Tony Blair believes Bob Geldof and Bono saved millions of lives

Irish Daily Mirror

a day ago

40 years on from Live Aid, Tony Blair believes Bob Geldof and Bono have saved millions of lives.
Over the years, the outspoken rock stars have often been labelled as western do-gooders or as celebrities with white saviour complexes, but a new BBC series sets out their extraordinary behind-the-scenes influence over global leaders since the landmark concert on July 13, 1985.
Blair puts it very plainly. 'What Bob and Bono and others have done over the years has resulted in, I don't know, probably millions of people living who otherwise would have died. I don't think there's any type of remote ideological argument that should stand in the way of that.'
The final episode of a three-part series gives a glimpse into the machinations of how the Dubliners wangled their way into the Oval Office, had a direct line to Downing Street and got invited to a G8 summit alongside Vladimir Putin.
Blair fully credits Geldof with getting him to champion African debt relief, while George W Bush recounts how Bono persuaded him to pledge $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa following a gift of an Irish bible and an exchange on sins of omission.
In the series, Live Aid at 40: When Rock N Roll Took On The World, Bush recalls his 2005 meeting with Bono and Geldof ahead of the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
"I didn't have a clue who Geldof was. He and Bono came in, and Bono, was at least somewhat presentable, Geldof looked like he crawled out from underneath the ground', he says with a chuckle before adding, 'But he was a good guy. He cared deeply."
Blair's former advisor, Justin Forsyth, explains their contrasting styles. 'Bob was effing this and effing that, even with presidents and prime ministers and Bono had this kind of deep empathy with people and knew how to kind of appeal to their inner souls.'
Bob puts it in typically blunt fashion: 'He wants to give the world a great big hug, and I want to punch its lights out.'
At the beginning of the series, Geldof speaks about the kitchen table conversation with his late wife, Paula Yates, which began Live Aid, recording the Band Aid single, and explaining who Status Quo were to a bemused Prince Charles during the concert.
He also admits he was mistaken about not wanting Queen to play at the global concerts, regarding them as an 'overblown operatic' act.
'Subsequently, of course, we all have to admit that we thought the songs were great, so with age, we're allowed to admit it.'
Meanwhile, Lionel Richie said he wasn't sure why US superstars like Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder didn't perform. For his own part, he said: 'I made a conscious decision at the very last minute to get on the plane and go because I just felt it was necessary to do it.'
In the final episode of the series, Geldof reflects on his subsequent campaign to get debt relief in Africa began when he returned to an orphanage in Ethiopia in 2003, nearly two decades after Band Aid. 'I see these children whose parents have died because of no food. It annoys me to tears of frustration. I go ballistic at this point, as ever, and 'Get me Downing Street'
Blair, at a G8 summit in Évian-les-Bains at the G8 summit, took the urgent call from an aide. 'I remember shouting, 'it's happening again'', said Geldof.
In a subsequent meeting, the British prime minster agreed to head a Commission for Africa after Geldof set out the case for the world's poorest countries had to be freed from crippling debt.
'I wouldn't have reacted that way at anyone, but it was him with his track record, his commitment, his knowledge, his dedication. And therefore, it made sense', said Blair.
Blair's aide, Kate Garvey, recalls: 'He was driving the agenda inside government, which was incredible.'
When Blair decided to raise debt relief at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, he knew it was critical to persuade Bush. 'The relationship was a very close relationship. We were in constant conversation with each other, and I thought there was a chance, because we had formed this commission that Bob (Geldof)had asked us to do.'
They also had the backing of Bono, who had already formed an unlikely alliance with the Bush administration when he got access to Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor, who was a 'huge fan' of U2, soon after his election.
Although she says in the documentary that Bush's tastes went 'toward country music'. As he's been briefed by his Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Joshua Bolten, Bush smiles as he recalls his aide asking him, 'You do know who Bono is, don't you?'
He replied: 'Yeah, he married Cher'. But Bono found common ground when he brought along an 'ancient Irish bible' as a gift to the White House, as he knew Bush was a 'man of faith'
'He surprised me by giving me a Bible. I don't think this was a way to make me like him. I think is the way he really wanted to share with me a part of his being", Bush said.
During their religious discussion at the start of the meeting, Bono asked him if there was a hierarchy to sin. 'He gave me the best answer anyone ever gave. He said, 'the sin of omission'', recalled Bono. This was taken as meaning it was wrong not to do anything.
Bono wanted the US administration to take action on the AIDS pandemic, which was seeing 6000 Africans a day die of a preventable, treatable HIV disease. 'I'm being informed that there's a pandemic destroying an entire generation of people on the continent of Africa at the time that I'm the president, which I consider the most generous nation in the world, and we're doing nothing about it. It struck my heart', said Bush.
Around a year later, in his State of the Union address, Bush pledged an incredible $15 billion over the following five years to 'turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.'
'Bono got George Bush to give $15 billion to black people who don't vote, who have AIDS', said Bobby Shriver, co-founder of DATA, Debt, AIDS, Trade in Africa, along with Bono.
Bono said PEPFAR, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, is the largest health intervention in the history of health interventions. 'It has saved 26 million lives'.
In the programme, the lack of diversity of the rock acts in the charity concerts is debated with Harvey Goldsmith, the concert promoter behind Live Aid and Live8 concerts: 'There's always a criticism about not being enough black acts. I didn't care whether they were black, brown, green or yellow, if they were a big act and they were great and they wanted to play great', he says.
But Bono does think it could have been more inclusive of the African continent. 'We did our best to make it more involving of African acts and failed, we f**ked up', he said, referring to the Live8 gigs. He later says, "Getting this stuff right is really hard because you are essentially raising an alarm."
At the start of the G8 summit, a few days after the Live 8 concerts, aides recall how Blair rushed back to London from Scotland when he was told of the July 7th bombings in London.
When the exhausted British leader arrived back towards the end of the summit, Blair's advisor, Justin Forsyth, says he had little patience with German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who was holding up agreement on Africa.
'He went down into the bar with all the leaders there, and their wives. I remember him, not to exaggerate, but he had Schroeder up against the wall, saying, you know, 'we've got to do this deal, aren't we, (Gerhard)?' And at that moment, I think Schroeder gave in, and we got across the line with the Germans.'
The G8 leaders agreed to immediately cancel $40 billion of debt owed by 18 of the world's poorest countries, and promised to increase aid to developing nations by $50 billion a year by 2010.
Blair remembers it as the 'most extraordinary weekend' during his time as prime minister. 'To be frank, even President Putin played his part in that', he says, adding, 'It was probably one of the last moments of truly global solidarity that I can remember.'
He remembers being fed up with criticism from NGOs that it hadn't gone far enough. 'They ask you to do something, you do it, and they still criticise, and Bob and Bono just weren't like that at all.'
Kumi Naidoo, one of the critics, had mixed feelings. 'I think there were very many good people with good intentions that were involved both with Live Aid and Live8.
'I think that there was not enough sensitivity to understanding that it's not right for a bunch of predominantly white male folks to get together and say, 'we got to frame a continent like this'.'
At the end of the documentary, the U2 frontman fears the 40th anniversary of Live Aid will have a very different resonance for global aid.
'The 20th anniversary was just a convergence of good fortune and good actors on the world stage. But what's happening now in politics means this anniversary could be a funeral for the last 40 years.'
Live Aid at 40: When Rock N Roll Took On The World will be shown on Sunday, July 6th, with the first episode starting at 21.00 on BBC Two, and it will also be on BBC iPlayer.
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