The Null Device

Not long after Saint Bono started lauding the humanitarian credentials of George W. Bush and Pope Sidious Benedict XVI, his partner in virtue, the Rock'n'Roll Mother Teresa that is Bob Geldof is joining forces with the Conservative Party, to "help it shape its anti-poverty strategy". It'll be interesting to see what happens: whether:

1. Saint Bob will start singing the praises of neo-liberal free-trade policies as the answer to poverty,
2. the Tories will move towards supporting protectionism ("fair trade"), debt cancellation and aid, reasoning that however pissed-off their hard-line Randroid base get, they have nowhere else to go, or alternately,
3. the talks will take place fruitlessly, both parties sticking to their tenets, politely agreeing to disagree and papering over the cracks with content-free language about non-specific consensus about poverty being bad and needing to be solved and stuff, with the Tories hoping that the public's attention span is short enough for this to boost their image, at least enough so that fewer people think of them as "the Nasty Party™".

¶ bob geldof politics poverty tories 2