Rock star Bono has compared British Prime Minister Tony Blair and chancellor Gordon Brown to former BEATLES JOHN LENNON and SIR PAUL McCARTNEY.

The U2 frontman took centre stage at the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton, England yesterday (29SEP04) when he made the musical comparison in a political speech, to urge the government to take a judicial approach to world poverty.

The drop Third World debt campaigner says, "I'm fond of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. They are kind of the John and Paul of the global development stage, in my opinion.

"But the point is, Lennon and McCartney changed my interior world - Blair and Brown can change the real world.

"It's not about charity, it's about justice.

"Africa makes a fool of our idea of justice, it makes a farce of our idea of equality. It mocks our pieties, it doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

"Because there's no way we an look at Africa - a continent bursting into flames - and if we're honest conclude that it would ever be allowed to happen anywhere else."

30/09/2004 17:17