Why I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead at Glastonbury—Even If It Meant Avoiding a Conversation with Gary Lineker

The Fields of Eton? No—Just Eton Mess

There comes a moment in every ageing British man’s life where he looks at a sea of bucket hats, hears a 27-year-old shouting “Kill your local MP,” and thinks: “Yes, this nation really has run out of ideas.” Glastonbury, that once-mystical Somerset field of dreams and dope, has now become less a music festival and more a sort of bourgeois refugee camp for metropolitan guilt. If you’re not tripping over an inflatable Extinction Rebellion sculpture, you’re elbowing your way past a middle-class activist doing yoga next to a composting toilet that smells like an East German prison.

And into this steaming utopia of good vibes and taxpayer-subsidised activism comes Kneecap—the Irish republican rap outfit who make Stormzy look like the Queen Mother. Now, far be it from me to suggest that a music festival might occasionally vet its artists for things like, I don’t know, open support for terror groups. But apparently, if it’s wrapped in enough anti-imperialist chic and served with a side of “you wouldn’t understand our struggle,” then it’s just performance art, darling.

Eavis the Menace: A National Treasure Tells You to Sod Off

Sir Michael Eavis, Glastonbury’s beardy oracle, has responded to the backlash not with tact, diplomacy, or even basic PR training, but with the sort of shrug you’d expect from a pensioner who’s had enough of your questions about the bins. “People that don’t agree with the politics of the event can go somewhere else,” he grunted, possibly from a deckchair made entirely of recycled lentils.

He’s 89, which is impressive, though possibly explains the increasingly Blitz-spirit tone of the festival, where rain is an “opportunity,” the mud is “healing,” and terrorist-sympathising musicians are “misunderstood visionaries.” You could set fire to a cow on the Pyramid Stage and Michael would call it a “pagan revival.”

Starmer the Scold and Kemi the Cop

Enter Sir Keir Starmer, who has the steely resolve of a man reluctantly chairing a church raffle. He called for Kneecap to be dropped, presumably because someone in Labour HQ finally realised that shouting “Up Hezbollah” at a gig isn’t the PR win it might’ve been in Corbyn’s Day of Rage. Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch—our own Thatcher reboot downloaded from Reddit—wants the BBC to avoid broadcasting the band entirely. A bold strategy, given that the BBC already struggles to broadcast anything that doesn’t involve an Oxbridge comedian in a novelty jumper sneering at working-class voters.

Gary Lineker: Preachy and Proud

Of course, no modern British event would be complete without Saint Gary of Walkers turning up to deliver a sermon. “A bit more kindness in the world,” he coos, from the sanctified soil of Silver Hayes, like a man who’s just discovered empathy after a £2.5 million brand consultancy. This from the bloke who blocked half of Britain on Twitter for not retweeting a Syrian refugee.

It’s fitting that Lineker would show up at Glasto, a place that combines the self-righteousness of a climate protest with the hygiene of a medieval siege. One suspects that if Gandhi were alive today, he’d take one look at the festival line-up and book a one-way ticket to Ibiza.

The Music? Oh Right, the Music

Somewhere under all this soggy virtue signalling is supposed to be a music festival, remember? But these days, the Pyramid Stage is less about actual tunes and more a pulpit for whichever left-of-centre celeb fancies a go at stand-up sermonising. Who needs melody when you’ve got moral clarity?

As for Kneecap, let’s be honest: they’re not being booked for their lyrical genius. They’re there because outrage sells wristbands. In the glorious tradition of Banksy and every sixth-form revolutionary with a TikTok account, they know that to be banned is to be blessed. Every denunciation is a ticket sale. Every “think of the children” is another merch stand queue.

Final Thought: Mud, Mirth, and Misinformation

So no, I won’t be attending Glastonbury. Not because I hate music. Not because I fear a bit of drizzle. But because nothing says “British decline” quite like a man in a Che Guevara T-shirt eating vegan haggis while defending Hezbollah on Instagram.

If I wanted to be surrounded by smugness, damp socks, and delusions of grandeur, I’d go to a Lib Dem party conference. At least there, the toilets flush.