Geldof lopes into the room, an editing suite in an office in Soho where he is nipping and tucking the final episodes of his African TV series. I say that we have met once before and he – being polite – says that he recognises my face. When I add that it was a long time ago when he was in the Boomtown Rats, he says in that case he must be mistaken. As a student in the Seventies, I had seen the Rats in some godforsaken place near Swindon. Thinking Geldof was a bit of a love-god, I decided to pass myself off as a rock journalist in order to get backstage… whereupon I found myself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Since the story reflects well on him, I say how patient he was and he counters, faux-darkly – although perhaps it was not all that faux – “Well, that’s certainly changed.”
He sits on the sofa and I take up a position – a bit of a mistake as the interview unravelled – on the floor near his feet. (Seating was a problem, either too cosy or too remote.) That morning’s news is that Bush has announced that the US plans to sign off its African debt and Geldof is “you know, moderately pleased.” The debt deal, on its own, is not enough and he is consumed with the importance of addressing the other two key issues at Gleneagles of doubling aid and trade reform, “which is what the Commission for Africa requires them to do”.
As he explores the financial intricacies of each of the G8 countries, his knowledge is as impressive as the precision of his words – “…so when Brown was trying to push the IFF – the International Finance Facility, which I completely endorse – I think it’s simple, elegant and admirable…” but I’m also, already, daunted by their unstoppable flow. The rules of an interview demand a certain to and fro – if there are to be answers, there must also be questions. It is a dance of sorts, if you like, and I suspect that Geldof wants to pogo on his own.
We know, full well, that having spent a year working with presidents and prime ministers on the Commission for Africa – which, it should be remembered, was his initiative – Geldof must have been quite capable of exercising diplomatic skills. Yet, the image persists of someone who shoots from the hip. It is Geldof, himself, however, as much as anyone else, who is responsible for perpetuating this legend. Here is a typical quote: “Me and Bono are known as the Laurel and Hardy of international politics. He’s the one who’s always saying, ‘That’s another fine mess you’ve got me into.’ He thinks I look for fights, but I don’t.” And, in the same breath – rather contradictorily – “Bono wants to change the world by embracing it. I get angry and want to punch its lights out.”
When I manage to ask him about his own talent for diplomacy, he says: “ You know, I didn’t just sit for a year on the Commission for Africa. I mean, I’ve done this for 20 years… The anger comes from the fact that while you understand everyone’s difficulties as the leaders of sovereign states, the point that you eventually come down to is ‘Well, why not do it anyway? It costs nothing.’ And I do get to that point but I don’t shout and bang and roar and I haven’t been shouting and banging and roaring on television, you know. People are saying, ‘Calm down.’ But I’m calm. I am calm, you know. “Don’t you think that somebody might say, ‘Hold on, there’s this idea you have of the guy. How does he get to be there, if he’s this sort of cartoon figure?’”
It strikes me, more forcibly when I listen to the interview later, that this is the start of a pattern in our encounter. Geldof should know, and surely does, as a major media player himself, that it’s a journalist’s job to put questions to the subject that are being aired in the public arena. But time and time again he shoots the messenger, insistently and perversely ascribing those views to me.
I wonder – and how I wish I hadn’t – what he makes of strange bedfellows such as Janet Street-Porter and Bruce Anderson sneering at a pop-star’s attempts to change the world. Again, I make it quite clear that I don’t go along with that view.
But still, off he went: “I’m not aware of those criticisms because I don’t read it and so your entire agenda is to ask me what a columnist who is paid to be provocative…” It’s not my agenda, and it’s only one question. “You’re using their agenda and you’re another journalist and it’ll appear in a newspaper and all this is froth that consumes you people in journalism and it has no bearing on what is happening. And I’ll tell you what is happening: the political world is shifting en masse towards a resolution of the greatest political fracture in the world and certainly what I believe is the greatest moral sore and not to deal with it corrupts our soul – not that I wouldn’t be ambivalent about the existence of that entity in the first place – but none the less…”
Much more of this, then: “And, so you know, it’s pointless answering what to me what is an inconsequential thing – and it’s Janet who I love. I think she’s completely, you know, turning into one of those great bonkers old women and I love it...”
Like Germaine? “Germaine is just beyond wonderful. I’m mad for her. And I love Bruce Anderson’s writing and Frank Johnson and all those people when they write about me. Obviously I don’t read it because it would just get in the way. I’m aware of it but I just get on with doing my thing.”
I clap my hands with glee at this: the artful magnanimity, as well as the Irish charm and blarney. And it’s fair enough for him, too, to see the criticism – but, surely, not all criticism – as a distraction from his goal. But what interested me is how thin-skinned Geldof is – despite affecting nonchalance or media knowingness – since throughout the rest of the interview it was he, not me, who kept revisiting the issue of how he is perceived.
For a moment, we are all smiles… and then I ask another question. I wonder what prompted his Dunkirk flotilla manoeuvre. A number of people had mentioned this to me as another bonkers idea from Bob but, again, I rather liked the sound of it; it is often the more outlandish activities which prompt people to sit up and pay attention. Geldof feels the only way he wants to answer this is by giving me the whole background from his last visit to Africa, 18 months ago, which led to him approaching Blair to set up the Commission for Africa – drawing together “the greatest economic minds of our time” – right up to the Live 8 concerts and events.
