M People slam Liz Truss for using Moving On Up – ‘Our song isn’t a soundtrack to lies!’ | Music | Entertainment

Over the years politicians have used catchy pop tracks to make their entrances before big speeches and rallies and left-leaning music stars get very annoyed when right-wing leaders are associated with their songs. Across the pond, Donald Trump was threatened with a lawsuit by The Rolling Stones for using You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Mitt Romney was slammed by Phil Lynott’s mother for playing Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back in Town. Closer to home, Theresa May awkwardly moved along onto the Conservative Party Conference stage to ABBA’s Dancing Queen and Liz Truss has followed suit, walking onto Moving On Up.

The Prime Minister has had a turbulent first few weeks in office with many in her own party even questioning if she’s going to continue in the role following the market’s devastating reaction to Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini-budget. Truss gave her crucial conference speech today, coming on to M People’s 1993 song, a move that has been lambasted by the band.

Michael Pickering tweeted: “So apparently we can’t stop Truss walking out to our song, very weird! So sad it got used by this shower of a government. BTW Truss Labour used it with permission in ’90s. I don’t want my song being a soundtrack to lies.”

Pickering also told the PA news agency: “They [the band] are livid. Heather’s boy James is a Labour councillor. Hopefully, most people will know that they have pirated it off us. She won’t be around to use it again for very long. I would imagine. I am absolutely gutted by it because they are killing the live touring of bands and artists… I am Mancunian and getting from Manchester to London these days is harder than getting on to continental Europe. I was just looking at the lyrics. It’s amazing. I hope she takes note. It’s about, ‘Go and pack your bags and get out.’ And we just rang the lawyers and they went, ‘You can’t actually stop it. We can send a letter to cease and desist but you can’t do it’. They can play what they like, which seems a bit weird to me.”

A similar incident occurred last year when Boris Johnson walked out to Blue Cassette by indie band Friendly Fires, who slammed the then Conservative leader.

Speaking at the 2021 Conservative party conference, Boris like Truss was accused by the band of not asking permission to use the song.

Friendly Fires wrote on their Twitter account: “We do not endorse the Conservative party’s use of our track Blue Cassette. Our permission was not sought, and we have asked our management to make sure it isn’t used again. If we’d have intended them to use it, we’d have named the track Blue Bunch Of Corrupt W****rs.  If Boris Johnson needed something uplifting to walk on to, perhaps he should have used the sound of a busy food bank.”

The post included a picture of the Leader of the House of Commons’ from a story titled: “Jacob Rees-Mogg: Food banks ‘rather uplifting’”.