Why do politicians use walk-on music?
BBC News
Like many a political leader before her Liz Truss turned to pop music to make a big entrance at her annual party conference.
It did not go down well with the band who created it – but why do politicians use music like this?
And what does their choice of walk-on track tell us about them?
There have been some bizarre choices over the years – Tony Blair once took to the stage to the angry sound of Seventies punks Sham 69.
At a time when the Labour Party was tearing itself apart, Sham’s terrace anthem “if the kids are united, they will never be divided” seemed relevant.
Very occasionally, the music takes on greater significance. Who could forget Theresa May strutting on stage to Abba’s Dancing Queen in 2018?
Hungover crowd
This was her comeback conference after the most disastrous speech in living memory, the previous year. She also wanted to show her human side.
But often it is generic, stadium-filling soft rock that echoes around the auditorium, as drowsy, hungover party members and MPs take their seats.
Or Fatboy Slim’s evergreen floor-filler Right Here, Right Now (more of him later), which can lend a sense of excitement to the most mundane of occasions.
Music is piped in to wake conference-goers up and get them in a positive mood, although it is a relatively recent arrival in British politics.
The political greats did not need a soundtrack – Sir Winston Churchill never walked on stage to the Glen Miller Orchestra or the Andrews Sisters.
‘Lonely walk’
But music is everywhere now, particularly in the corporate world.
“You need music because it is a lonely walk to that podium. Can you imagine if you didn’t have music?,” says PR guru and commentator Mark Borkowski.
Music is a small detail, but conference organisers still need to get it right, to avoid the impression of being shambolic or slapdash, he says.
Which brings us to Liz Truss.
The prime minister’s slogan this week is “Getting Britain Moving”. So – in a literal-minded move – she walked on stage to Moving On Up, by 1990s hitmakers M People.
She is unlikely to have had much input into this – the track was personally selected by her press secretary, apparently.
(Although she did give a possible clue to her musical tastes in her speech, telling the party faithful the “status quo is not option”.)
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