Re:How to analyse Morrissey's political position
Also I'd like to quote our marvel Worm's great analysis:
Well, in trying to work out this question you have to concede, from the beginning, that Morrissey is really closer to apolitical. Most of his viewpoints about society are motivated purely by his emotions and little else. He's against cruelty to animals so he's against systems of exploitation and those in the government who support them, for example, but I don't find his musings on the English and American governments to be well informed or political as such. His comments seem more like kneejerk reactions based on his great sensitivity to suffering and oppression. Mind you, I'm not saying this invalidates his opinion, just that it is not "political" in the sense that most people think of the term.
Having said that, I believe that if Morrissey could choose his ideal form of government it would be something like libertarianism-- but I also think he would be fine in other forms of government. In fact, if society were properly ordered, I think he probably wouldn't even mind living under a monarchy. This is because he is a cultural conservative. Vicious attacks on modern culture can come from the right as often as they do from the left, and such attacks, when not of the usual, obvious, stereotypical character-- that is, patriarchal, Judeo-Christian, Western etc-- are often assumed to be left-leaning by default. But often they come from essentially right-leaning perspectives that bear some of the earmarks of leftist positions, such that it is assumed Morrissey would be for socialism and other left causes.
In fact, I think Morrissey's primary concern is culture, and any society which did not oppress its citizens and allowed and rewarded the absolutely free expression of its artists is to be preferred over all others, no matter what form it takes. In a negative sense, Morrissey's dislike of society comes from its cruelty and oppression. But in a positive sense, Morrissey is attracted to-- well, what's the word he most often associates with things and people he likes? They're "interesting". And "interesting" is pretty broadly defined and open-ended. If the queen were glamorous, free-thinking, and tasteful enough to be "interesting" I don't think he'd mind the monarchy one bit.
When you couple this with his evident love of the past, whether post-war Manchester or fin-de-seicle London or whatever, I think it's clear that he looks backward with fondness at an idealized past and yet, at the same time, recognizes the limitations of that past. In a funny way, he wants both the Elizabeth Smarts of the world and universal emancipation for women. You can't have both. "Emma Bovary hit by lightning" (as Angela Carter called the woman in "By Grand Central Station I Sat Down And Wept") doesn't exist in a perfectly equal, truly enlightened society. This is why his position is difficult and complicated, but in the end, in my opinion, if he could have the Manchester of his perfect, idealized past, but one in which women were equal to men and both could create their own sexual identiity, he'd take it, regardless of who was in power or what system was in place.
Most of his other opinions are similarly divided. On the subject of sexuality, for instance, he's mostly been rather conservative insofar as people's relations with each other. He sees a sort of cheapness prevalent in people's crude understanding of sex. But he also wants full freedom to experiment. On the subject of race, he is not a racist and wants everyone in the world to be treated fairly. But he also identifies with nationalism. This is why any attempt to paint him as a gay martyr or sneering racist are fundamentally wrong, yet not so easy to refute when people bring up the strong gay content in the imagery or some of the ambiguous lyrics like "Bengali In Platforms". They're wrong, but the case isn't open and shut.
I'm not arguing that it's as simple as saying "Morrissey is a right-winger". I'm arguing that Morrissey is a cultural conservative of a special kind, an artist, and his opinions pretty much conform to the type that goes back centuries. And before anyone brings up "The Soul of Man Under Socialism", they ought to consider that that essay, above all others, validates what I am saying. Wilde's conception of a socialist Utopia privileges many culturally conservative artistic viewpoints without adopting any hardline Marxist positions. (If I'm not mistaken, the title alone would cause most serious Marxists to reject it.) People assume Wilde was socially radical but he was a decorated scholar of Classics from Trinity and Oxford who venerated society even as he assaulted it with his devastating epigrams. He was a proud Irishman who dropped his accent within days of arriving at Magdalen. This doesn't make him a hypocrite. It makes him complicated, just like Morrissey.
http://forums.morrissey-solo.com/showthread.php?t=65591&page=2#38 
