All musicians start out with ideals but hanging on to them in the face of media scrutiny takes real integrity. Tougher still is to live up to the ideals of your dedicated fans.

All the great political music was made at the height of political confrontations.

My theory is this; I'm not a political songwriter. I'm an honest songwriter.

Going for constant growth is not actually delivering a decent standard of living and the prospect of your children having a better life than you do. That is the key thing that politics needs to deliver: a better life for your children. That's why people are taking their lives in their hands and crossing the Mediterranean and the English Channel.

I'm just saying that we need to find a better way to manifest the broader society's aspirations, politically. The key to it has to be some sort of proportional representation, which allows there to be more parties.

There are quite a few honest songwriters out there writing about relationships and their own personality traits. But for some reason, once they step out of the bedroom, their honesty doesn't seem to come with them.

If you can't see that the glass is half full, you can never be a socialist. You have to believe in the goodness of the majority of people to be a socialist. You have to believe that if the majority of people had their way, they would make a society that would be fair for everyone. If you don't believe that, and if you think that the glass is always half empty, then you're never going to have that sensibility.