A week that was

This has been a week that I will not forget in a hurry - this time last week I was concerned that the rock star Geldolf and his popular rock concert was actually doing more harm to the cause of removing poverty in Africa than good.

It had always been my intention today to publish a commentry on the G8 meeting. However, by the end of the week my concerns were focused on the hope that our very British way of life would suffer as a result of the evil attack by terrorists in London.

Early on Thursday afternoon, following a routine business meeting with the Rev Phillip Carrington, Hospital Chaplin at the vast James Cook University Hospital in Teesside, our conversation diversed to the terrorist outrage in London that morning. We of course discussed the horror, the deaths, the missing commuters, the consequences, and the political reaction. Philip commented that the paper requesting prays for those involved in the tradegdy remained blank. I wrote '' pray for the journalists whose work it is to report the carnage in our Capital ...... ''

The reasons were quite clear in his mind. Some consideration needs to be given to the reporters whose job it is to objectivly report scenes of absolute horror. Also, most importantly if speculation is allowed to become fact and misreporting were to feed anger and hatred the terrorists will have achieved one of their key objectives - that of forcing an over reaction.

If our nation's press corp and indeed our politicians over react and as a consequence affect our very British way of life we will becomes victims of the war of terrorism. A war, which is unlike no other war that Britons have fought before - for this is a war with a hidden sinister enemy.

The biltz that killed 40,000 Londoners in 1940 and the many IRA bomb outrages in the UK were perpetuated by a known, if not always visible enemy.

The terrorists who murdered - what is probably sadly 80 innocent people on Thursday morning are an unknown sinister evil enemy, not a nation state, not a defined organisation. Al Qaeda does not exist as an organisation as such, it comprises of several terrorist formations operating with the help of several Arab Intelligence services and vaguely linked by a common ideology, which the unknown evil activists will murder and die for in pursuit of their fanatical holy war.

It is not an urban myth, it is a well known fact that the British people when attacked dig deep and find a resolve like no other nation on earth. We do not panic, we do not complain (apart from about our weather) we fight back in a very British way, as we are solumly reminded to day by the 6O th annerversery celebrations of the end of the second world in London today.

Her Majesty said on Friday: ''we must not allow terrorists to change our way of life'' Indeed so it would not be British to do so.

The media coverage of the G8 summit in Scotland has, following the attack in London, been somewhat truncated. Even then, the Goggle news service yields some 2,564 related stories from a "G8" search.

It is vital that the summit of world leaders is not overshadowed by other news.

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Predictably, the main players are spinning like mad, to put as positive a gloss on the affair as they can, reflected in the coverage in The Times, which headlines: "Blair backs G8's 'big progress' on poverty and Aids.

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"Clearly, though, "environmentalists and anti-poverty campaigners" are not so happy, and have already begun to condemn the summit as a failure, claiming that Blair has failed to live up to expectations he had created. But none seem to be as outspoken as Peter Hardstaff, the head of policy at the World Development Movement. He declared that: "The final communiqué is an insult to the hundreds of thousands of campaigners who listened in good faith to the world leaders' claim that they were willing to seriously address poverty in Africa."

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Perhaps the strongest condemnation, though, was unintended, with South Africa’s Independent online reporting that: "Low-key Bush gets what he wanted at G8 summit". That, of course – for most campaigners – is the kiss of death. In the demonology of the age, anything which satisfies Bush must automatically be wrong.

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More interestingly, the London bombing, in political terms, seems to have backfired, in that it allowed Bush to push the "war against terrorism" up the agenda and to side-track attention from the twin issues of aid for Africa and climate change.

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Nonetheless, the view is that Bush gave just enough leeway to these two "delicate" subjects to allow Blair to claim a victory. Thus, he formally recognised that: "Climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe" and doffed his cap to Kyoto, although still asserting that "uncertainties remain in our understanding of climate science".

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On aid to Africa, Bush had announced before the summit a $1.2 billion plan to fight malaria, promising to double the $4.3 billion of US aid to $8.6 billion by 2010. Washington did not want precise figures to be written into the G8 declaration but finally agreed that the G8 and "other donors" would commit to increasing aid to Africa by $25 billion by 2010 double that of 2004, giving a figure for the headline writers of $50 billion.

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Even then, campaigners has dismissed this "doubling of global aid to $50 billion" as a "statistical illusion" – which it probably is – leaving Blair in the uncomfortable but familiar position of defending a deal that relies more on smoke and mirrors than substance.Other "touchy-feely" promises include debt relief for the poorest countries, a commitment to Aids treatment for all, immunisation against polio and other killer diseases and an extra 20,000 trained troops for a peace-keeping force for Africa. But, to illustrate quite how wispy the agreement really is, "African leaders" promised in turn to "promote democracy, the rule of law, human rights and an end to corruption."

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Yeah… and the pigs are lining up for take-off at Harare Airport.

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One of the least substantial commitments, however, is a promise to end agricultural exports subsidies, the lie given to the promise by the inability (or refusal) of the G8 leaders to give a date for their cessation.

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According to Reuters, they also renewed their political backing for a further phase of trade liberalisation under the so-called Doha Round of negotiations by the end of next year. Understandably, trade analysts in Geneva, home to the WTO, said they doubted the G8 declaration would have much impact on the negotiations and, sadly, they are probably right.Adriano Campolina Soares of ActionAid accused Bush and the EU of playing "a cynical game of bluff." "The U.S. has no intention of giving up or lowering the massive subsidies it gives to cotton farmers, that are forcing 10 million farmers in West Africa out of business," she said.

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Still, at least The Times has got some measure of the beast, with an authored article by Michael Holman, former Africa Editor of the Financial Times. Headed, "Welcome to the aid business," he notes that: "Business is booming for NGOs in Africa while skilled Africans leave to work abroad," asking, "Is the aid business contributing to Africa's problems rather than solving them?"

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Meanwile the Cricket match against Australia at Lords in London continues today as planned - and so it should. There is nothing more normal than Cricket in Britain in the summer.