A MEMBER of Art Uncut, the group which staged the protest against U2 at Glastonbury on Friday night, has told The Irish Timesthat she fully supports the charity work that Bono does and says his work on behalf of HIV/Aids awareness is "excellent".
“Bono is a global conscience for good. He is a national treasure,” says Danni Wright from Art Uncut. “We would welcome the chance to engage in dialogue with him about the issues we were trying to highlight with our protest on Friday night.”
“What we want to discuss is how he can level his excellent work with what we see as the hypocrisy of dodging tax in his own country – tax which supports the Irish people. Just because U2 are richer than us that shouldn’t allow them to opt out of the taxes that we are all required to pay. It would be interesting to hear how he can justify this behaviour and square it with his work as an activist on behalf of developing countries. Developing countries lose more money due to tax avoidance than they gain in aid – roughly twice the amount. This is why we are protesting.”
Emily James, a documentary film-maker who took video footage of Art Uncut’s protest on Friday, explains how they did it. “It was premeditated and what they did was to place a large number of activists at the very front of the stage,” she says. “When U2 came on at 10pm, 20 activists formed a circle by linking arms – this was to clear space for 10 people inside the circle to unpack the inflatable (balloon) and use a battery powered device to inflate it.”
“They did succeed in getting the inflatable all the way up and immediately security guards came pushing in trying to pull down the ropes of the inflatable. There was a lot of pushing and shoving and security were pulling activists out quite roughly but no activists were apprehended. One of the activists had her finger broken in the scuffles.”
Conditions on site improved dramatically on Saturday after Friday’s mud bath and torrential rain showers. Coldplay, who will headline the Oxegen festival in Punchestown next month put in a stunning set on the main Pyramid stage and there were high expectations for the Beyoncé, also an Oxegen headliner, set last night.
Meanwhile, UK prime minister David Cameron has said he was “devastated” to hear about the death of a senior Tory figure, Christopher Shale (56), at the festival. Mr Shale’s body was found in a VIP toilet at 9am yesterday.
The prime minister described Mr Shale as “a big rock in my life”.
His death, which is not being treated as suspicious, follows the leak of a Conservative strategy document in which he described the party as “graceless, voracious, crass and always on the take”.