Ever since George Harrison played for Bangladesh, celebrities have only needed to mention the third world and a hundred glib cynics with no alternatives of their own to offer hit the keyboards, screaming, “you’re just trying to sell more records, you hypocrite!”

But who are the true hypocrites here? Why is it that celebrities are the only people in the free world condemned for holiding opinions? And why should a singer’s opinion be any less valuable than a politician’s?

Self-righteous hacks

The problem is that most of these maligned stars espouse ideals that their critics long ago abandoned, if indeed they ever had any in the first place.

The average hack columnist has two great motivators in life: An ego the size of Siberia, and a rapacious bank account. They build their lives around the philosophy that if they have ulterior motives, then so too must everyone else. Besides, calling a pop star a hypocrite can lend a column a sweet sense of righteousness and a punchy headline.

Tragically, they’ve been writing the same old crap for decades now. It’s the same refrain whether the target is Coldplay, who seem to be the world’s biggest-selling act this month, Bono, who hardly needs promotional gimmicks, Bob Geldof, who hasn’t sold a record in decades, Madonna, who’s trying boost a flagging career, or Robbie Williams, who’ll do anything to break America.

I don’t claim to know the motives of Madonna, or Robbie Williams, or Bono; and I honestly couldn’t care less what they are. I don't buy their records. I'm not interested in them. Yet whether they’re at the top or the bottom of their careers, the whole lot of them are branded with the same selfish motivation.

It doesn’t seem to matter that, with the exception of Geldof, most of these people will continue to sell CDs by the truckload for years to come. They don’t need gimmicks like Live 8. They're all apparently so desperate for sales, they'll spout any old political flim-flam if it means pushing a couple more CDs.

But whether their reasons are genuinely charitable or otherwise should not matter. Because by keeping the world’s attention focussed on the problems of the developing world, these people are each doing far more for the billions who struggle to survive each day than any number of clapped out, bitter old hacks.

Is it the money or isn’t it?

One of the strangest contradictions that’s appeared in pretty much every anti-African aid rant recently has been the totting-up of celebrity fortunes.

To a cynic, the fact that many of the pop stars supporting Live 8 are multi-millionaires is all the proof you need of their hypocrisy. But does that make sense? If they really do have the vast piles of cash ascribed to them, then money may not be their prime goal any more.

In truth, even Paul McCartney is a minnow in the wealth pond. There are 691 billionaires on the Forbes rich list. Not one of them is a pop star. Of Forbes’ Celebrity 100 rich list, the top ten contains no pop stars. Of its list of the richest musicians, eight of the top ten acts were no-shows at Live 8.

But who said rich people can’t have opinions? Bill Gates (who is not renowned for his vocal talents) has given billions in charitable donations to Africa, and he supported Live 8. Rupert Murdoch has never sold a record in his life, and he gave the event his backing.

And I don’t see many newspapers sharpening their knives to attack those two. They’re allowed to hold opinions precisely because they are not pop stars.

Keep music out of politics – until it suits you

When I hear some bar-room critic moaning that pop stars shouldn’t get involved in politics, they mean “pop stars shouldn’t disagree with me.”

So American rednecks chant “shut up and sing” at the Dixie Chicks, but cheer their approval for Charlie Daniels’ regular right-wing rants. Queen and Eric Clapton campaign for the monarchy, and nobody threw rocks at them. Metallica are unpopular online because of their anti-MP3 stance, but no newspaper holds that against them. Cliff Richard is a millionaire with political views, but the media leave him alone. And the same right-wingers who call Bob Geldof naïve or ill-informed for his opinions on poverty would agree with his anti-euro stance.

But then, to quote a million drunk right-wingers, what do pop stars know about politics?

Instead of moaning, the free world should be glad their pop stars have the balls to speak out. Few Chinese entertainers dare to talk about politics. In comparatively free Hong Kong, the only time most pop stars come out to protest is to campaign against music piracy or triad management tactics. Even then, the turnout was a little Spartan.

I’m not suggesting the world follow the Philippines and elect every retired pop star to government, but surely the willingness of celebs to challenge the government is a sign of society’s health, not its weakness.

If it’s a sick society the cynics are looking for, maybe they should be asking why newspapers are always so keen to give more coverage to pop stars than to elected politicians. If the media chooses to give someone a platform for his beliefs, then you can hardly blame him for taking advantage of it.

Sound byte politics

People complain that Geldof indulges in sound byte politics, and they’re absolutely right – he knows that if he swears at an issue enough, the media will carry his quotes. “Give us your fucking money” may have sounded like crass and deliberate boorishness, but the media latched onto it with such enthusiasm, it’s become one of the most effective and well-known lines ever uttered.

Though his critics like to portray him as an apologist for African dictators, by his outspokenness Geldof has alienated himself from most African leaders. He hardly ingratiated himself to Robert Mugabe by describing him as “a tired, vicious, old cretinous creep” or to Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni by telling him to resign.

It would be naïve to assume that because a singer speaks in sound bytes, that they can know nothing about their platform. On the contrary, the average semi-retired pop star has far more time and money to spend studying their pet issues than the rest of us. Should a pop star know less about a subject than a busy politician? I don’t see why.

It’s true that singers often come out with embarrassingly trite political opinions - what else can you expect from Snoop Dogg or Velvet Revolver? But that does not mean the issues are any less important, nor that all pop stars must therefore be idiots.

Easy to be hard

When the first Band Aid happened, I was too cynical to pay it much attention. I loathed the single, with its cheese-grating keyboard harmony, and hated Michael Jackson’s follow-up even more. A year later, charity reached a new nadir in smarminess with SportAid.

I’d been up all night drinking in London and was not a happy chappie that day. I remember having a mid-morning gin before heading home, in a spectacularly foul mood. I walked through West London toward Victoria station and found myself surrounded by hordes of shiny happy people wearing “I ran the world” t-shirts. I hated every last one of them; even more so when I had to share my train with a bunch of burger-munching student saviours. The irony of feeding the world in the morning and picking up a Big Mac Meal on the way home had apparently not occurred to anyone in that carriage.

I’m still a cynic. When Live 8 announced their text-message ticket lottery, I entered, with no plans to go. I horrified some workmates by promising that if I won, my tickets be on eBay within the hour. I didn’t win, so I didn’t have to suffer the frustration of having my sale yanked by the outraged Saint Bob.

Live 8 and Make Poverty History are fashion statements for many of their white-banded supporters. Tens of thousands of  people attending the Live 8 concerts will have done so not because they care about poverty, but because they think Robbie Williams is lush.

I’m no different – I stayed home on Saturday just to watch the historic reformation of one of the world’s greatest rock bands. And I know that half of these pop stars are probably not up there for altruistic reasons. It’s hard not to feel queasy when Mariah Carey or George Michael get teary-eyed and philanthropic. But they are up there, and their presence will cause some people to think for a minute.

Something to be smug about

What must be endlessly frustrating to the cynics is the fact that the movement to drop the debt has been succeeding in sometimes surprising ways.

It's easy for people to get irritated by Bono: He is a smug git and he wears stupid sunglasses. But it's hardly surprising. Pop stars do not tend to get where they are today by being modest. Deep down, we’d all love to be rock stars, with the fame, the girls, the drugs and the adoration - and we'd all be as egotistical as Bono. But he has an extra reason to be smug: He gets to meet presidents and they listen to him.

To the fury of the envious media hordes, Bob and Bono have the influence it takes to get private time with world leaders. Bush and Blair may also have their own shallow motives for hanging out with these scruffy pop music types, but again, motives are irrelevant here. What is important is that the depredations of the third world are kept on the global agenda. Without star-backed organisations like Live Aid, Make Poverty History, G8 Reboot, and DATA, it’s likely that nobody would be doing anything about Africa.

Geldof sat on the UK government’s Commission for Africa, and its report will be presented by Tony Blair to the G8 this week, to the United Nations in September and the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong in December.

By the end of the G8, it seems inevitable that the assembled leaders will announce a massive debt cancellation, as well as initiatives on climate change and trade liberalisation.

And for all the sniping about the failures of Live Aid, even the reformation of Pink Floyd could not compare with the moment when Bob Geldof introduced Birhan Woldu to the Live 8 audience. The last time the world saw Ms Woldu, she was a starving child on the point of death. On Saturday, she was beautiful, ecstatic and very much alive. I don't want to sound corny, but it was an unforgetably moving sight.

Africa suffers from a world of seemingly intractable problems. Perhaps the continent is so deeply damaged that there can never be a solution to suffering. But the continent is broken, and it will not recover without the help of the rest of the world. And anyone who makes an effort to keep the issue in the public eye, whatever their motives, is surely more virtuous and more deserved of respect than the millions of cynics who can do no better than to stand back and sneer.

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