Manics star: 'I'm the Mandelson of rock'

Manic Street Preachers star Nicky Wire has joked that he has become the "Peter Mandleson of rock 'n' roll".

The bassist made the comparison with the politician after he recently commented that the band's new album Postcards From A Young Man is "one last attempt at mass communication".

Wire told XFM: "It's one of my best quotes. I've become the Peter Mandleson of rock 'n' roll!

"But it did feel like that. These are tough times for guitar bands. We're on our tenth album, a lot of bands get to their tenth album and they don't really mean anything, I think luckily enough, we're still pretty relevant."

He added: "We put everything we can into this. We treated it like [our debut album] Generation Terrrorists, something that can be generally uplfiting and maybe get their mind thinking as well."