Garry Bushell (born 13 May 1955) is an English newspaper columnist, rock music journalist, television presenter, author, musician and political activist.

Two examples of their songs that include social commentary are "Dying for a Pint" (which comments on nightclub bouncer brutality) and "Jobs Not Jails" (a critique of the Margaret Thatcher government's policies).

[citation needed] Other Bushell musical projects have included the bands Prole, Orgasm Guerrillas, the Ska-Nads and Lord Waistrel & the Cosh Boys.

He also wrote for Temporary Hoarding, Rebel, and his own punk fanzine Napalm, and edited the North East London Polytechnic Student Union magazine NEPAM.

[4] From 1978 to 1985, he wrote for Sounds magazine, covering punk and other street-level music genres, such as 2 Tone, the new wave of British heavy metal and the mod revival.

was released, it was controversial because its title was a play on a Nazi slogan, "Strength Through Joy", and the cover featured Nicky Crane, a British Movement activist who was serving a four-year sentence for racist violence.

Garry Bushell, who was responsible for compiling the album, insists its title was a pun on The Skids' EP Strength Through Joy and that he had been unaware of the Nazi connotations.

His scathing reviews of the early punk incarnation of Adam and the Ants led to him being name-checked, along with veteran NME writer Nick Kent, in the band's song "Press Darlings", containing the line "If passion ends in fashion, Bushell is the best dressed man in town.

"[6] On the studio version, immediately after this line, lead singer Adam Ant can be heard muttering "You can say that again, the scruffy sod!

He has also co-written the autobiography of Cockney comic Jimmy Jones, Now This is a Very True Story, published in 2011 and a new expanded version of Dance Craze, about 2-Tone, which is subtitled 'Rude Boys on the Road'.

In August 2007, Bushell made a remark during a humorous exchange on the Talksport programme Football First implying that homosexuality was a perversion, leading the regulator Ofcom to find the segment in breach of standards for failing to justify offensive material by the context in which it was presented.

[citation needed] His humour angered some Sun executives, such as Rebekah Wade, but fans include Barbara Windsor, Dom Joly and Roy Hudd, who has called him "the Max Miller of the press.

[16] Responding to comments made by Bushell in the 25 November 1993 issue of The Sun ("Liberal permissiveness is eating the fabric of our society.

"), John Martin's book Seduction of the Gullible: The Truth Behind the Video Nasty Scandal says: "[w]hen Bushell isn't blustering about decency and Western values, he can be found gloating and cracking jokes in his column over such incidents as the death of several transvestites in a sex cinema fire.

In 1986, in his '"On the Soap Box" column, Bushell raged against the middle classes, who he claimed had ruined the Labour Party.

He has written articles supporting the Smithfield meat porters who were fighting to preserve their market, and in favour of the UDR Four, working class comedians and Page 3 girls.

Bushell got 1,216 votes (3.4% share) in the Greenwich and Woolwich constituency, finishing fifth out of seven in a race won by Nick Raynsford of the Labour Party.

The result represented the high point for the English Democrats in the election, and Bushell finished ahead of the UK Independence Party candidate in that constituency.

He considered running for Mayor of London against Ken Livingstone in 2008,[18][19] but he pulled out of the race in January 2008 and stood aside for Matt O'Connor.