Blair joins wristband celebrities who make charity

The wrist, as anyone who is anyone knows, is the only place to make a compassionate statement these days.

The lapel is officially passé. The T-shirt positively prehistoric. In the cool new world of charity endorsement, it has to be a wristband, it has to be cheap and it has to be plastic.


Tony Blair's Make Poverty History wristband

Tony Blair revealed yesterday, in a fleeting moment, that he is not wholly unacquainted with such things.

The Prime Minister wore a Make Poverty History wristband on a visit to a community hospital during which he announced extra NHS investment and improved services.

Press photographers caught a glimpse of the white bracelet slipping below his cuff during the visit to the hospital in Edgware, north- west London.

In that moment, he joined the stellar ranks of Nelson Mandela, Bono, Scarlett Johansson and Sienna Miller.

The Prime Minister, with his Commission for Africa, has made no secret of his desire to reverse the decades of economic decline that have blighted the countries of that continent.


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His acquaintance with Make Poverty History, a collection of charities campaigning for trade justice, debt cancellation and better aid for the world's poorest countries, and his sporting of the organisation's wristband, comes, then, as no surprise.

Dawn French, the comedienne, and Richard Curtis, the writer, both supporters of Make Poverty History, met him in Downing Street in January, when French gave Mr Blair one of the wristbands.

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