Bob Geldof wants to you give your money to… Britain

This is one weird commercial: Yes, that’s noted humanitarian and alleged former rock star Bob Geldof (along with physicist Stephen Hawking, feminist scholar Germaine Greer, and businessman Alan Sugar) trying to sell Britons on National Savings & Investments.  NS&I is a state-owned savings bank serves as a lender to the British government. It describes itself ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.

This is one weird commercial:

This is one weird commercial:

Yes, that’s noted humanitarian and alleged former rock star Bob Geldof (along with physicist Stephen Hawking, feminist scholar Germaine Greer, and businessman Alan Sugar) trying to sell Britons on National Savings & Investments.  NS&I is a state-owned savings bank serves as a lender to the British government. It describes itself as a way to "raise cost effective financing for the government and to reduce the cost of government borrowing to the tax payer."

So after more than two decades of raising money for famine relief and pushing for debt cancellation in Africa, Geldof is now raising money for the exchequer to cover its debts. Not sure if that says more about Geldof or about the current state of the British economy, but either way, like I said, weird commercial.

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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