Staying Alive

It’s not hard to imagine British Prime Minister Gordon Brown shuffling through the corridors of Westminster humming The Bee Gees’ "Stayin’ Alive."

Brown’s been forced to U-turn on tax reforms, took a hiding in the recent council elections and faces the prospect of losing the safe Labour seat of Crewe & Nantwich in the May 22 by-election.

One of the ways he’s surviving this particularly grim period in office is by listening to the Bee Gees every day, according to the group’s Robin Gibb.

"Gordon likes our music and I like Gordon. I was with him at a dinner recently and he was asking, ‘Who is creating the big song catalogues of today?" Gibb told The Times.

Is this another of Gordon’s U-turns? The former Chancellor of the Exchequer was once the subject of media disbelief and derision because his attempts at cool included claiming that he was an Arctic Monkeys fan.

The Bee Gees recently became the first band to be made fellows of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters, for which the annual flagship event is the Ivor Novello Awards May 22.