Bragg: Morrissey shouldn't sue

Billy Bragg, writing for the The Guardian about the Morrissey/NME spat, comes out broadly in favour of the NME's right to publish:

From a man whose whole career has been based on the articulation of sensitivity and victimhood, this is more than just heavy-handedness. Any court case will only result in his questionable assertions on immigration being aired anew - something you'd imagine he'd want to avoid. He may hope, in going to law, to shut the NME up, wait until the fuss dies down and quietly withdraw the writ. But that has been the tactic down the ages of those wealthy folk who are self-centred enough to believe that they are above criticism.

In other news, Andrew Collins spent Saturday at a Royal Festival Hall event marking Billy Bragg's fiftieth birthday. Guess who turned out:

There were two NME editors in the room: Neil Spencer, now a registered astrologer of course, and Conor McNicholas, who was unsurprisingly tired of talking about Morrissey, but in good spirits otherwise.