In 1985, whilst Bob Geldof (below, left) and his Live Aid pals were still slapping each other on the back for saving Ethiopia from starvation, Ethiopians themselves - assured that food was on the way - got busy making more children.

As it turned out, much of the money intended for food was siphoned off by Ethiopia's crooked ruling regime, but still the population grew dramatically from around 40 million at the time of Band Aid to well over 100 million now.

And how are they faring?

Tragically Ethiopia remains war-torn, dysfunctional, riddled with poverty, disease and starvation:

The country’s exploding population, coupled with climate change, soil erosion and other environmental factors, has meant the spectre of famine has not gone away for Ethiopia, but instead looms larger than ever before.

What's more, the country has become dependent on food aid in a way that has been compared to a patient who becomes addicted to painkillers. That dependence on food aid also weakens the country's food security - how reliably it can feed its own people, exacerbating its vulnerability in times of drought or famine.

As Ethiopia's population grows, these issues just become larger and larger. Yet the country's population growth shows no sign of stopping. Roughly 2 million more people are added to its total every year, whilst Ethiopian women currently have an average of 4.3 children - admittedly, a fall from the high of 7.4 children, at the time of Band Aid, but still more than enough for the country to continue growing throughout this century.

What's true of Ethiopia is true of much of the rest of Africa.

According to UN projections, the continent's population is set to double from 1.3 billion now to around 2.7 billion by 2055:

That means more poverty, more hunger, more chaos, more misery - impelling millions more Africans to seek refuge in Europe.

Left-wing conservationists implore us to have fewer babies, but ignore the fact that native Europeans are in demographic decline, whilst Africa's exploding population puts ever more intolerable pressure on the natural environment.

Britain's only responsible course of action now is to help slow population growth in Africa and the Third World by supplying them with contraceptives and contraceptive advice.

We should send fleets of trucks full of prophylactics, until for every sub-Saharan African the name 'Johhny English' brings to mind not this:

but this: