Howard was whinging about Bono and his buddies yesterday, but Costello said he'd be happy to meet with him. Howard said that with everyone talking about helping the poor, they were forgetting to talk about how good the poor really have it these days. Globalisation has apparently made billions of poor people happier, although I'm not sure if those billions he's referring to would agree with him.
But I reckon Howard just looks old and out of touch. He's not going to make any young people change their minds, and that's who Bono is mostly interested in. Costello has just made himself look far more palatable to a lot of young Australians. And I suspect there are more idealistic potential Liberal voters around than it appears. I'm a potential Liberal voter, but you probably wouldn't guess it. I'd find choosing between Costello and Beazley extremely difficult.
I suppose Howard doesn't have to appeal to young voters. By the time they count for anything he'll be retired.
Spoonman last night was on about the happier poor. He used India and China’s middle class as examples. It is really annoying, better just doesn’t feel enough. But yes I am afraid to say that I find Beazley pretty difficult to take as well. I say go Julia or Kevin Would you vote for them?
gem / 12:35pm / 21 November 2006
I might vote for Julia. I’m not a fan of Kevin though.
I think it’s a little optimistic to thank globalisation for everything good that has happened to China and India. I reckon they’ve done all the hard work themselves. China is one of the world more closed economies.
And I’m not really sure that our responsibility is diminished because only 3 billion people live in poverty now instead of 3.5 billion. Bono isn’t complaining that things have got worse. He’s just saying 3 billion is way too many. And I reckon we should all be saying the number is too big until it gets way smaller.
Ryan / 3:53pm / 21 November 2006
He definitely made the right call meeting with Bono, though I do wonder if Bono’s challenge to lift our game on aid was genuinely heard. The fact that Costello is prepared to challenge the statistic of 30,000 children dying each day of poverty-related causes as ‘inaccurate’ and linked MPH’s citing of stats like that to the violence of a small number at the G-20, makes me wonder…
ben / 7:44am / 22 November 2006
Yeah. I’m not sure if Peter Costello really cares about this stuff. Challenging that statistic just makes him look naive. So is linking the violent protesters to the aid agencies, although I suspect he was just hoping to make the agencies look bad to people that don’t know much about them.
Since the meeting he’s sounded as cynical about it all as you could imagine.
Ryan / 9:15am / 22 November 2006