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.

We've heard so much about the American dream: well, Trump is the American nightmare made flesh. All the things about 'the ugly American' that we worry about and which the Americans see in themselves, it's all of that. This is a politics of egotistical display.

If I can entertain people and get them to open up a little bit, then they're much more conducive to any ideas I might have, whether they're about relationships or politics. The most interesting songs, I think, are the ones where the two overlap.

By the time I was 19, punk had occurred. It had a completely different cultural dynamic to it which rejected everything and started again from the year zero.

So, in some ways, the political songs tend to be a bit more like reportage, whereas the love songs tend to be like novels, you can pick them up off the shelf and go into them any time.

Mixing pop and politics he asks me what the use is / I offer him embarrassment and my usual excuses.

If we accuse Trump of being a liar, he won't just say 'I never said that' or just ignore it and go on to the next thing.