On the Today programme last Thursday, Billy Bragg was interviewed about his play (or, as he describes it, ‘part play, part gig, part installation’) Pressure Drop, a collaboration with the playwright Mick Gordon. It’s about being white and working-class in modern Britain, and was inspired by the conspicuous success of the British National Party in Bragg’s home patch, Barking in Essex. While Bragg’s contempt for the BNP is unwavering – he had a stand-up row with their candidate in Barking and Dagenham on Monday – he says that ‘immigration, the ability of people to move where the work is now, has changed the face of the borough.’ He himself has moved to the noticeably more homogeneous locale of south Dorset, but members of his family, including his mother, still live in Barking. One of the characters in Pressure Drop, a grandmother in her seventies, has the following lines: ‘Do you know what came through the door yesterday? Something from a witchdoctor. A witchdoctor? I just don't know any more. I'm starting not to recognise the place.’ Bragg glossed: ‘That actually happened to my mum’ – someone had posted a flyer offering to cast spells to improve her love life and make her richer.