Owen Hatherly points out another Robin Hood-referencing postpunk song: The Pop Group's "Rob A Bank", last tune on For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder, a cover of the Robin Hood TV series theme, he says.

In Green's case, what Robin Hood represents is obviously connected to the lines that come after the ones I quoted from "Robin Hood", ie.

"a flag of blood and lipstick
will be unfurled"

Talking of "stealing from the rich and giving to the poor", it's a jolt to remember that I was actually alive during a period when the Labour government taxed the higher income brackets at 93 percent .

Was it Harold Wilson or Dennis Healey who promised to make the rich squeal with pain during one election campaign? And Labour got elected on that platform! Not even progressive taxation, this was punitive taxation. Class war taxation.

Come the late 1980s though and even Stephen "Margaret on the Guillotine, I would carry out the execution myself" Morrissey was complaining about how much of his income he was having to give to the state.