Words and deeds

We'll see how well they match up following a BBC report last week that

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has appealed to the world to do more to help Africa out of poverty.

At a meeting of his Commission for Africa, in Ethiopia, he vowed to put the continent at the top of the agenda when Britain chaired the G8 next year. ...

The Commission for Africa was set up to look at issues such as development aid, fair trade and debt relief. ...

The commission will produce a plan of action early next year which will then be presented to the G8 group of leading industrialised nations.

After that report, "the time for excuses will be over", Mr Blair said in his keynote address in Addis Ababa's famous Africa Hall. ...

Africa is the only continent that has grown poorer in the last 25 years.

The commission's critics, neither surprisingly nor without experience to base it on, call it "just another talking shop." But at least one attendee was willing to cut through the diplomatic blather, as the Beeb noted in a companion piece:

Bob Geldof has praised talks at Tony Blair's Commission for Africa as radical and progressive. ...

But outspoken Band Aid founder Mr Geldof added: "I'm not joining in the diplomatic language - it was damn dirty and perfectly correctly so.

"It was a genuine sense of going forward massively. The discussions were by any measure radical." ...

But he also criticised European Union aid commissioner Poul Nielson, who has been quoted as saying rescheduling developing world debt would store up problems for future generations.

"He's talking through his arse, to be quite frank, and he shouldn't have his job if he doesn't want to help," said Mr Geldof.

Now, there's diplomacy I can get behind. (Yes, I see the irony in the term.)