01/03/2018 Newsnight

The icy fang and churlish chiding

of the winter's wind...

Shakespeare made it sound exciting,

but for the millions affected

it's anything but.

Add to that fears over

the energy supply -

are we coping as well as we should?

There's plenty of gas in the world,

there's plenty of import

infrastructure, so it's not really

a shortage of gas overall.

But what we saw today is our ability

to handle short-term spikes

in demand is not great.

Also tonight:

Has Putin launched a new arms race?

We'll be speaking a former

US Ambassador to Nato.

The Italians head to

the polls on Sunday,

after a campaign dominated

by anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Is this new, or are old tensions

bubbling to the surface?

And...

Charting all his failures.

Suede front man Brett Anderson

on the time before he was famous.

A lot of the experience

of being in Suede in the early days

was kind of like failure

after failure, struggle

after struggle, and it seemed to be

the word that sort of summed

it all up.

Good evening.

The military was called in to help

emergency services today,

as the country remains frozen

by a blast of extreme weather

of a scale and severity few can

remember experiencing before.

Tonight, Storm Emma is preparing

to do her worst, with snow

threatened to up to 50 centimetres

in parts of the UK.

A red weather warning for snow

is in force for south

West England and South Wales

until tomorrow at least.

The day has brought very sad

fatalities, but also births

in extraordinary circumstances.

There was also a warning

from the National Grid

that there may not be enough gas

to meet demand.

We'll be investigating the impact

of that on industry and domestic

users and whether such a shortage

could have been avoided,

but first, it was a day of drama.

These are the temperatures

that you may well see

on your thermometer,

but if you step out in the wind,

it is really going to feel cold.

-13 in Birmingham.

That is not to be sneezed at.

I've just been speaking

to Chris Evans, he says his hair

froze in the few minutes it took him

to go outside and then come back in.

We've got amber weather warnings

into South Wales and the south-west,

but we have a red, top tier,

that means take action,

the weather could turn really

quite disruptive as we go

through the evening.

A lot of snow piling up,

some spots seeing 15-20 centimetres,

maybe 40 or 50 over

the higher ground here.

Some of that snow then fringing

into parts of Northern Ireland.

As we go through the night,

we keep the snow showers

across northern and eastern

Scotland.

Well, police across the country have

been urging people not to travel

unless they have to,

and hundreds of drivers

remain stranded tonight.

Among them is Jo Deahl,

a BBC employee who has been stuck

on the A62 near Diggle

in Greater Manchester for five hours

with partner Chris and their brand

new 8-week-old puppy, Maggie.

Good evening to you. First of all,

why did you venture out?

Well, we're

asking ourselves the same question

now. We came from Chesterfield and

we checked the weather, checked the

roads and there were problems on the

M62. Build road we are now, the A62

looks fine and it was fine until we

got to Diggle. We got to Abendanon

Road and we stopped. We haven't

moved since. We've seen about 20

tractors, 20 ploughs, some pulling

articulated lorries back up the hill

but nothing going westward, towards

Manchester. The first people we've

seen in about five hours, the

mountain rescue people, said the

council have closed the road and

they are advising us to leave. We

said, where shall we go?

Out of the

car?

He is saying leave the car and

he said we have just been told there

is nothing happening here tonight.

We literally had that in the last

couple of minutes.

So what is your

plan? Presumably you have a lot of

stuff with you, are you prepared to

bivouac somewhere? What are you

going to do?

We don't know, we have

only just heard. We are quite

prepared because even though the

roads looked OK, we got some

blankets, food and water, because

the weather wasn't great. I don't

know. We have a massive tractor in

front of us right now. I think they

may maybe putting somebody from

another carp into it. The winds,

it's like Armageddon, the wind must

be 60 miles an hour. I got out of

the car and could barely stand up.

We don't know right now. I think we

are going to bed down here, we're

not getting out of the car.

Watch

that puppy, as well. Thank you very

much indeed.

Now, early this morning

the National Grid issued its first

gas deficit warning for eight years

and has said it will remain

in place overnight.

It's not as if our gas boilers

will suddenly go out,

but rather the shortfall

of about 30 million cubic metres

could effect industrial users.

It's the first major test

of Britain's gas market

since the closure of Rough,

the UK's biggest natural

gas storage facility.

So why is there a shortfall?

Here's our Business

Editor Helen Thomas.

The 1990s, the North Sea's heyday.

Having a hefty deposit

of hydrocarbons on our doorstep

had its advantages, but since then,

UK gas production

has roughly halved.

As recently as 2003,

the UK was a net exporter of gas,

which meant that availability,

even on days like this,

just wasn't really an issue.

Now we're more reliant

on supplies from overseas,

which means that unusually cold

weather or unexpected disruptions

to supplies risks leaving us short.

About 43% of the UK's gas now comes

from domestic production.

44% arrives through pipelines

from Europe, with Norway

as the single largest source,

and 13% comes on tankers in the form

of liquefied natural gas.

Technical problems at Norwegian

fields and at LNG facilities

contributed to today's squeeze.

But National Grid's warning didn't

ever mean UK homes would go cold,

it was a call to the market to plug

a forecast shortfall.

And it worked.

What we've seen is a spike

in prices, which is expected.

That tells people

there is a scarcity.

The flip side, we've seen more

gas come onto the grid,

so we've seen increased

flows from Europe.

We've also seen some reduction

in demand from the system.

What we've got to, the point we've

got to now is actually National Grid

have managed to balance the system.

So that shortness

of gas has gone away.

So that's the system working?

That's the system

working as it should do.

National Grid didn't have to take

further emergency measures,

like buying in the market or taking

official steps to reduce demand.

But this crunch comes

after the closure of the UK's

largest gas storage facility,

Rough, last year.

Less storage means reduced ability

to respond to unexpected events,

and that, says this analyst,

is a problem that needs fixing.

There's plenty of gas in the world,

there's plenty of import

infrastructure, so it's not really

a shortage of gas overall.

But what we saw today is our ability

to handle short-term spikes

in demand is not great.

I think the government

should incentivise storage

operators to stay open.

They could give them

a regulated return.

And if they need to invest further,

then incentivise that.

I think it's a very small price

to pay for security of supply.

Seasonal storage isn't commercial

in part thanks to the UK's

International energy market.

Pipeline supplies on tap,

squeezed the gap between summer

and winter prices, which is how

facilities made their money.

Spending more on the emergency

storage is for some,

the wrong solution.

The best way to make the UK more

secure is to reduce our dependency

on natural gas, not just imported,

but in general.

And the way to do that is to

reduce the demand for it.

Most gas that we have in the UK

is consumed in the residential

sector but we have some of the worst

housing stock in Europe

for energy efficiency,

for insulation, windows,

these sorts of things.

So if the Government improves

the housing stock in the country

then we would reduce our dependence

on gas and these kind of events

would become less likely.

Heading climate change targets

will mean a move away from fossil

fuels and the Beast from the East

brought wind as well and snow.

Wind has provided a big chunk of UK

power in recent days

but then so has coal.

A few days of snow,

the inevitable travel chaos,

but it means longer-term questions

about the state of

the UK energy market.

Helen Thomas.

We asked the Department

of Energy for an interview

but nobody was available.

I'm joined though by

Dr Thierry Bros, a senior research

fellow of the Oxford Institute

for Energy Studies.

He was formerly in charge

of security of supply for oil

and gas for the French government.

Also with me is Dr Laura Cohen.

She is chief executive

of the British Ceramic Confederation

and is one of the members of a gas

security lobbying group that wrote

last year to Secretary

of State Greg Clark to demand

an inquiry into gas security.

Good evening to you both. Thierry

Bros, looking at Helen's report, why

have we left ourselves open to

shortages like this?

As you saw from

the report you are not open to

shortages, on average it is OK. The

problem is the balancing of the

supply and demand on the very short

level. Here you are in an absolutely

new situation. You are an importer

and you have no or very little

storage following the Rough closure,

so you find yourself a bit like the

other European countries,

continental European countries, back

in the last decade. The question is

do you need to change the regulation

or are you still going with the

deregulation, which means you will

get some volatility to cover those

supply and demand imbalances.

We

could have gained this volatility,

we left ourselves open to this

because we don't have the spare

capacity?

That is always the case.

Laura, that is the case, you trade

cheaper gas that this uncertainty?

Any economy needs security and lack

of price volatility. Our members, up

to a third of their production cost

can be energy, so this is really

potentially hurting them, this price

spike that they had seen today hurt

them very badly indeed. They have to

be able to compete internationally,

but also there is the physical risk

of disconnection. That hasn't

happened yet, but if you crash

called a brick kiln 100 metres long

that 1000 Celsius that usually takes

weeks to call down and you are told

to cut your gas off in four hours,

that can only cause damage.

Industry

isn't going to be told to cut gas

off, are they?

Yes stop Europe

remember, there are two levels. One

is that people like you and me. We

are safe. There is no risk, retail

consumers are. Yes, big industries,

and this is the type of warning we

got this morning and tonight, if

there is not enough gas...

There's

no chance for you to reduce

consumption, you just have to do

crash killed your kiln?

Yes, you

try, if you are given enough

warning, but we won't be.

You make

bricks for the houses people need?

Exactly. We need an urgent inquiry

into gas security, both the physical

security and the price volatility.

What does the government said

question might you are ahead of that

federation, what does the government

say to you?

The government isn't

offering us that. We need government

to look at a minimum level of gas

storage, and they need to look at

options to underpin this, using

regulatory means.

Do you think the

government gets the idea that if

your members have two crash kill

kilns in different areas of the

industry, then productivity goes

down on the impact will be quite

severe?

I'm not sure they really get

it. Some businesses can shut down

when there are enormous price

spikes, many can't. It is not just

run X, our reliance includes the

British Chamber of Commerce, the

major energy users Council, other

manufacturers as well, and trade

unions. They are concerned about

jobs and businesses and investment.

What you do, reopen a storage

facility? When you see this has

actually happened now, is it time to

build supply again or is this drive

to get away from gas going to mean

there will be much more investment

in wind energy and other forms of

energy?

Two things, I think your

video was important. In the last ten

years we have seen a reduction of

gas demand in Europe and the UK, so

we find. We have seen since 2014 and

increasing gas demand in the UK and

you are absolutely right, as we saw

in the video, the increase was

linked to the coal to gas switching.

So you are getting greener, we are

getting greener, but we are getting

more reliant on gas and we have less

storage. The thing is Europe is low

in storage, so perhaps there is...

Maybe Europe is the answer.

Could be

the answer.

Thank you very much

indeed.

We reported last night

on the strange case of the Russian

presidential opposition candidate

who might not be all she seems,

but today there was nothing

equivocal about Vladamir Putin's

announcement that he has a new array

of invincible nuclear weapons.

Making his bid for a fourth

Presidential term, he told Russian

MPs that he had a Cruise missile

that could reach

anywhere in the world.

He added that the West needs to take

account of a new reality

and understand that this

is not a bluff.

The US State Department this evening

responded by accusing Moscow

of violating its obligations

under nuclear treaties.

So what is Putin up to - and could

this start a new arms race?

Nicholas Burns was US ambassador

to Nato under President George Bush

and joins me now from Harvard.

Good evening, thanks for joining us.

Do you believe Vladimir Putin has

got what he says he's got?

You know,

it's uncertain. This could be a

bluff, it's not been ascertained

whether or not this new nuclear

cruise missile actually exists, but

he may have. I don't think it

changes much in the world of defence

because the United States, the UK,

France still have a nuclear

deterrent. Putin is an experienced

leader, he knows that any use of

nuclear weapons by Russia would be

met with full force by the West. My

one wants a nuclear conflict, that

would be madness so I think this is

for domestic consumption. He's

running for president, that may

explain the speech.

But he's not

daft, he knows that his chances of

losing the president, pigs might

fly.

Quite small.

So why is he is

sabre rattling now? Do you think the

position over the conflict in Syria

changes things, the more aggressive

attitude?

I think two reasons, he is

appealing to Russian nationalism. He

did so after his occupation of

commie two years ago. He wants to

convince the Russian people that

Russia is a great superpower -- his

occupation of Crimea. He is still

looking for a big turnout of Russian

voters. In terms of Russian foreign

policy, in the final part of his

speech, Putin complained that the

West has not been listening to them

and that they had better listen now.

His words. I think Putin has long

complained that Russia is treated by

Europe and the United States as a

backwater, that China is given pride

of place and he wants the West to

understand that Russia continues to

be a powerful country. But what a

crude message, what a cynical and

bitter message from a world leader,

disappointing to hear his beach,

certainly.

Is he baiting Trump?

He

may well be doing that. I think the

Russians are also disappointed in

President Trump. I think they felt

when he came to office that there

would be warmer relations between

Moscow and Washington. Trump had

that in tension but now we've had

this very long investigation by the

former FBI director of possible

collusion by the Trump campaign with

the Russian government and it has

made it politically impossible for

Trump to warm up relations. As an

American citizens I must say that we

know that the Russians interfered in

a massive way in the 2016 election,

the people in Congress don't want

business as usual which has

constrained President Trump.

Is he

potentially breaking the

international nuclear laws?

Well, I

think that is the concern here.

There is a concern in Europe and the

US and Canada that Putin may be

violating the 1987 intermediate

forces nuclear treaty. The Russians

have been testing new weapons, as he

said this morning and showed on the

big screen this morning in Moscow

and they may well be in violation of

the agreement is that they signed in

decades past. That's a serious

charge. This is going to require a

concerted and unified response by

Nato, the European countries and the

US and Canada. I'm sure you'll see

that. It's very serious. I don't

think it brings us closer to war

with Russia because the Russians

understand that the West is still

very powerful. Putin is a brutal

leader but he is rational and I

don't think he'll test our defences.

Thank you for joining us.

Theresa May today gave

the European Council President

Donald Tusk the heads up

that the European Commission's draft

legal text was "unacceptable

to Britain," just in case

he was in any doubt.

She was meeting him at Number Ten,

ahead of her big speech tomorrow

at Mansion House billed as laying

out the "ambitious economic

partnership" she wants with the EU.

Is this FINALLY Theresa May's

opportunity for the vision thing?

The moment when Brexit means Brexit

is finally explained?

I'm joined by our political

editor Nick Watt.

What are you hearing?

Theresa May is

going to set out five tests that

must be met for the negotiations to

be declared successful. Let's have a

look. In the first place, the result

of the referenda must be respected,

the UK taken control of its laws,

borders and money. In the second

test, any agreement reached with the

EU must endure. We don't want to be

back at the negotiating table. The

third test, the agreement must

protect people's jobs and security.

In the fourth test it must

protect people's jobs and security.

In the fourth test it must show that

the UK is a modern democracy.

Interestingly the fifth test says

that the union, the UK must come

together and

that the union, the UK must come

together and that's interesting

because a year ago the Prime

Minister was saying that the country

was uniting behind Brexit and now

she seems to be acknowledging

divisions.

It doesn't sound very

pokey, it is a bit woolly.

The Prime

Minister is keeping some things up

her sleeve, I think we will see the

fruits of Cabinet discussions on how

we will define the UK's economic

relationship with the EU when we are

out of the European Union. We can

look now at what Theresa May wants

to do. She wants to break the

relationship into

to do. She wants to break the

relationship into three baskets.

Number one, the UK would be fully

aligned with EU rules in some areas

for example cars. In the second

basket, you'd have the same goals,

but different rules, things like

environmental standards. In the

third basket, different goals and

different rules, we'd be on our own.

third basket, different goals and

different rules, we'd be on our own.

Things like the insurance market.

I'm told there was quite a pointed

discussion in Cabinet this morning

about the first basket. There was

evidently intent for the UK to make

a binding declaration that it would

fully aligned in those areas. Some

Brexit Cabinet ministers said that

they don't like the language, too

strong and they hope the Prime

Minister won't use that language

tomorrow.

We'll see, but what is the

Brussels we action?

Michel Barnier

was pretty tough, saying the UK is

closing doors and going in the

direction of a free-trade agreement.

But I spoke to somebody who knows

the mind of Theresa May and this

person said that Brussels is

engaging in classic negotiating

posturing. This person told me they

believe that Theresa May absolutely

wants to get a deal and what we'll

be hearing is tough language

tomorrow but eventually a

compromise, if that is what it

takes.

Thank you for joining us.

Coming up, the front man from

Suede's new memoir.

I get the sense you don't really

like the association with Britpop?

I didn't like what it became.

I was writing, I was documenting

Britishness, Englishness,

whatever you want to call it

and I think those other bands that

came later were celebrating it.

I think that's the difference.

I documented it because it was part

of the world I saw around me.

I wanted to document real life.

The Italians go to the polls

on Sunday for the first general

election in five years.

Silvio Berlusconi is back.

And he's got some

new political allies -

parties on his right,

even the far right.

Discontent over migration

and persistent economic problems

are high on the agenda.

But with as many as 40%

of the electorate undecided there's

everything to play for.

Here's our diplomatic

Editor Mark Urban

Milan's Manzoni Theatre.

Where better for Italy's old stager

and ultimate political player

to work an ecstatic crowd?

Berlusconi may be banned

from holding office, but he's back,

thrilling supporters and proving

wrong those who confined him

to political oblivion.

Up in one of the boxes,

Laura Capella.

She's driven an hour

to see her idol in action

and she wasn't disappointed.

You may think of Berlusconi as right

wing but sharing the playbill

are people like Attilio Fontana

and his party the Lega Nord

or Northern League.

Such is the trend of Italian

politics that Berlusconi now sits

on the left of a right-wing bloc

with Lega and another

far right party.

The new allies almost competing

in attacks on immigrants that have

dominated the campaign.

There is talk in this campaign

about sending back hundreds

of thousands of immigrants.

Is that really

a practical proposition?

Lega has a long history

of racist politics.

One MP even blacking up

in parliament, saying he'd get

more attention that way.

It's often attacked Cecile Kyenge,

the country's first black minister.

A member of the ruling

Democrats who look set

to suffer in these elections,

she thinks Berlusconi has allied

himself with hate-mongers.

I'm a victim of the campaign

from these political parties.

Lega Nord had a political party,

Lega e Fratelli d'Italia.

They are investing

in fear of people.

I think that today our country must

take measures and sanctions

to all political leaders

and political parties

who invest in racism.

Across Milan there are plenty of

reminders of Italy's fascist years.

The architecture, like the politics,

eschews complexity,

instead clean,

straight, easily understood lines.

Then it was about Italian greatness.

Now it's about pledges by Berlusconi

and his Lega partners to deport

hundreds of thousands of immigrants.

Today, as in the 20s,

the right is using the language

of authoritarian populism.

Back then, Mussolini's targets

were other countries,

those that would deny

Italy its new age of greatness.

Today, the scapegoat is internal.

Immigrants.

And indeed the immigration question

has come to dominate

this election campaign.

In Sesto San Giovanni, near Milan,

they've recently elected a mayor

from Berlusconi's Forza party.

It marked the end of 72 years of

socialist control of the town hall.

In a few weeks the new mayor has

thrown out 208 illegal

immigrants, served many

with deportation orders and laid

plans to stop them coming back.

Sesto's story has many echoes

of Europe and indeed America.

Its heavy industries have been hit

by closures and the local economy

sank into the doldrums.

Alessandra Aiosa's family

used to have five shops.

Now it's down to one.

She approves of the

new mayor's policies.

Back in Milan, the patron

of the Asmara an Eritrea restaurant,

has been in Italy for 46 years.

He is a citizen.

In theory he has nothing

to fear but he's noticed

a change in the climate.

Exchanges like one with a lawyer

seeking a permit on his behalf belie

an underlying racism.

And do you feel that the situation's

worsened because so many people came

on the boats from Libya,

is that what's changed the climate,

or is there something else

going on, do you think?

What we have in this Italian

election is another chapter

in the industrial decline

of the West, and the faltering

with it of social democracy.

In its place, the rise of

nationalism and nativist sentiment.

For the moment, here, it targets

immigrants and immigration,

but one could just as easily see it

move on to attack the EU

and its institutions.

As the ground shifts, Lega,

who brought thousands of supporters

to Milan's piazza Duomo,

could, if the polls are right, be

on the verge of entering government.

Its leader Matteo Salvini has found

immigration touches deeper chords

than Lega's Eurosceptic messages,

though it also blames the EU

for creating the migration crisis

and leaving Italy to deal with it.

The interests of Europe, not Italy.

Having marketed itself

as a centre-right coalition,

Italy's far right, enabled

by its pact with Berlusconi,

may soon return to power.

How are you different

from the fascists of the 1920s?

Italy's election will be

decided on Sunday's vote,

but if these people get their way,

it could soon have a government

committed to deporting hundreds

of thousands of immigrants.

The band Suede are synonymous

with the birth of a musical

and cultural phenomenon,

Britpop, something Suede's lead

singer Brett Anderson is keen

to distance himself from.

And while other musicians often

chart the glory years, what Anderson

calls, coke and gold disc memoirs,

his own memoir Coal Black Morning

which was published today,

concentrates on his beginnings,

his rackety, impoverished childhood

with his mismatched parents,

his beautiful beloved art school

mother and the mercurial taxi driver

father who wandered the house

dressed as Lawrence of Arabia

playing the music of Franz Lizst.

I started off being a guitar

player and wanting to be

the quiet one at the back,

sort of thing, and I just wasn't

really good enough to be

the quiet one at the back.

The only other option left to me

was to be the singer.

Suede's eponymous first album

went straight to the top

of the charts in 1992 and won

the Mercury music prize.

For the band, which had

included Justine Frischmann,

who was also his partner

until they split and she left

to form Elastica, had taken

a while to get going,

and in his memoir,

Brett Anderson concentrates

on his own early failures.

Influenced by the Smiths

and compared to Bowie,

who was a fan of Suede,

the band became more experimental

than their Britpop pack and 25 years

on from their debut,

are about to release a new record.

It was time for a bit of reflection.

I just fancied writing something,

it was just one of those things.

I didn't have a deal or anything,

I wrote it for my son

and that's kind of where did genesis

of the book comes from.

We were dirt poor, existing

in penury in a cheap council house,

but my parents filled it

with trappings more akin

to the lives of upper-class

Hampstead intellectuals.

Mum's paintings were everywhere.

She'd decorated the whole place

with strong colours, midnight blues,

William Morris wallpapers

and her own rich velvet home-made

curtains in the windows,

and everywhere of course

was the deafening torrent

of my father's classical music.

He used to see music as this

sort of like charged

battle ground of opinion,

and for her music was just something

nice that you listened to.

She was much more visual,

she was an artist.

She spent most of her time painting,

and when she wasn't painting,

she'd be mending things and fixing

things and making things.

So it was a very creative

sort of environment.

The only way we could possess

things was by making them.

You grew up knowing

that there was no money?

I'm not sure.

I think later I became aware

of that, but when you're very young,

you don't really have that

sense of perspective.

Apart from a cheap electric oven,

we have no mod cons,

so my mother washed and dried

all of our clothes by hand,

something that seems unbelievable

to my pampered 21st-century self.

There was no central

heating in the house,

just a small fireplace in the lounge

and a little paraffin

heater in the kitchen.

The coal black mornings were brutal

and the ritual of lighting

and maintaining the fire assumed

a religious status.

You've chosen not to

put photographs in.

I feel I have an image of your

parents fairly clearly in my head,

but why did you decide not

to put photographs in?

It was a very conscious decision.

I wanted to make the writing

as descriptive as I can,

so that hopefully you don't really

need the photographs.

I just wanted to give the book

a kind of tone, I suppose.

You deliberately said that

you didn't want to do

a coke and discs memoir,

you wanted to do a memoir of,

you call it failure,

why do you call it failure?

Erm, well, that was the tone that

I thought, that was the sort of word

that I thought kind of summed up

a lot of my upbringing,

and my parents' situation

in the world, and also a lot

of the experience of being in Suede

in the early days was kind

of like failure after failure,

struggle after struggle.

It seemed to be the word that sort

of summed it all up.

That's why I ended up

finishing at the point that

I finished the book,

because I finished it where we got

signed and I thought

that was a very symbolic moment.

Enter Suede, who've been hailed

by the rock press as the best

new band in Britain.

Tonight, they make their first

television appearance.

There is a part in the book

where you're with Justine Frischmann

and your mother dies.

It was a huge, incredibly

influential period of my life,

where I met Justine and that opened

up so many vistas in my life.

You know, a year or so later,

my mum dies and these incredible

kind of clashing emotions

happening in me.

I think without those two events,

I think I probably wouldn't have had

this sort of sense of carpe diem

that I needed, in order

to make the band happen.

You then wrote a song

for your mother.

# See you, in your next life #.

The interesting thing about that

song The Next Life is when I wrote

it, I didn't really realise

what it was about, and it wasn't

till later that I kind of was able

to assess it and realised

that it was about that event.

# Far away...

# So far away #.

You talk in the book that actually

Justine Frischmann leaving the band,

in a sense, was the making of it?

Before Justine left,

she was kind of not really happy

with where we were going.

I think she wanted,

she had a different vision

for what she'd like Suede to be.

And I think that kind

of confused things.

She went on to do, to realise that

vision with Elastica, I think,

which was fantastic.

But I think that allowed us to do

what we ended up doing

with the songs on Dogma

and the more grandiose stuff.

I get the sense you don't really

like the association

with Britpop now?

I don't like what it became.

I was writing, I was documenting

Britishness, Englishness,

whatever you want to call it,

and I think those of other bands

that came later were celebrating it,

and I think that's the difference.

I documented it because it was part

of the world I saw around me

and I wanted to document real life.

It was almost like a slightly

scruffy, Mike Leigh kind of vision

of the world that I saw around me,

and I think it became a...

It mutated from a Mike Leigh film

into a Carry On film.

It was a period of creativity.

Do you think there's been a period

of creativity since like it?

I think it was the last big movement

in alternative music.

And it had value in that sense.

I think its rejection of American

cultural imperialism

was a really powerful statement.

And possibly the best

thing about it.

And the fact that it

moved alternative music

into the mainstream,

I think that was fantastic.

But finding worth out of it,

beyond those things

is quite difficult for me.

Brett Anderson, thank you very much.

Thank you.

That's all we have time for tonight.

But we leave you with a few tips

harvested from social media

on how to keep warm.

Goodnight.

MUSIC: Shelter From the Storm

- Bob Dylan