Blair doing rather nicely

He may not have really wanted to let go, but it seems there are generous compensations to being an ex PM:

Tony Blair’s earnings since leaving Downing Street are calculated to have topped £12 million, more than six times his previous lifetime income.

The former Prime Minister, who tours the world speaking to audiences including investment banks, private equity firms and chambers of commerce, is now said to be the highest-paid speaker in the world. Since launching himself on the speaking circuit last October, Mr Blair is understood to have earned more from speeches than Bill Clinton, the former US President, did in his first year after leaving the White House.


His choice of clients is interesting:

The Times can disclose that he has become a particular favourite with the Washington-based Carlyle Group. Next month he will address a conference of its European investors in Paris about “geopolitics”. He addressed a similar conference for Carlyle in Dubai in February.

Carlyle Group is a leading private equity investor in the military. Its board has been graced by both Presidents Bush and its former European chairman was Sir John Major.

Carlyle and the Blair Government have a controversial history. The National Audit Office said taxpayers lost millions from the privatisation of spy technology because of Labour’s decision to appoint Carlyle Group as a preferred bidder too quickly.

Any of you thinking he might make a good speaker at your next day school, well he charges an average of £157,000 for a typical speech of roughly 90 minutes. Not minimum wage then.

That's not all :

Mr Blair receives £84,000 of taxpayers’ money to run a private office and is entitled to an annual pension of £63,468, but this pales to insignificance beside his private earnings. He has made £4.6 million from his memoirs, an estimated £2 million from JPMorgan Chase — including bonus — and £500,000 from Zurich Financial
Services.

Not for Blair then the worries of job security, negative equity, paying the rent or mortgage and pensions .

Blair's Promoting Faith

Quite extraordinary. Tony Blair is launching a new charity to "enlist religion as a force for economic development and conflict resolution, rather than violence and strife". So, to reverse the role it has played for centuries then, eh?

I'm not quite sure what role god-worship has in economic development, unless Tone wants to teach the clerics to get modern and market their product in a more proft-savvy way.

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation was launched on May 30, 2008, in New York City. Blair's fantasies include ideas such as this: "If you got churches and mosques and those of the Jewish faith working together to provide the bed nets that are necessary to eliminate malaria, what a fantastic thing that would be." Look, I really don't get how the two ideas in this sentence go together. Surely bed nets are necessary to eliminate malaria, whether they are supplied by Jews, Muslims, raving atheists, or bed net suppliers to whom religion is irrelevant.

Apparently, "Mr. Blair said at the launch in New York Friday that people cannot understand the modern world unless they understand the importance of religious faith." And also, "there is nothing more important than getting people of different faiths and cultures to understand each other better and live in peace and mutual respect; and to give faith itself its proper place in the future." Nothing more important? Seriously?! The elimination of poverty, equality, fair distribution of wealth, climate change, rights and freedom ... No, no, no. Getting people to understand each other's superstitions is far more crucial.

As for Mr. Blair's heartfelt desire for peace - it would, surely, carry more credibility if he hadn't pursued those wars.

Mind you, calling his new project the 'Tony Blair Faith Foundation' may suggest the faint possibility on god-like pretensions on Mr Blair's part.