G8 have just finished their summit, and you've guessed it, failed completely to respond to the scale of global poverty and the environmental crisis we faced.
Make Poverty History, have as I predicted, gone for the "they have failed to do what we wanted, but made important steps" response. But they fail entirely to question the legitimacy of the G8 in the light of yet another failure, when no leader can use the excuse that there wasn't a mass demand for them to take radical action.
Instead, they naively say that the G8 can "secure a place in history" by going further at the WTO and the UN Millennium Summit and praises the UK Government for demonstrating "leadership on these issues."
Now for a slightly naff analogy... if an untidy flatmate of yours had promised after concerted complaints to clean the flat and didn't do it one week, you might be persuaded that a little more pressure might just do the trick. You might even be prepared to believe that after 3 more weeks complaints, that he might still do it.
Now if 30 weeks later, you had persuaded your entire street to march, persuaded all the town celebrities to hold concerts across the country in protest against his untidiness, and all he did was gently wave a feather duster over the sofa, would you send a letter saying he still had a chance to redeem himself. Or might you just kick him out, saying he clearly had no intention of ever tidying the flat?
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