What else is a man of taste to do, other than look at Bono and U2 with a snivelling haughtiness? Sure, the guitars used to be good, and in the late 1980s the group might have found their way. But now Bono is too earnest, his politics are undergrad, his sound unoriginal and his general vibe just so goddamn cringe. If Emmanuel Macron, Mark Carney, Leo Varadkar and Justin Trudeau started a band it would look a lot like U2; Croke Park traded for the big stage at Davos. I – the clever, perceptive, enlightened critic – can see this. You – the credulous midwit – never will.

Enough! All of that might rank among the most asinine cultural criticism of this century. But Bono has the unique ability to scramble the minds of otherwise sensible people – who hold him aloft as both a risible loser and a malign elitist. Since his more explicitly political turn, the right find Bono to be a preachy establishment shill in bed with pointless supranationals like the World Health Organisation and “Bill Gates”. The left find his bland liberalism as insulting – as dangerous – as any of the “fascism” they detect elsewhere in the political culture. For now, everyone else has got over the sneering and the centre is ready to give Bono a chance. And what’s less cool than that?

The band’s new EP won’t do much to........

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