PaperMonster
Seriously, if you know anything about JL you’d have known he’d done something decent with the money.
Yes he has. And I suppose he has to understand that there are always going to be those who pride themselves on not knowing things, so what matters is that his stunt would endear him to those who do know of him and appreciate his way of doing things.
A few weeks ago he said something on Laura Kuenssberg that went straight over my head. I can't remember exactly what it was, but he was being satirical and I didn't 'get it'. I do know who he is and that he is (IMO) 'one of the good guys', so told my daughter indignantly that he'd said whatever it was. She rolled her eyes and put me right. That fascinating anecdote shows that he doesn't always get it right, but also that if the likes of me is left out of the loop it really doesn't matter.
Love him or hate him (and that applies to Beckham too) the bottom line is that people who might never have given a thought to the issue are now talking about the morality of making money from a cause that you are prepared to abandon when someone else offers you more. We might all have forgotten about it in a couple of weeks' time, but Lycett has made his point, and the AVE (advertising value equivalent) of a £10k spend has been excellent. DB will have to spend a lot more to get back the loss of PR that he has suffered.
Should celebrities have this responsibility? I don't know. If someone offered my £10m to do something legal but dishonourable, I can't say with any certainty that I wouldn't. It is easy to find ways to rationalise things like that. It should really be down to governments and FIFA to deal with this sort of thing, but they haven't. Also, the people mentioned in this debacle, (DB, Robin Williams and Elton John) are all well able to turn down the money and still live lives of massive luxury, and it's ironic that all of them have got a lot of their wealth from the pink pound. On balance, I think it's fair to think they should have turned it down, even if they'd done so with huge fanfare.