Billy Bragg released his first album, Life's a Riot, almost twenty-five years ago. Dubbed �Britain�s finest rock poet� by the NME, he has collaborated with Johnny Marr, Natalie Merchant, REM and the late lamented Kirsty MacColl. But almost as much as for his music, Billy is known for his humanitarian commitments � politicised by Margaret Thatcher, he supported the Miners� Strike of 1984/85 and formed Red Wedge, an alliance of left-leaning musicians, in support of Neil Kinnock�s Labour party in 1987. More recently, in collaboration with US band Wilco, he brought some of Woody Guthrie�s unpublished lyrics to life in the Mermaid Avenue albums, released to worldwide acclaim and included in Rolling Stone�s most influential albums of the 1990s. Live, the Bard of Barking is a captivating performer. Greenbelt 2003 saw him sharing a mainstage billing with The London Community Gospel Choir, Aqualung and The Polyphonic Spree (the latter including � did you spot him? � Billy in full choir robes at the back) � a defining moment in the Festival�s self-understanding and history. The thousands who joined him singing Jerusalem (the hairs on the backs of their necks standing as straight as the crowd) will treasure the gig, the moment, for many gigs and moments to come. So it is a great pleasure to welcome him back so soon. And in the time since Greenbelt last welcomed him, Billy�s been a busy boy, writing his first book, the part-autobiographical, part-polemical Progressive Patriot, which examines questions of identity and belonging in a country whose own citizens - variously - take bombs into tube trains and elect the BNP to seats in Barking. Its publication coincided with the release of Billy Bragg Volume 2, a box set containing four Bragg studio albums, rare tracks and a live concert DVD. One of the re-issued albums, England, Half English, deals in musical and lyrical form with some of the issues Billy tackles in The Progressive Patriot. Greenbelt is proud to call him a friend of the festival.