Dawn

It's happened again. Fell asleep in front of the TV, woke up at 3am, went to bed, tossed and turned for forty minutes and then got up for a mug of tea and biscuits and a bit of Internet surfing. Today's the day of the Live8 concerts around the world. I'd like to be down in Hyde Park, London for the music and the sense of being in a huge band of people - united against big business and pompous governments, united for the poor and the disdavantaged - our brothers and our sisters. I admire Bob Geldof greatly for his bloodymindedness, for having the audacity to rediscover People Power. It was there in 1985 at the Live Aid concerts. I cuddled my baby son and felt a shiver of hope as I realised what Geldof and his followers had done. That beautiful innocence, that harnessing of revolutionary tactics, turning smug and self-obsessed musical heroes into proponents of social and political change. What a trick to pull! Cynically, I don't think we will ever make poverty history but that does not mean we should not try. We owe it to our planet. We owe it to our children and their children. We owe it to Africa and to all those other places where need and want cry out like sirens in the night.