Pious plonker or just misunderstood: why we should all lay off Bono

It’s easy to stick the boot in to the U2 frontman’s grating form of activism but at his core isn’t he just trying to do the right thing?First things first. It’s somewhere beyond obvious that it would be preferable if U2 had not moved some part of their business to the Netherlands in order to avoid paying tax on royalties in Ireland. It would be significantly better for what I am about to write if Bono had not been named in the Paradise Papers for engaging in a (wholly legal) investment in a Lithuanian shopping centre, via the tax haven that is Malta. In fact, there are about a million things Bono could do that would make it easier to stick up for him. He could make the many and varied charities he is involved in devote more of their resources to aid than to the sometimes nebulous concept of “raising consciousness”. He could perhaps not describe those working in the aid sector as “cranks carping from the sidelines” when they raise concerns about the practical problems of his campaigns bypassing African entrepreneurs to work directly with assorted kleptocracies.Above all, he could stop being quite so pious all the time. He could stop making his own good deeds seem like something the rest of us should aspire to, because it makes people resent him all the more. But, blimey, I felt sorry for him this week after he and The Edge took part in an annual charity event in Dublin, busking for the homeless. Just type Bono and hypocrite into Twitter and see the stream of bile emerge. Damian Rice and Glen Hansard, who also participated, didn’t get it in the neck for daring to ask people for money for the homeless. Just Bono. Continue reading…
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