Deborah Coddington: Millionaire Rat flies in to berate us with gibberish

Who invited Bob Geldof in? According to Geldof, New Zealand's foreign aid is "a national disgrace" and "pathetic".

So where was Paul Holmes when we needed him? If he'd told his radio audience New Zealand doesn't need a cheeky Paddy telling us what to do, would the academic luvvies campaign to have him sacked?

Geldof's entitled to his opinion, and the foreign aid campaigners in their Make Poverty History T-shirts, lining up for his autograph, probably wet their panties when he sashayed in. But did anyone who paid $1500 to be "motivated" at this Auckland conference dare to question Geldof's peculiar criticisms?

For those with enough sense to stay away, here are some choice extracts from the gibberish Geldof passed off as a speech: "Now we have a universal medium, and what we're talking about was this grievous body wound, 30 million of us in their biblical togas, rags, on the skeletal frames. What came through was that humans in extremes are at their most dignified, when they are on the very cusp of oblivion."

Oh really? Someone begging for their life, about to die from starvation or murder, is at their most dignified?

"It turned out that the lingua franca of the world wasn't English, it was pop music." An attempt at humour?

And one more for the road: "You can have supernational policies. Al Qaeda is one. They're a brand. You can start an organisation and adhere to al Qaeda, they lend you the brand name. It's like a franchise."

Maybe he should tell that to the British troops risking their lives (eight already dead) in Afghanistan.

In 1985, when Geldof's pop career as a member of the Boomtown Rats was on the decline, he decided to use his considerable talents and intelligence to "feed the world".

Today he calls globalisation, "intellectual and economical absurdity".

Whatever that means.

To be sure, it does not mean that a company called Ten Alps Communication is an intellectual and economical absurdity. This multi-million-dollar private company, part-owned by Geldof, is in the business of "branding", (Al Qaeda is just a brand, remember). Ten Alps has done work for other multi-nationals like BP, Microsoft, Disney, the British Government and Glaxo SmithKline.

In 2001, Geldof made a cool $17 million when he sold another of his corporates - an online travel business.

Good on him. The man is clearly no fool. But neither are most New Zealanders when it comes to charitable spending. We prefer to make up our own minds about which of the many are deserving of our support. Geldof and his ilk don't trust us to do that. We're too stupid, they say, so the Government must first take our money and spend it where it decides.

Last year Geldof hit headlines when he organised the Live 8 concert, timed to shame the G8 nations into writing off $55 billion of debt to African countries.

Last week Geldof told New Zealanders to use democracy to "insist our wishes are made manifest". But as Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote in the lead-up to this month's G8 summit, "How can you preach democracy and allow Putin to host the G8?"

Her point, ignored by the likes of Geldof, is that the G8 nations' acceptance of Russia is giving "tacit approval to the theft of private assets, the destruction of the rule of law and the violation of human rights", as Russia once more descends into a place of fear, back-watching and mysterious assassinations.

Why didn't Geldof shame some of the African dictators and corrupt leaders into investing their illegally-acquired millions in their own countries? According to the independent, apolitical think-tank Chatham House (aka Britain's Royal Institute of International Affairs), Africa is home to 100,000 millionaires. Furthermore, the money kept by African elites in foreign bank accounts equals the total debt these same African nations owe the rest of the world.

If you really want to know about African corruption leading to poverty and misery, look no further than foreign correspondent Christina Lamb's latest book about Zimbabwe, House of Stone. Read it and weep.

And if Geldof is serious about Aids, why doesn't he start some research, which might not be quite as comfortable as flying first class to waiting limousines and flash hotels, being paid considerable sums to make affluent Westerners feel guilty?

For example, just last week the World Health Organisation stated that if all men were routinely circumcised across Africa over the next 10 years, some two million new infections and around 300,000 deaths could be avoided.

Overall, the WHO estimates that universal male circumcision could reduce the rate of infections by 37 per cent and in 20 years save three million lives. But advocating male circumcision, and risking the wrath of the don't-mess-with-nature health professionals who've tried to shame parents into leaving their sons uncircumcised, might be a tad risky for an ageing pinstriped rock star.