© Frank Schwichtenberg (CC)
When Sir Keir Starmer sat down with Lauren Laverne to talk through his Desert Island Discs last month, the Labour Party held its breath. Would its leader flaunt phoney indie credentials, as David Cameron did in 2006? Surely it couldn’t be worse than Ed Miliband in 2013, his top choice of Robbie Williams’s Angels tickling the nation’s gag reflex.
But Starmer fans needn’t have worried. A kooky mix of Beethoven, northern soul and Stormzy – plus some well-judged revelations about a tricky father-son relationship – proved a relative triumph. Though Starmer insists his discs were genuine, I struggle to believe they were entirely without spin. Much harder to skew are cold hard listening stats, which are exactly what streaming service Spotify offered its users last week with “2020 Wrapped”, giving listeners a roundup of their top artists, songs and genres. The perfect opportunity, then, to find out what politicians are really consuming. Alas, Sir Keir’s team were not forthcoming with his results. But others were happy to share theirs with me.