VENICE: Rock legend Mick Jagger attacked US President Donald Trump for his rudeness and lies on Saturday and for “tearing apart” environment controls when America should be setting the standard for the world.

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 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 girls 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.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2019