Waiting for pop stars to say something interesting can take a while. It could even be described as a pointless task. Similarly, finding a publican who would turn down the opportunity to serve David Cameron and George Osborne a cask ale would normally be impossible.

Yet multimillion-selling pop star Paul Heaton, formerly of the Housemartins and The Beautiful South, juggles both. But he's not in anybody's "gang." Contrary to popular belief, Heaton was never in Red Wedge - Neil Kinnock's band of musos who wanted to sing Labour into power in the 1980s.

Heaton turned his back on them when they baulked at the suggestion that the music industry should be nationalised. "Not very socialist that, is it?" he asks. "I still want to nationalise it."

We're in the King's Arms, the large theatre pub-cum-backstreet boozer in Salford where Heaton has sunk much of the filthy lucre earned from the last 28 years in his chosen, un-nationalised, profession. He doesn't actually pull pints, recognising it's a decent ruse by journalists to get a free one after a cheeky photo opportunity. Instead, he proudly points to amateur dramatics in the upstairs studio, rehearsal rooms, a small theatre for the culturally inclined, a weekly knitting circle and an angling club, all housed under his recently repaired roof.

Having publicly lamented the slow and agonising death of the great British pub for years, he finally decided to save this one. It's an expensive display of his community idealism.

Heaton's fabulously successful band The Beautiful South split in 2007 due to "musical similarities" and Heaton has been quietly pursuing a solo career ever since. His three solo albums have failed to trouble the charts, something of which he seems almost proud. He's equally as proud that the albums are without doubt his best work.

"I've never been in anyone's gang or club," he sniffs. "I think that has helped me get away with it in a way." The "it" he's got away with just so happens to be the debut album London 0 Hull 4 by The Housemartins. It suggested on the sleeve notes way back in 1986 that the purchaser of said album should rush off home and burn down a bank.

Even when kissing couples kept his next band The Beautiful South almost permanently in the top 40 for a good 18 or so years, bold as brass he still managed to lyrically suggest that the stock exchange be blown up and the royal family subjected to a visit by the grim reaper.

Even those loving vignettes for which The Beautiful South are so remembered were more often than not, on closer inspection, actually tales of domestic abuse. Those love letters were often, in fact, suicide notes.

When Heaton's adopted home town of Hull was named City of Culture recently, he found himself back in the spotlight when Prime Minister David Cameron on the floor of the Commons referred to Heaton's "great" album London 0 Hull 4. Cameron was immediately barred - as too was George Osborne - from Heaton's pub.

But Heaton could be about to trouble David Cameron a little more than just refusing to serve him a pint. Also in The Kings Arms on the day we meet are a delegation from the GMB union. Heaton's fourth solo album What Have We Become is a collaboration with former Beautiful South singer Jacqueline Abbott. There's an air of excitement about the two recording and touring together again.

"I'm doing this tour with the GMB because I'm comfortable with trade unions and maybe not so much the mainstream political parties," he explains. "It's about working people, the people who need to be protected from what this government are doing. We've got a few things lined up along the way to help people get organised, to protect their jobs, to protest injustice. We need to wake a few people up."

Like the GMB, Heaton is tight-lipped as to what these things will be but Heaton is very enthusiastic. "It fits in nicely for me. I'm really excited to be working with Jacquie again, we even got the producer who did London 0 Hull 4 to produce the new album."

What Have We Become will still be a political album. It can't be written by Heaton and be anything else, even if on first appearances it will see him and Abbot seemingly skirting around polemics of ageing while falling in and out of love.

But appearances can be deceptive. "My ex-partner told me recently that people who complain about the things I say on Facebook, like my rant about the police killing Mark Duggan, would be shocked if they saw or heard everything I have to say when I'm sitting in front of the television," he explains.

"The police murdered Mark Duggan and got away with it and sometimes people don't like to hear that. It was an injustice and I got up and said it. I do not like injustice, I do not like racism, I do not like corporate greed and I want to point these things out. And people need to start taking picket lines seriously, working people need to stop crossing picket lines when other working people are fighting to save their jobs."

Back in 1999, when the Beautiful South were one of Britain's biggest bands, they were due to play a gig at New York's Irving Plaza. On arrival at the venue they discovered the staff were on strike and were picketing the venue.

The band refused to cross the picket line and even stood with the strikers - much to the chagrin of the venue owners and no doubt their record company.

As we chat, the pub's lunch-time regulars file in and out, seemingly oblivious of their pop-star host. Having never really been part of anyone's gang and having spectacularly avoided over-troubling tabloid gossip pages for nearly 30 years, I am reminded that Heaton once declared he was actually less famous than people thought he was. Or was it the other way around?

Either way, Paul Heaton has always put his money where his mouth is.

nWhat Have We Become is available from May 12 and tickets for the tour are available now at www.gigsandtours.com.