Rick Wakeman’s election manifesto on behalf of the Progressive Rock Party

Ahead of the UK’s general election of 2017, Rick Wakeman offered a tantalising glimpse into how the country might be run if he formed the Progressive Rock Party and became prime minister. On the occasion of the 2024 general election, Prog still believes in his brave new world – which, sadly, will never come to pass regardless of who you vote for.

I’m seriously considering going into politics. As of this current moment in time, I have absolutely no faith or confidence in most of the MPs walking round Westminster. Therefore I need to form a political party of my own.

If I go ahead, it will be called The Progressive Rock Party. Should we ever get into power, my cabinet would include Brian May as animal rights minister, Rod Stewart as sports minister, Ozzy Osbourne as foreign secretary, Keith Richards as minister for health and Brian Johnson as minister of transport.

The all-important job of minister of arts would go to Sir Paul McCartney, and all the press and media would be overseen by Prog’s Jerry Ewing. I would end every parliamentary session with a concert, which would be televised by UKTV Gold. The programme would be presented by Ricky Gervais.

The Progressive Rock Party would go on to form its own multi-nation parliament with The European Progressive Rock Union, and we would invite all the countries who are pissed off with their own politics to join us. I accept this would present problems as the likelihood is that that once the Progressive Rock Union is up and running, the only country left in the EU would be Germany.

I admit, there’s a lot of work to do before we can get to this stage. We would also need to prepare for our first conference, which would coincide with the current political parties’ conferences – although ours would be held in Glastonbury, as part of the festival.

Televised debates would be part of Later… With Jools Holland and Any Questions would be re-launched as Don’t Bother Asking As You Won’t Get Any Honest Answers.

I was great friends with Screaming Lord Sutch; and amazingly, some of the Monster Raving Loony Party’s manifesto pledges have actually happened, 24-hour licensing laws being just one example. Even Maggie Thatcher said he brought a strange form of sanity to our bizarre political system.

So there you have it. It’s a dream, I know; but if the arts were brought into mainstream politics rather than hidden away, we would be in a much better country. Let’s face it, when there’s a crisis, it’s musicians, actors and comedians who step up and get things done, so isn’t the obvious solution to put us in charge?

But the first thing I’d do as Prime Minister would be to change the curtains at Number 10. They’re awful!