WHAT is the Conservative Central Office thinking of? Or is it a gimmicky new look by the new top man?

I refer to the invitation to Geldof, the self-appointed Saviour of the World, to a semi-official position on the commission on global poverty.

It appears to be fairly obvious what Geldof thinks of his own importance as an expert on world poverty, but he is completely wrong.

I have always thought his original Live Aid' and his more recent efforts appeared to be nothing but a vehicle for free publicity for performers.

A great deal of money was raised by both events, but what happened to it?

Brown, Blair or anybody else who thinks that pouring money into, say, Africa, or cancelling national debts etc., will alleviate the situations there, is living in cloud-cuckoo land.

I have lived for years in Africa and other parts of the world where poverty is endemic, although it is relative poverty which in most cases is self-inflicted and caused by over-population. This effect is exacerbated by despotic leaders, crooked governments, power-mad politicians, etc., etc. Although in Africa, south of the Sahara, countries have been terribly affected by adverse weather conditions.

The basic problem is that in most affected areas worldwide the societies are male-dominated. This has led to a lack of family planning (to put it nicely) but worse still in Africa, to the horrific spread of STD the solution to both problems is just too simple!

Consider a wide coverage of sub-Saharan Africa, with all its problems and it will be a brave man indeed who can see a general solution to all or indeed many of them (i.e. the problems).

Perhaps, after all, Labour have had it right all along.

Let all the poor down-trodden enter the UK where they can live on all the benefits of social security and the indigenous people can then take their place at the bottom of the social scale.

R BRACEWELL, Paget, Bermuda.