Annie Lennox: Political leaders ‘need to show respect for each other’

Annie Lennox has some “Sweet Dreams” for the future of political discourse, saying candidates and lawmakers need to lose the “rage” and “show respect for each other.”

“This divide needs to calm down,” Lennox said when ITK caught up with the “No More ‘I Love You’s’” singer at a recent Library of Congress event in Washington.

“The issues are the issues, but if you have simply this separation and this rage — this rage that’s yelling, yelling all the time — this is not acceptable behavior from any politician whatsoever,” the Grammy Award winner said.

Politicians, Lennox said, “Need to show respect for each other. And they need to show a very good example because they are supposed to be the ones that have the knowledge and the power.”

“But I don’t I don’t buy that anymore,” added the performer, who was born in Scotland.

“We live in really difficult times and we need politicians to come up to the plate and answer to the great problem of the climate emergency, and it’s not happening. So I would love to see more of that,” Lennox, 68, said.

Lennox — who’s been critical of former President Trump — did express optimism since the last White House race. In an interview just weeks after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election against Trump, she had said there was “a sense of a potential for civil war, for vigilantism” in the country, adding that the political divide was “palpable.”

Asked if things he improved or gotten worse since then, Lennox told ITK, “Absolutely better.”

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m so grateful to have received the vaccine,” she said of getting shots against to protect against COVID-19. “ Don’t forget that this vaccine was rolled out and made accessible to someone like me — I’m 65 [at the time] — and it was a very frightening time.”

“I have no issues with having the vaccine. So from my perspective, that’s been absolutely great,” the politically active songwriter said.

“And we’re sitting very near the White House at the hotel where we’re staying, and the atmosphere is a good one, as far as I’m concerned,” she said, “much better than it might have been.”

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