Political Spin: Chris Murray

What was the first record that you ever bought?  I’m trying to remember, and this very much ages me: it’s either Blink-182’s Blink-182 album or the Sugababes. And it’s the first incarnation of the Sugababes. I think it was about 2001 or 2002. It was probably from HMV. I have had a broad and catholic taste in music from a young age.  

What record will always get you on the dance floor? ABBA, probably the ABBA Megamix. I have been almost thrown out of CC Blooms many times for requesting it repeatedly. I’m very much a night out person. I had great clubbing years in my 20s and 30s. 

What is your karaoke song? Firstly, I can’t sing, and secondly, I hate karaoke. I find it humiliating for all involved, even a spectator. It’s common at party conferences, but a lot of stuff happens at party conferences that’s both humiliating and should be forgotten. Karaoke is at the top of that list.  

What song would be your first dance at your wedding and why? I don’t plan on getting married.  

What songs do you want to be played at your funeral? I don’t actually know about this one. Something incredibly sombre – I would want people in floods of tears, some good Victorian, gothic, heavy music. The idea that music at a funeral must be positive is just totally wrong to me. It would be easier to answer a question about the fiscal rules.  

What songs do you listen to if you’re looking at the fiscal rules? I have a huge collection of Eurotrash 80s synth pop, that’s my genre. Actually, in my Spotify Wrapped I was in the top 0.01 per cent of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter, which is actually a huge achievement of mine. I think that might be a greater achievement than getting elected. Although I think it said my listening age was 55 or something like that – I listen to a mix of old and new music.  

What songs or music is guaranteed to make you cry? I think it’s quite pathetic to cry at music. I’m very good at repressing my emotions, and so crying at music has never been an issue. The way I’m answering these might make me sound like an absolute monster.

What music would you always associate with your childhood? In my teenage years, it was very much that emo period. I really associate that music with school: people dyeing their hair black, and wearing all the plastic bracelets and dog collars, that kind of thing. I was never fully in that crowd; I would say I was emo-adjacent. It’s hard to have gone to school in the mid-noughties and not been close to that crowd.  

What record do you absolutely hate but can’t get out of your head? My mother [former Labour MP Margaret Curran] used to basically force my brother and me to listen to awful country music when we were in the car. It has left a lasting legacy of trauma. I do hate it, but I do find myself listening to awful country music. It’s not quite Cowboy Carter, it’s more like ‘my husband died, and I shot my father, and then the house burned down’ kind of lyrics. Absolutely awful country music.  

What record would you be embarrassed to owning up to having in your collection? I’m not repentant or defensive about my music tastes. If you looked at my Spotify Wrapped, you would probably describe it as ‘basic bitch’, that’s what’s humiliating about it. It’s like Arianna Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift, Chappell Roan, and Charli XCX. It’s embarrassing, but not that embarrassing.  

What was the last band you went to see and who with? I actually can’t remember. Ask me about the deficit, I can answer that one better.