The rocker still railing against injustice

Don’t expect Bob Geldof to mellow with age anytime soon. The man who heads a band once described as “leprous anti-establishment scumbags” still has the power to shock and disturb. It’s the nature of the beast.

Back in the day, he set out to “disrupt, disturb and question what it meant to be young in the Ireland of the mid-70s”.

The hair may be greyer now but the grey matter is not diminished. Nor is Geldof’s passion. And he isn’t easily impressed. Of the G8 summit in Northern Ireland, he thunders: “These people have presided over the ruin of tens of millions of people. For them, austerity is simply a technical term. They have never had to live it. Yet 48% of 24-year-olds in Spain who don’t have jobs have to live it every day. This is a grotesque failure of leadership.”