His message hasn’t changed but the clothes have. Billy Bragg’s still damning fascists and cynics. There were special mentions for Nigel Farage and, of course, Margaret Thatcher.

It’s not enough to sit on your a*** and be content that you’ve voted for those who promise something different. You’ve got to get out there and act.

So he’s been out in the States. First to record Tooth And Nail, a country-sounding record, and later to tour.

While he was there everyone wanted to know what he thought of Thatcher’s death – “She’ll never know how Breaking Bad finishes.”

He picked up a few pearl-snap shirts, too, and a new touring band, who beefed out Valentine’s Day Is Over with some swooning country blues.

He covered Woody Guthrie’s I Ain’t Got No Home, written in the 1930s, and “as relevant now as it was then”.

Over You, a track written with Joe Henry for the new record, was honest, eerie and heartfelt – a reminder of the old Sherpa Of Heartbreak.

There Will Be A Reckoning was more biting – and about the BNP in Dagenham and Barking.

“Don’t worry, I’m juiced up and ready to go”, he said to one over-eager punter screaming for songs from the back catalogue. Bragg never disappoints on the road. Along came a storming version of Waiting For The Great Leap Forward, sounding as fresh as anything written in 2013.