9 Days that shook London

I watched the above titled documentary last night and it made my blood boil. It purported to examine Live 8, The Olympic Bid, The Bombings, the G8 and the VE Day celebrations. Instead it was a snide, snipey piece of character assassination.

The Live 8 segment concentrated on trying to demonstrate how Make Poverty History was betrayed by Bob Geldoff. Looking as if it were put together by a 1st year media studies student, all it did was to make the anti-poverty movement look petty and childish. Yes it was an achievement to get all those people to Edinburgh, but to then bleat about the fact that Live 8 got all the headlines misses the point. Demonstrations do not make attractive news stories. Whereas Live 8 got an anti-poverty message across to millions if not billions on tv, and then again through acres of press coverage. Organisations like WDM moande that Geldoff was too close to the Government and thus he was more welcoming of the outcome than the main Make Poverty History activists.

Well I think that perhaps getting an intimate dialogue with Government might be a more effective means of changing policy than dressing as clowns in camouflage gear and painting lipstick smiles on police riot shields. No the Government and the G8 did not completely cancel 3rd world debt but they did move in the right direction. Without Live 8 would they have gone further? I seriously doubt it. These campaigners seemed like people who were almost happier to stay untainted by association with the Government and thus fail, than to engage with the reality of the political process. I bet at University these people stuck stickers on lamposts.

The bombings were handled sensitively, and the Olympic segment was perilously close to being interesting, although the snide suggestion that Live8 only got the go-ahead in order to boost the Olympic Bid was tittle tattle worthy of the Daily Star. Of course the bid team used it, they would be fools not to - but really! You just got the feeling that throughout the documentary axes were being ground and to criticise the VE celebrations for stage managing the visuals just seemed pathetic.

The 9 days featured in the documentary included a number of triumphs and one tragedy that was dealt with fantastically. If I hadn't lived through it all, based on last night's programme I would think that the only people in London are bumbling buffoons, out of touch remnants of the 60s, egotists and terrorists.

I'm sorry, but good as the MPH campaign was, it was never going to fully achieve its aims in 2005. Prior to the advent of Live 8 it was only really achieving public awareness in the liberal/left, people already susceptible to such arguements. To really pressurise the G8 there needed to be something big, something crossing boundaries of age, class, race, religion, politics, and nationality. Live 8 provided that platform. People will survive hunger, and fight Aids now because of what happened at the G8. If even one extra life was saved then it was worth the effort.

The question is how to keep exerting the pressure. There can't be another Live 8, so what next for MPH? Wrist bands are so 2005!