Socialist songwriter Billy Bragg backs Nick Clegg

If losing the backing of the Sun wasn't bad enough, Gordon Brown is in for an even bigger shock now that Billy Bragg, the Bard of Barking and left-wing icon, has thrown his support behind Nick Clegg.

The controversial singer songwriter, whose back catalogue includes recordings of the socialist anthems The Internationale and The Red Flag, said that he would be voting Lib Dem this time round "because they've got the best manifesto".

In the past Bragg, who these days lives in a marginal seat in Devon, has advocated voting Lib Dem for tactical reasons, but now he appears to agree with their policies as well. "I like what they're saying about proportional representation, I like what they're saying about Europe... if I was a floating voter I'd be floating towards them," he announced.

It is a dramatic volte face from the man who set up Red Wedge in 1985, an artistic movement designed to increase support for the Labour party. Among its supporters were Paul Weller, The Specials founder Jerry Dammers and comedians Lenny Henry and Harry Enfield.

Although the movement was eventually disbanded, Bragg has remained active in politics. In 2005 he campaigned, unsuccessfully, on behalf of Labour candidate Oona King in Bethnal Green against George Galloway of the Respect Party, fearing that he would split the Labour vote.

Last year Bragg joined the G20 protests in London and pledged to withhold his income tax in protest at bankers' bonuses. The Facebook group publicising his stance attracted 30,000 members.

But any suggestion that Bragg's conversion to the Liberal cause means that he will now be donning sandals and growing a beard has been rejected after the singer got involved in an ugly confrontation with the BNP in his old stamping ground of Barking.

Bragg was distributing anti-BNP leaflets in the constituency where he grew up, which is being contested by BNP leader Nick Griffin, when he ran into the party's London assembly member, Richard Barnbrook and the pair got into a row.

The confrontation came as Bragg's latest venture - a play about the pressures on the white working class in England, called Pressure Drop - opened at the Wellcome Collection in London. ·