any given problem, because there are no simple answers.
Another thing he does state clearly is that he is worried about our western democracies - that's what the interviewer asks him, and he says: "Yes."
I don't know what to think. Either it's due to the fact that these days it is really difficult to say what is left and what is right, or maybe, when you get to a certain age, you get a more balanced perspective.
Edit: Sorry about the long post... and thank you, Dusty, for the scans!!!
