Do they know what charity is at all?

I have so many problems with the latest Band Aid single that I don't really know where to begin, but begin we must.

Let's start with the fact that two-thirds of the line-up are unrecognisable to anyone over 30 - not least Bono, who in the group photo looks as if he'd rather be anywhere else than at the feet of a YouTube Vlogger (Zoella) and slightly to the left of a bloke who once lost The X Factor (Olly Murs).

However, my real problem is mastermind Bob Geldof's insistence on shaming Adele for not singing on the track.

"Adele is doing nothing," said Geldof. "She's not answering the phone, she's not writing. She's not recording. She doesn't want to be bothered by anyone. She won't pick up the phone. She's bringing up a family, you know."

This is as condescending as the song itself: do Africans know it's Christmas? As 500 million people living there are Christians, we must presume the answer is yes - and worse, it is a form of bullying that has sneeringly been dressed up as do-gooding.

The message is loud and clear, even if the music isn't: Geldof is here to save West Africa from Ebola, and Adele, with her peculiar uncelebrity desire to sod the limelight as she brings up a toddler, is a selfish woman who must be publicly humiliated.

Later we learnt that Adele had quietly made a private donation to Oxfam. In the self-promoting world of celebrity, the silent act of handing over money to charity is not the done thing. That's what impoverished plebs do.

Instead, the rich and famous donate their precious time, and for this they expect to be celebrated and congratulated, as if, before they flashed their expensively whitened teeth in the video for a song, we had no idea that Ebola was a problem.

"Give us your f***ing money," was Geldof's message way back when, and it is his message now: give up your hard-earned cash because famous people who make millions singing songs have deigned to give up a few hours of their time on a weekend.

"We really can stop this foul little plague," said Geldof, with no mention of other organisations that have long since raised tens of millions of dollars and medical help for the cause.

It's not troops or doctors deployed to Sierra Leone who are going to make a real difference. That honour will go to Geldof and his merry army of popsters.

Singer Noel Gallagher said, during Live 8 nine years ago: " Are they hoping that one of these guys from the G8 is on a quick 15-minute break at Gleneagles and sees Annie Lennox singing Sweet Dreams and thinks, 'F**k me, she might have a point there, we should really drop the debt, you know'. It's not going to happen, is it?"

Anyone who refuses to go along with Geldof is pilloried or sworn at. When a TV interviewer asked him this week about the tax practices of some of the artists featured on the song, his only answer was: "It's b******s."

It's the kind of response you might expect from a child, but from a 63-year-old trying to engage the public on a grave matter it just seems churlish.

Nobody wants a world full of Ebola, but nor do I want a world full of malaria and HIV and tuberculosis and numerous other diseases - not to mention conditions such as hunger and poverty - that destroy the lives of millions of Africans every day.

Certainly, I don't want to be told how to behave philanthropically by a man worth an estimated £32-million, a man who is said to use tax avoidance schemes (it is telling that when a journalist asked him two years ago how much tax he paid, Geldof exploded at her, saying: "My time? Is that not a tax?" Well no, Bob, it isn't).

I don't want to be implored to give charitably by a band that travels in separate private jets because they don't get on (One Direction), or by a man who avoids Irish taxes while simultaneously telling the Irish government to help developing countries (Bono).

"It really doesn't matter if you don't like this song," said Geldof as he launched it, "what you have to do is buy this thing."

But do we? Really? If we don't, does this make us unfeeling and uncaring, or does it mean we have already donated money to the cause, or a different cause?

Band Aid 30 is predicated on a belief that the public are mean-spirited and uncharitable, when nothing could be further from the truth. It's time the likes of Geldof stopped asking us to give money, and, like Adele, started donating some themselves. Charity begins at home.