Last week’s UN agreement to impose a no fly zone over Libya was only
reached after Colonel Gaddafi banned his supporters from taking part in
Comic Relief, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon revealed today.
‘It wasn’t looking good’ he told reporters. ‘Russia and China weren’t at all
keen on taking action, but then Gaddafi gave a press conference saying that
he had banned his loyalist militia from wearing red noses, and everything
changed.’
Russian President Medvedev explained, ‘slaughtering your own people in the
Street, kidnapping and beating foreign journalists, harbouring suspected
terrorists and having a highly suspect human rights record is one thing, but
not supporting Comic Relief – that’s completely unacceptable.’
Chinese President Hu added ‘he even claimed that he was going to watch the
live programme on Friday without donating anything – even when the little
clips of starving African children were on. What’s more, he planned to keep
eating his tea whilst watching them, not even putting his knife and fork down
for a minute of respectful silence. We’ve warned him that he could well face a
war crimes tribunal if that’s proved to be true.’
News of the ban came through early on Friday morning, when Gaddafi ranted
in a press conference that all red noses would be removed from tanks
and armoured vehicles. He also boasted that even though he had sponsored
his friend Abdelbaset al-Megrahi 50p a mile for his sponsored walk from
Lands End to John O’Groats, he had no plans to pay up.
The news was even more of a surprise as Gaddafi has been a big supporter
of the fund raising event in the past. Last time he himself raised over £50
when he agreed to take part in a ‘sponge the colonel’ event, and his love of
the event goes back even further – on a recent appearance on Desert Island
Discs he picked Hale & Pace’s Comic Relief record The Stonk as one of his
choices.
The cause of his change of heart is not yet known, but reports have been
filtering out of Tripoli that he was very upset with the result of the Let’s
Dance for Comic Relief final, having spent most of his assets not frozen by
European banks voting for Noel Fielding to win.
