Bob Geldof calls Trump a ‘vulgar fool’ and Putin a ‘weak man’ as he discusses world politics
Singer-songwriter took aim at leaders across the globe
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Bob Geldof has criticised numerous politicians in a new interview, calling Donald Trump a “vulgar fool” and Vladimir Putin a “weak man”.
The singer-songwriter was discussing world politics when he made the remarks, taking aim at everyone from Xi Jinping to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Explaining that he sees the coronavirus pandemic as a supplement to technological revolutions, he told The Times: “New technologies disturb the status quo and so we revert back to what we believe are certainties, like the strong man who seems to know what he’s doing.
“Actually, Putin is a weak man, a gangster. Xi Jinping is a repressive dictator. Erdogan is a religious fantasist. Trump is a vulgar fool. Brexit is a function of this too. Now a global virus has erupted everything, the economic structures will change, and the ones who will come out of it best will be the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, whose companies should be broken up – immediately. They are far too powerful.”
Geldof, 68, told interviewer Will Hodgkinson, who spoke to him one week before the UK went into lockdown, that he was reluctant to meet with him in person.
“I get constant colds and flus so I’m reluctant to hurl myself into the path of this animal,” he said.
Talking about how the pandemic has affected him professionally, he said: “We’ve just spent two years writing and recording an album. The day it comes out, our tour gets cancelled. I’ve just published a book [Tales of Boomtown Glory, his collected lyrics] and all the literary festivals are cancelled.
“The Rats had seven festivals – gone. I can wear that, but the crew can’t… This is a unique variation of something scientists don’t yet understand and you’d want to be a complete idiot not to take it very seriously indeed.”
Citizens of Boomtown, the first album by the Boomtown Rats since 1984, is out now.
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