Bob Geldof has told the AFP news agency that the Live 8 protests will be "a glorious failure”. The rock star turned campaigner, who is of course organising all those concerts on 2 Jul, and hopes to mobilise a million people to take part in protests in Edinburgh next month, admits that he thinks the events are unlikely to make world leaders agree to all his demands on African poverty. Speaking of the pressure he wants to put on G8 leaders to improve trade, aid and debt in Africa he said: "Will that happen? Probably not. So will I have failed? Yes I guess."
Geldof added that even though the campaign may fail in its objectives that it won’t be in vain, saying "we will have tried everything to the last fibre of exhaustion to make it happen and I can live with myself. It will be, not for me but for everyone involved, a glorious failure."
However, Geldof was determined to try, even knowing that the effect on the politicians would be minimal. "For the rest of my life I would have thought 'I could have maybe done that, I could have maybe changed it and I bottled it for personal reasons'."
Meanwhile, fellow campaigner Bono has been in Brussels meeting European Commission leader Jose Manuel Barroso and telling world leaders: "Don't blow it." The U2 frontman said he was offended by the "stupidity" of what is happening in Africa and asked leaders to "put down the national flags, look up from the numbers and look to the future". He went on: "There will always be natural calamities, but there are 120,000 lost lives in Africa every month and this is avoidable. This is not wide-eyed, misty-eyed Irish nonsense - these are achievable goals. I am excited by that. That is what turns me on."
Commission leader Mr Barroso told Bono that a lyric from a U2 song inspired an article he had written about the future of Europe, reciting the words from Zooropa: "Don't worry baby, it's going to be all right. Uncertainty can be a guiding light."