Sir Fred Goodwin is not the only one enjoying the credit crunch
If you’re angry or disillusioned about Sir Fred Goodwin’s pension after he destroyed one of the largest banks in Britain, prepare to redirect your disgust and loathing towards Tony Blair. When it comes to making a mint out of a destructive and deceitful legacy, this man has few competitors.
Let’s start with the book. Firstly, he has a £4.6 million advance for his memoirs. Sources close to Mr Blair have disclosed that he has finally begun work on his memoirs, more than a year after negotiating his advance, and has so far written four chapters. He is hoping to have the book ready before the next general election and it will be published if the Conservatives win power. Mr Blair has previously said that he would not publish his book while Gordon Brown was still in power, but with Mr Brown trailing in the opinion polls Mr Blair, 55, wants to be ready to cash in on a Tory win.
Next comes the £2.5 million that he has already earned from advisory roles with JPMorgan Chase and Zurich Financial Services.
Then comes the speaking fees of around £157,000 per lecture.
Add to that his taxpayer-funded pension of £63,468 per year, plus an annual £84,000 allowance to run his private office.
And that’s not the worst of it. Tony Blair has now set up a consultancy to advise world leaders how to run their affairs. Yes, Tony Blair is now going to tell foreign governments how to run their countries. ‘Tony Blair Associates’, as the commercial partnership is called, has already signed up its first client, the government of Kuwait, which is understood to have agreed a seven-figure deal for continuing advice from the former Prime Minister. Mr Blair is counselling the constitutional monarchy of the oil-rich state on “good governance”, according to his spokesman. Mr Blair is running his new consultancy from his extensive suite of offices in Grosvenor Square, central London, where he now employs 70 people to run his different ventures, including his private office, a religious charity and an Africa foundation. Obviously, all those who were hoping that Tony Blair would be taking his role as Middle East peace envoy seriously will be disappointed that he clearly doesn’t care much about it (although the fact that he got that job in the first place is almost as ironic as him pretending that he knows how to run a country).
Ok, so Sir Fred Goodwin is getting his enormous pension from a nationalised bank – but watching Tony Blair parade himself round the world as some kind of saviour and expert statesman after all the lies, deceit and incompetence that he reigned down on this country for almost a decade makes me far more angry than Goodwin ever will.
Do not forget his gift from Israel for being a great diplomat, lets see what did he get that for, well saying sod all when Israel busted up Gaza might be a good guess. £500,000
More then likely got it for saying nothing, doing nothing, being a hero.
It is astonishing that Blair even has a shred of credibility left after what he did to this country and to Britain’s reputation abroad. How anyone can see him as a solution to any problem in the world is beyond me.
I will not buy the book. On principle.
Enough of my money has been wasted on or by that man. Not a penny more than necessary will go in his direction.
The only money I’d willingly spend on Blair would be 8p for two 9mm bullets; one for him and one for his
graspinglovely wife…I refuse to buy or read any of the New Labour brigade’s books – I have seen enough of Prescott, Campbell, Cherie and the rest of them to know that they don’t deserve the time of the day, let alone my money.
Cherie is perhaps a little more excrutiating than the rest, seeing as she has never been relevant to any degree, unlike some of the rest of them. That said, ‘relevance’ does not equate to ‘integrity’ or ‘honesty’.
Don’t click here if you’re easily offended, but it does have a very good satire of Cherie’s writing style.
What Robert says.
The cunning politician collects all the bribes he was promised AFTER leaving or losing office, see also William Hague – he must have been promised shed loads on the off chance he became PM, and has spent the last eight years calling in those promises.
When did letters start getting delivered on Sunday? A welcome surprise – something to do with Royal Mail privatisation?
The thing about Blair is that he’s exceptionally good at something extremely valuable to governments all over the world: he’s absolutely brilliant at getting elected.
And that ability will keep him rich for a long long long time.
Those who can, do. Those who can’t. teach. Those who can’t teach, counsel.
GOM, very good. If Derek Draper became a psychotherapist, it can’t be that hard, can it?
Stu, notice it wasn’t a letter today….