Love him or hate him Bono has made a real difference

Last week was a good one for anyone who enjoys wearing rock star-endorsed footwear.

Morrissey and Bono both announced that they were dipping their toes in foot fashion: the former Smiths frontman is teaming up with Stella McCartney on a range of leather-free shoes that are to be launched next year, and the U2 singer was in London to promote a new line of red shoelaces to be sold by Nike, with proceeds going to fight Aids, TB and malaria.

Morrissey's support of animal rights is as vociferous as Bono's campaigning against debt and disease, but Bono is routinely ridiculed for supporting his causes in a way that Morrissey never is.

What is it that I find so annoying about Morrissey? What really irritates me about Morrissey is that he appears to be 50 going on 15.

He was at it again on BBC radio last week, still complaining that the world - for which read the music press - does not appreciate his genius; still affecting sympathy for those courageous enough to kill themselves rather than endure the agony of living. It is all so nauseatingly self-pitying and pointlessly adolescent and yet Morrissey is massively indulged and accorded a misguided respect that is rarely given to Bono.

Sometimes it feels as if I am alone in thinking that Bono is a Good Thing.

Hating Bono seems to be the one form of bigotry that is still openly tolerated.

I would still defend Bono because - unlike Morrissey - he realises that he occasionally cuts a ridiculous figure, but he embraces the absurdity of the privileges that rock star status bestows.

More importantly, from his support of Amnesty International in the 1980s to his current campaigning for African debt relief, Bono has used his great fame to actually make a difference.

When Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House of Representatives, recently met Bono she told him that "the good thing President Bush did was to increase the aid budget for Africa. That was the only good thing he did, and you were the transformer - you persuaded him to do that".

- OBSERVER