James Blunt & UK Politician Re-Ignite Music Class War Debate

British singer-songwriter James Blunt usually airs his opinions in sarcastic, burn-type fashion on Twitter, but his latest 'beef' with a UK politician has got him so fired up, he's penned a full-blown letter.

Blunt took exception to an interview in which Chris Bryant, the new Shadow Culture Minister, mentioned the artist's name when talking about privileged performers dominating the arts world and the need for, as reported by The Guardian.

“I am delighted that Eddie Redmayne won [a Golden Globe for best actor], but we can’t just have a culture dominated by Eddie Redmayne and James Blunt and their ilk,” Bryant said in the initial piece, which is the comment Blunt appears to have taken great exception to.

The You're Beautiful hit-maker called the MP a "classist gimp" in his scathing letter addressed to Bryant, claiming his background, which included attending boarding school, had worked against him as opposed to assisting his career.

"Every step of the way, my background has been AGAINST me succeeding in the music business. And when I have managed to break through, I was STILL scoffed at for being too posh for the industry," Blunt wrote.

"And then you come along, looking for votes, telling working class people that posh people like me don’t deserve it, and that we must redress the balance. But it is your populist, envy-based, vote-hunting ideas which make our country crap, far more than me and my shit songs, and my plummy accent."

Blunt continued the tirade, calling Bryant a "prejudiced wazzock"  and signed the letter off with "Up yours, James Cucking Funt".

But the politician hasn't let Blunt have the last word, penning his own letter to the former army officer, telling him to "stop being so blooming precious" and clarifying he wanted everyone, privileged and less-privileged to take have the same opportunities within the arts.

"If you’d read the whole of my interview, you’d have seen that I make the point that the people who subsidise the arts the most are artists themselves. Of course that includes you. But it is a statement of the blindingly obvious that that is far tougher if you come from a poor family where you have to hand over your holiday earnings to help pay the family bills," Bryant said.

The current debate about class in music and the arts in the UK has been ongoing in British media over past 12 months or so, with one notable example coming recently from Noel Gallagher who brought up the issue of a lack of working class bands achieving success in the business.

Now if this is a little intense for you or has done your head in a bit, we recommend you just follow Blunt on Twitter for less heated musings like this: