SUPER FURRY ANIMALS frontman Gruff Rhys slammed the “extreme” Tory cuts on Monday night while defending his fellow Welsh singing socialist Charlotte Church from right-wing attacks.

The band headlined the Music Against Austerity concert staged in Manchester on Monday night to coincide with the Conservative conference.

Mr Rhys told the audience: “We wanted to do this show to register how pissed off we are with these austerity measures that are being imposed.”

And the band ended their set with 1996 single The Man Don’t Give a Fuck against the backdrop of a message reading: “Long live the socialist revolution.”

But in an interview he insisted the Super Furry Animals were “not making a radical statement” by playing the gig.
“I don’t think we’re that radical a band,” he told the Morning Star.

“What I want to get across is how extreme the Conservatives are being. Just making life easier for elites and ignoring the majority of the population.

“We grew up under the horrific Thatcher years. The cuts that the present-day Conservatives are making are even deeper.”

Mr Rhys, originally from north Wales but now living in Cardiff, said he had noticed the difference cuts were making after becoming a dad.

He said: “People are now fighting for things you take absolutely for granted.

“Like we can’t put our kids on a school bus anymore, which is something people take for granted all over the world. In developing countries, you know, like a school bus for child is a kind of basic thing, even the US has them.”

The Super Furry Animals were invited to headline the protest gig by Ms Church, who has become a flag-bearer of the People’s Assembly Against Austerity.

Mr Rhys defended his fellow Welsh singer after her participation in the protests outside Tory conference was criticised by Justice Secretary Michael Gove.

The Tory toff branded Ms Church a “comfortable millionaire” living in a “cosseted bubble of shared assumptions and sneering condescension.”

But Mr Rhys hit back, saying: “She’s someone bringing up a family in Wales, you know.

“She will be noticing the day-to-day things that maybe the Cabinet of elite millionaires don’t notice.”