Guardian UK: Why Bono should welcome his Glastonbury reckoning

Why Bono should welcome his Glastonbury reckoning
The threatened protests over U2's alleged tax avoidance prove that Glastonbury's founding spirit has been rekindled

Ros Wynne-Jones
The Guardian, Tuesday 7 June 2011


'Did I disappoint you, or leave a bad taste in your mouth?" At Glastonbury this month, U2's headline set is more than likely to include One, the band's enduring hit – and the name of lead singer Bono's advocacy organisation for the world's poorest people. Originally released as a benefit single for Aids research, the song's lyrics carry an unintentional pertinence for the protesters threatening to use the festival to highlight the band's alleged tax avoidance.

The martyring of Saint Bono will take place courtesy of Art Uncut, a subsidiary of the tax avoidance campaign UK Uncut. It plans a series of actions over the Glastonbury weekend, stopping short of disrupting U2's set but an acute embarrassment to a band that has at times foregrounded morality over music.

The band was heavily criticised after moving parts of its business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands in 2006, apparently in response to a cap on already generous tax breaks for artists in the republic. Though the band insists this simply reflects the global nature of their income as the world's highest-earning musicians, their decision not to pay all their tax in their home country looks even worse in the light of Ireland's financial meltdown. Bono is happy to tell the government how it should spend taxpayers' money – campaigning for an increase to the aid budget – yet he has taken his tax euros not just from Ireland's development fund, but also its hospitals and schools.

For some this is just a welcome comeuppance for another of that particular breed of multimillionaire who loves to lecture the world on poverty. But let's put the charge of rank hypocrisy aside – and how galling it is to be lectured by a man who wears indoor sunglasses – Bono has done much for Africa. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/07/bono-glastonbury-protests-tax-spirit