Putney’s MP has demanded the Half Moon cancel a sold-out gig over the singer’s conviction for domestic violence.
Fleur Anderson has written to the CEO of the Youngs pub group, posting the letter publicly, after the music venue refused her earlier demand to cancel the concert by former Kasabian frontman Tom Meighan.
Meighan was convicted of assaulting his then-fiancée, now-wife Vikki Ager in July 2020, an attack captured on CCTV. He is set to play the Lower Richmond Road venue on 26 June. Every ticket is sold at £55.
Anderson has accused the Half Moon of “providing a platform to an individual with a conviction for domestic abuse” and demanded “careful consideration” of the gig.
Meighan was dropped as frontman for Kasabian after he was given an eighteen-month community order and served 200 hours of community service.
Ager did not support the prosecution and married Meighan in 2021. She has gone on to publicly defend him in the face of an ongoing campaign. “He apologises daily,” she told Cornwall Live. “A lot of people have arguments and ours got taken to an extreme level.” Meighan has publicly apologised for his actions, noting his alcohol addiction.
The two sides
The MP’s letter raises an important question: should a venue host someone convicted of domestic abuse, or does a completed sentence restore the right to work?
Does support for his solo work send the wrong message, or is it an example of cancel culture?
In 2023, when Meighan appeared at Sheffield’s Be Reyt Festival in 2023, seven acts pulled out in protest and domestic abuse charity IDAS said the booking “risked sending a message to music lovers that abuse is ‘not that bad’.”
In 2024, Mel B condemned his Brit Award nomination while Noel Gallagher booked him as a support act. Meighan has kept touring since 2022.
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If you are affected by anything in this article, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is available free, 24 hours a day, on 0808 2000 247.
My first question on this story is to ask whatever happened to Bob Villain (or whatever his name was) when he was shouting “death, death to the IDF” and encouraging the large audience to join in the chanting.
I have however also raised another issue with Fleur Anderson affecting the safety of vulnerable women, so I hope we will see some action on that one as well. Fleur Anderson accepted that there was indeed a threat to vulnerable (recently widowed) women when their rights to privacy were superseded by some ancient law requiring the Probate office to make Wills public. My question to her was “How would you feel if, having been recently widowed, details of your name, address and the value of the estate you had inherited, were made publicly available as soon as Probate had been granted? This is the current position so every woman should be asking how on earth their fundamental rights to privacy can be allowed to be overridden so blatantly, in this day and age when the “rights of women and girls” is such a hot topic.