AND WORSE AND WORSE AND...

We wonder if Midge Ure's rush about the newsrooms of the nation last night saying "actually, you know, don't bother marching on Scotland to demand an end to poverty" and today's announcement by Gordon Brown's pledge to to waive bills for staging Bob Geldof's Live 8 concert in a move equivalent to writing off £500,000 in VAT could be, in any way, connected?

Meanwhile, Brown has handed Geldof, alongside the half a million quid, a few suggestions as to who should be on the bill:

Mr Brown said he wanted the Spice Girls to reform for Live 8 but added that might be beyond the powers of even Mr Geldof to achieve.

He added: "I hope Queen will play a part as well and, of course, Paul McCartney.

"Now if all of these came together with the artists in America, then it just shows the power of people to change things and I think young people particularly should know that by coming together you can change the world."

Although we're a little confused - Brown is one of the people who will be taking a key role at the G8 summit; surely the whole point of the concert is to change minds like his? If he's already made up his mind, what is the aim of the concert, and how will that be changing the world? Unless he's saying "if we don't hear Brian May working his way through Radio Ga-Ga, we'll force Burkina Faso to give all the proceeds from its cotton exports to the World Bank" or "A Spice Girls reunion will mean we'll write off all the debt of Benin; Madonna doing Hanky Panky will see us pour three billion into the Zimbabwe economy..."

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