Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof was ‘scathing about African leaders’, files reveal

Left to right: Britain's then prime minister, Tony Blair, Bob Geldof, and the Kenyan Nobel peace prize winner Wangarī Maathai at the G8 summit in 2005 where rich nations pledged to double aid and extend debt relief to African countries. Photograph: Bruce Adams/AP

The Live Aid campaigner Bob Geldof urged Tony Blair not to appoint an African co-chair to the UK-led organisation working to overhaul international aid to the continent because he thought African leadership was “very weak” on the issue, newly released government documents suggest.

The singer was “scathing about the ability and worthiness of virtually all African leaders” before the establishment in 2004 of Blair’s Commission for Africa, which would produce a report, Our Common Interest, and prompt a landmark pledge by rich nations to boost aid and write off debt.