Mick Jagger sends messages to Trump, Boris Johnson

Mick Jagger: blasts Trump, Boris Johnson
Mick Jagger: blasts Trump, Boris Johnson

Rock legend Mick Jagger has sent separate messages to US President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Jagger, who rarely dabbles into politics, attacked Trump for his rudeness, lies and for “tearing apart” environment controls in America. He also attacked Johnson for incivility.

The Rolling Stones singer said he was “absolutely behind” young climate change activists who had earlier occupied the red carpet at the Venice film festival, where he was starring in the psychological thriller, The Burnt Orange Heresy.

Jagger, reported by news.com.au said he deplored how politics has descended into name-calling, “including in my own country this week” – a reference to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson comparing opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn to a “big girl’s blouse” and a “chlorinated chicken”.

The icon, now 76, bewailed “the polarisation and incivility in public life”, although the one-time bad boy of 1960s rock admitted he was “not always for civility” himself.

“But when you see it now … in so many countries, including my own this last week, but particularly the US, it’s a sea change.

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“It is not about manners,” Jagger insisted, saying he was fearful about “where all this polarisation and rudeness and lying is going to lead us.” But more worrying still, said the singer, was that what little environmental safeguards there were being swept away across the globe.

“We are in a very difficult situation at the moment, especially in the US, where all the environmental controls that were put in place – that were just about adequate – have been rolled back by the current administration so much that they are being wiped out,” he added.

Jagger, who rarely comments on politics, said “the US should be the world leader in environmental control but now it has decided to go the other way.

“I am so glad that people feel so strongly about that that they want to protest,” he said, referring to young activists from Greta Thunberg’s Friday for Future movement who sprayed “Listen to your children” and “Make the red carpet green” on the festival’s red carpet.

His co-star Donald Sutherland echoed his call to protest, and urged people to take to the streets and vote out Mr Trump, Mr Johnson and Brazil’s far-right leader Jair Balsonaro.

“Mick is right, the controls (in the US) under Obama were barely adequate – now they are being torn apart. It’s the same in Brazil and they will be torn apart in England after Brexit,” he warned.

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