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.

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

Were it not for the Clash, punk would have been just a sneer, a safety pin and a pair of bondage trousers.

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.

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.

I came into this whole business by going to see Rock Against Racism gigs with the Clash.

If you thought the army was here protecting people like yourself, I've some news for you, we're here to defend wealth.