Dave Rowntree has lost his bid for a seat in UK parliament.
The Blur drummer was running for the centrist Labour Party in the Mid Sussex district — typically a stronghold for the Conservatives. Despite Labour’s landslide win across the country, the district’s seat went to the Liberal Democrats, another centrist party.
Rowntree won around 17 percent of the votes in his district, with Liberal Democrat Alison Elizabeth Bennett obtaining around 39 percent. This is the first time the Tories have lost Mid Sussex since the constituency was founded in 1974.
The last time Rowntree dipped into politics was when he was ward councillor in Norwich from 2017 to 2021. Before that, he was selected by the Cities of London and Westminster Labour Party to contest the sitting Conservative in 2010, but lost to the Tories.
When he’s not busy with politics, Rowntree is part of Blur’s on-again-off-again relationship with themselves, having played with the band on last year’s The Ballad of Darren.
In other UK politics meets music news, now ex-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak got slammed by MGMT yesterday (July 4) for using “Little Dark Age” in an ad.
