Bono to the UK: 'We had four members of U2 in 40 years, you had four chancellors in four months'
U2 frontman Bono has urged Britain to start leading the world again after claiming their government has been overtaken by âfree market fundamentalistsâ.
The Irish singer praised successive British governments for helping tackle world debt, fighting HIV/Aids and ending global poverty â particularly during the years of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron.
He praised the work of Britain's Department for International Development (DfID), which was scrapped by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2020, and said Britain needs to return to âleadingâ.
âI think the Government has been overtaken by free market fundamentalists who donât understand the fundamentals of the free market,â Bono said.
âMight I say, weâve had four members of U2 in 40 years and youâve had four chancellors in four months.
âMight I say again that we need you, we really need the UK.
âYou led the world, and not just the Blair-Brown years, but Cameron came in, and there was the standing by of people in the developing world who are fighting for their dignity, fighting for education, fighting for health.
âGreat Britain was right there, everybody knew it.â
Bono praised the DfID but said it failed to promote the work it was doing globally.
âI do remember saying to whoever it was at the time â I think it was David Cameron â paint the Union Jack, who knows what DfID is?â Bono said.
âI was having a piss in a ghetto, and it said âToilets provided by DfIDâ. I knew what DfID was â the best development agency in the whole world.
âNobody knew it was British taxpayers paying for this and it was fantastic.
âNow they have closed DfID down, these other kinds of Conservatives, and itâs your country and you can do what you want with it, but we loved when you were leading.
âConservativism is going through its own crisis at the moment.
âLenin said âThere are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happenâ, but you seem to be having one in the UK.â
The singer, real name Paul Hewson, was speaking at the Cheltenham Literature Festival to promote his new book, Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, which is published next month.
U2 have become one of the worldâs most influential rock bands, having been founded by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr while they were at school in Dublin.
Bono has spent more than 20 years dedicated to the fight against Aids and poverty, having been involved in the Jubilee 2000âs Drop The Debt campaign and co-founding sister organisations ONE and (RED).
He has lobbied US presidents, UK prime ministers and other global leaders to further his campaigns.
âIt wasnât all presidents â there were lots of chiefs of staff, regular lawmakers,â he said.
âIâm just strategic, I knew they were the decision-makers, so I wanted to find out where they drank on Friday night and that would be there.
âThey would tell their boss, the senator âHeâs very good, this Irish fellaâ.
âI just got to know these people I would never ever meet in a million years coming from where I came from.
âI learned stuff from them, I really did. I was appalled sometimes by some of these people. More often or not I found they lost their idealism.
âAnd I would always say to politicians that Iâm doing what I love, Iâm over-regarded, over-rewarded.
âThese people work really hard, most of them so much less than I do, and if itâs in the US they spend half their time at home in their constituencies, half the time away from their families.
âThey are not all f*****s, they really are not. Even some Conservatives⊠I really learned a lot and I became really close friends with some Conservatives.
âGeorge W Bush launched the greatest health intervention to fight a single disease in the history of medicine and I was part of that, and it was to fight Aids, as a Conservative.â
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