Gained a First Minister, but lost a hero. Congratulations Mark. RIP Pete.
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The following Blog is taken from Skwawkbox. To view the original article, please click here.
Left-wing candidate Mark Drakeford has just been elected as leader of the Welsh Labour Party – and therefore as First Minister – with a 53.9% share of the vote.
Wales at last has a leader from the left – and the UK-wide party benefits as well, a Drakeford will be eligible either to sit on the National Executive Committee in place of Carwyn Jones, or to appoint a trusted representative.
As the SKWAWKBOX showed in an exclusive two-part interview, Drakeford is a long-standing supporter of party leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The SKWAWKBOX congratulates him on a resounding victory – and Welsh Labour left on an excellent result.
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The following article originally appeared on the BBC online. To view the original article, please click here.
Buzzcocks lead singer Pete Shelley has died at 63 of a suspected heart attack.
The punk band are best known for their hit, Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve).
Their management told the BBC that Shelley died on Thursday in Estonia where he was living.
BBC music correspondent Lizo Mzimba said Buzzcocks, who formed in Bolton in the 1970s, were regarded as more polished, but musically no less influential, than the Sex Pistols.
The band have tweeted saying Shelley was “one of the UK’s most influential and prolific songwriters and co-founder of the seminal original punk band Buzzcocks”.
His music inspired generations of musicians over a five-decade career with his band and as a solo artist, they said.
The Charlatans’ singer Tim Burgess said Shelley’s “perfect three-minute pop songs” were “the soundtrack to being a teenager”.
Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine said Buzzcocks were one of the most influential bands to emerge in the initial wave of punk rock, with echoes of their music in everyone from Hüsker Dü to Nirvana.
“The Buzzcocks were inspired by the Sex Pistols’ energy, yet they didn’t copy the Pistols’ angry political stance,” he wrote in AllMusic.
“Instead, they brought that intense, brilliant energy to the three-minute pop song. Shelley’s alternately funny and anguished lyrics about adolescence and love were some of the best and smartest of his era.”
