Oh boy. OK. Let's get into it. Western politicians seem to believe that they can affect the outcome of the war between Russian and Ukraine, and they seem convinced that the best way to do this is by showing up in Ukraine with their guitars and serenading Ukrainian troops — or, at least, that the act of serenading Ukrainian troops will make them appear tough and cool to voters back home. Or maybe that's not what they think! I don't fucking know! I can't read their minds! I just know that this exact thing has happened more than once and that it didn't become any less absurd the second time.
Back in 2024, Joe Biden's actively evil Secretary Of State Anthony Blinken visited Kyiv jumped onstage at a bar to cover Neil Young's "Rockin' In The Free World." Amazingly, that did not immediately end the war, which remains ongoing. Now, the United Kingdom has a brand new prime minister, and he tried something similar on his first trip abroad.
Andy Burnham, the former mayor of Manchester, took the position of prime minister last month, following the resignation of his comically ineffectual predecessor Keir Starmer. Burnham has come up on this website once before — in 2020, when he condemned an Eminem punchline about the terrorist bombing at Ariana Grande's 2017 Manchester concert. On Monday, Burnham was in Ukraine, and he visited the country's military and artistic unit, a group who performs for soldiers on the front lines and at hospitals and rehabilitation centers, per NME.
While Burnham visited the unit's mobile recording studio, a soldier reportedly handed him an unplugged electric guitar, and he strummed the riff from the Smiths' 1985 song "Rusholme Ruffians," which is not about Russians but which is about Manchester, the hometown that Burnham shares with the Smiths. He didn't sing any of it. While he was there, Burnham reportedly talked about how music can "lift spirits," and the soldiers sang him some Oasis.
In the video that Burnham posted on his own social feeds, it sure looks like Burnham is bothering a Ukrainian soldier who does not care about this man's Smiths song and who never takes his headphones off. Apparently, that's not what's happening, given all the necessary context. So keep that in mind when you watch the video below.
It really does look like that, though, doesn't it?
