I am so committed to getting my book finished I really don’t have time or energy to blog at the moment, and realise it has been very desultory the last few weeks. I am well and happy, it is just that writing a properly researched history is incredibly intensive. I realise there is much of great interest happening in the world, but I must sometimes cut myself off from it.
This is why I don’t ask for donations for the blog…
Is Tony on his hols, now? And what might he be doing at Alpnach? Hmmm. I’d like some better connection between some intriguing dots, here.
Hotel Schweizerhof, Lucerne/Luzern….?
Considerably more detail on Mrs Blair/Cherie Booth/Omnia Strategy’s Maldives adventure.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cherie-blairs-right-hand-man-previously-pitched-to-represent-the-other-side-in-maldives-case-a6779321.html
The former President’s (Nasheed’s -BZ) office is preparing a complaint to the Bar Council, which regulates British barristers. The council declined to comment on an individual case.
Exemplary piece by Usborne, plenty of background, factual.
Intriguing how Tony Blair’s past outings surface high on the search pages when it is very possible that his location is to be a secret. Ba’al isn’t fooled by his “arrival” in LA within “the last 24 hours”, however. The video currently at #2 was shot on April 29th, 2014. Thousands are watching it, ostensibly. But why?
Ba’al is equally sceptical of new and unattributable rumours that Wendi’s Fancyman is about to ditch Cherie and go and live in Tel Aviv with an incredibly rich Israeli woman (unspecified, but there are several possibilities.) While the story would be entirely credible, Cherie would sue the skin from his bones before being completely unconnected with the subsequent hit by someone from Myanmar. Too much like wishful thinking, all round.
In other news, Tony Blair’s good buddy (he hasn’t yet been seen embracing him, as he did with Gaddafi, so nothing more) Paul Kagame, has triumphed in his bid to rule Rwanda for ever. It was a close call – only 98% of the electorate voted for this. Still, ‘for ever’ can be a short time in African politics unless your name is Mugabe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35138671
[ Mod: Caught in spam-filter, timestamp updated. ]
—
Leaving Tony to fall off an alp, if there is a god, ructions in Sierra Leone, whose President Koroma is a democrat, a good Christian and one of the most liberal presidents in Africa’, according to Tony Blair, whose Africa Governance Initiative is well established there.
http://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/?p=11073
If you click on the page, flakes of snow can be seen descending on Koroma. This may be a virus, but because Tony single-handedly eradicated it, we can hope it’s not ebola.
Mystic Ba’al gets it wrong again: Blair did go to the Saban Forum*, but whatever he had to say was poorly reported. Probably because he wasn’t headlining:
http://jewishinsider.com/5441/daily-kickoff-full-recap-of-the-rjc-forum-how-zuckerbergs-altruism-helps-himself-mayor-jeff-zucker-new-dc-kosher-spot-daniel-mael-engaged/
“Other notable guests include Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Chief of Staff of the IDF Gabi Ashkenazi, U.S. Envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations Frank Lowenstein, and former U.S. National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley.”
While John Kerry was all but weeping with frustration at Israel’s behaviour, Hillary was schmoozing for Jewish votes and Tony was demoted to “other guest” status. Sweet. Though JWH knows why he was there at all. The gig was about US-Israeli relations.
*https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-6/#comment-566104
I’m not sure of the provenance of this. The surroundings are more austere than those normally occupied by the Dear Global Leader. Cheerless, even. Has he been arrested by someone? They’ve taken away his tie, if so, and that modern block in the background is not usually visible from South Pavilion, the official residence. But there’s more.
What might first appear to be bedsheets untidied by the help, behind him, resolve, to the suspicious eye, as a topographical model of something distinctly Alpine. however. And this video appears only to have been obtained by Bulgaria EU, not the UK
Blair fanzinestabloids.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krrBJK0Jxfc
Hmm. Intended to mislead? Possibly. Vacation in Switzerland? Also possibly.
Happy Christmas, Tony, you shitweasel.
No news yet of the extravagant partying taking place in a rich person’s hideaway/yacht/aircraft/alp, surrounded by heavy security including deaf-mute staff with vulnerable relatives, and subject to press blackouts/injunctions/writs. Not even a recent press release detailing Our Saviour’s opinion that everyone in the Niddle East (apart from Israel, obvs) is a maniaical jihadist. Silence, for once.
Mind you, Google has prioritised some Blairiana from the back catalogue. Notably, Gay Times revisits last year’s revelation:
https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/news/20644/gt-icon-tony-blair/
CAUTION: Explicit picture of Blair – fully clothed, mercifully
Which raises some questions regarding his male friendships, such as with Rick Warren (seen together here at the WEF, Davos, 2008 – the association is still live)
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Mr-JJT-NKaA/VmSrO6sPZAI/AAAAAAAAXJs/b3ZBN7B3UFc/s200/rick-warren.jpg
http://www.politicalresearch.org/2014/03/06/scott-lively-rick-warren-the-pr-campaign-to-whitewash-the-rights-anti-gay-uganda-history/
Meanwhile, Peter Foster is detained, again. Foster’s brokering of the sale of two Bristol flats to the Cherie Blair Property Speculation Foundation may actually have been the one honest deed of his career…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/12074013/Conman-Peter-Foster-former-Cherie-Blair-associate-raided-over-hitman-plot.html
That’s all for now. But not for long. Wishing the Supreme Pontificator a New Year in which his most lucrative gig will be a ten-minute slot at the Cowdenbeath Railway Modellers’ Association’s AGM.
Bearing in mind Cherie Blair’s ongoing acquisition of lettable properties in gentrifiable (cue existing tenants departing) parts of oop north, this is of passing interest. Though it goes without saying that Cherie is in no way attempting to represent her own interests while pocketing a tidy fee. Therefore, let it remain unsaid.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/buy-to-let/12074893/Buy-to-let-tax-raid-600-landlords-donate-42000-to-fund-judicial-review.html
Omnia Strategy, founded and chaired by Cherie Blair QC, the wife of Tony Blair, has been appointed to represent landlords’ interests.
It is not known whether Ms Blair is personally aware of the case, but her own buy-to-let investments have in the past attracted publicity and criticism.
Along with her husband Tony, Cherie Blair reportedly owns properties worth over £30m in a portfolio which has included buy-to-let flats in Bristol and Manchester.
It has been suggested, by Mrs. Blair, that Mrs. Blair is a socialist.
Something seems to have gone awry with the Grinning Skull’s apparently cosy relationship with HMG:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/12078659/Tony-Blair-is-banned-from-staying-at-British-embassies-on-commercial-missions.html
The Foreign Office said it wanted to prevent the “inappropriate use” of government staff and resources and avoid the perception abroad that such figures were representing the UK Government.
About bloody time. Now can we take a look at the proportion of Blair’s astronomical security bill which is still being funded by hardworkingbri’ishfamilies?
In all probability nothing much will actually change. The Blairs’ flunkeys will continue to check Tripadvisor for the swankiest hotels and charge their stay to the UAE, JP Morgan, Zurich Insurance, or the benevolent dictator whom Cherie or Tony happens to be advising on putting journalists in prison or obtaining international aid for a new palace. Failing that, an oligarch’s yacht. Stable door. Horse. Bolted.
Mystic Ba’al may have had too much Glenfiddich this festive season, but she slurs that Tony Blair will probably be returning from Andermatt tomorow….
Mystic Ba’al’s just booked in at the Priory. Although she had good reason to believe Tony was in Switzerland, we now have a reported sighting in the Seychelles.
http://www.eturbonews.com/67247/former-uk-prime-minister-tony-blair-private-holiday-seychelles
That’s certainly someone who looks quite like the Grinning Skull…but slightly less skeletal? OTOH, arranging Tony for a Bulgarian video, next to an unimaginative Christmas tree in a boxroom containing a model of the summit of a mountain similar to the Gemsstock, and other factors, don’t quite convince me either. We famously don’t do skiing, although the billionaire Egyptian developer who owns a chunk of Andermatt and recently flew Tony from Cairo to Luton does.
Diary:
Slightly firmer fix here:
http://www.dailymirror.lk/101611/tony-blair-in-sl-for-economic-forum
Another few days in the sun…but he’s not on the list of speakers:
http://www.dailynews.lk/?q=2016/01/04/business/sri-lanka-economic-forum-jan-7-8
Doubt that’ll stop him talking.
Mahe-Colombo. Now who owns a Dassault Falcon 7X?
Murk clearing slightly. ‘African Intelligence’ (paywall) says Tony arrived in the Seychelles on the 29th. Plenty of time to have been going
off pissedoffpiste with Cherie beforehand. Intriguing questions arise, on which more if data emerges.(bad words deleted -BZ)
http://www.slguardian.org/2016/01/alliged-war-criminal-blair-wants-to-be-peacemaker-in-sri-lanka/
Supported by other SL sources. How this (bad words deleted -BZ)bag can have the colossal (bad words deleted -BZ) gall to yet again pose as some kind of reconciler of factions about which he knows absolutely(bad words deleted -BZ)-all… I said FUCK_ALL…after wasting nine years utterly failing, and indeed not even trying, to resolve the Palestinian issue, and after turning most of the rest of the ME into a rubble-strewn mediaeval bloodbath, is beyond me.
How anyone nowadays can believe that Mr Blair can do anything to any situation other than make it spectacularly worse is also beyond me. Still, it proves something I have long believed. There is no God.
Bwahahahahah time.
http://web9blog.com/article?id=348431
This notion that I want to be a billionaire with a yacht; I don’t. I am never going to be part of the super-rich. I have no interest in that at all
£8000 a night in the Seychelles says different.
To clarify matters for Tony, no, he doesn’t want to be a billionaire with a yacht, while it is much more convenient to hire yachts (see earlier this year); and the definition of super-rich varies according to whether you’re getting through a million a year or on the basic wage. So let’s settle for “I want to be adulated wherever I go and being obscenely well-paid for blethering at important people plays similarly into my thwarted ambition to be a rock star”
Blair successfully inserts agent into Guinea’s government:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/guinea-president-reshuffl/2400650.html
(harp arpeggio, wavy dissolve)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10518355/Tony-Blair-and-the-Africa-mine-deal.html
File under Tony Blair/Mubadala/mining/anywhere
Looks like a few more beans wmay be getting spilled soon –
http://www.curtisbrown.co.uk/news/faber-announces-tony-blair-biography
Tom Bower was one of those who in 1997 looked on in excited anticipation as Blair took up residence in Downing Street. Now he has uncovered the full story of Blair’s decade in power, and has followed Blair’s trail since his resignation, to Asia, the Middle East and America, where he has built an extraordinary commercial empire advising tycoons and tyrants.
Out in March.
Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, and a man of extraordinary perception, has been following the career of Donald Trump with even more interest than I have in that of Tony Blair. If Trump did not exist, who would be a ‘wizard’ in Adams’ view?
1. The wizard succeeds in a high-profile field without the benefit of as much talent as you would expect should be necessary. (This is the biggest tell.)
2. People seem to have an irrational hate for the wizard that is not entirely explained by the wizard’s actions. Regular readers already know these unusual reactions are signs of cognitive dissonance. Wizards induce cognitive dissonance often, without trying.
3. Look for an inflated ego combined with an unusually strong ability to withstand withering criticism. (Wizards get a lot of criticism.) The common view is that wizards are egomaniacs. In reality, the wizard works hard to remain ego-free, and hence can handle criticism well.
4. Wizards are often more ambitious, and often more aggressive, than you think is normal.
5. One or more major PR disasters define the wizard’s history.
6. The wizard has a gift for simplification.
7. Observers detect a reality distortion field.
8. Wizards have an ability to succeed where other fail by changing the entire game as opposed to winning at the existing one.
9. Wizards use words to create images and emotions in people’s minds.
10. Wizards seek public attention.
10/10, no? And that clears up another apparent anomaly; that while the content of Blair’s speeches is trite, obvious, hackneyed pabulum, his audiences report being charmed, impressed and to some extent converted. Not by what he has said – see (9) – but because he –
is talking directly to people’s subconscious. Everything else he says is just a carrier signal.
The modulation is the message.
Now, what’s his motivation?
10/10, no? And that clears up…because he was inadvertantly italicised, should any mod visit this dungeon.
Crime pays –
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/12085914/Tony-Blairs-business-triples-profits-as-staff-get-30000-pay-rise.html
Not that anyone, ever, anywhere, pays Tony anything.
Tony Blair is scheduled to attend a two-day economic forum in Colombo today and/or tomorrow. Interestingly:
Asked whether the British High Commission in Colombo had facilitated Blair’s visit, a BHC spokesperson said; “Former UK PM Tony Blair is here on a private visit and the British High Commission in Colombo is not coordinating his visit or meetings.”
Blair arrived in Colombo last Sunday. He is scheduled to attend a government organised two-day economic forum on January 7 and 8 at the Cinnamon Grand. Among other guests are international investor George Soros and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
So who is co-ordinating or otherwise sponsoring his meetings? A clue in the comments:
Nanda Says:
January 6th, 2016 at 3:53 pm
However, Blair is trying to sell Chinese investments in Sri Lanka this time. Not Prabhakaran’s investments.
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/01/06/gota-frowns-on-tna-blair-talks-on-accountability-etc-bhc-we-arent-coordinating-former-prime-ministers-visit/
More on that, though necessarily in veiled terms:
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/92250/dubious-chinese-investments-in-lankas-satellite-sector-cause-national-security-concerns
dubious deals seem to have been solicited by businessmen with doubtful integrity or no experience to run such companies dealing with critical technological know-how. Sources say that they are basically fronting for China.
In a related development, former British prime minister Tony Blair has landed in Sri Lanka to participate in a high profile investment drive. The visit and the investment drive are being coordinated by persons of dubious repute to push the Chinese agenda.
Batting for Beijing, eh, Tone?
Tony Blair is scheduled to attend a two-day economic forum in Colombo today and/or tomorrow. Interestingly:
Asked whether the British High Commission in Colombo had facilitated Blair’s visit, a BHC spokesperson said; “Former UK PM Tony Blair is here on a private visit and the British High Commission in Colombo is not coordinating his visit or meetings.”
Blair arrived in Colombo last Sunday. He is scheduled to attend a government organised two-day economic forum on January 7 and 8 at the Cinnamon Grand. Among other guests are international investor George Soros and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz.
So who is co-ordinating or otherwise sponsoring his meetings? A clue in the comments:
Nanda Says:
January 6th, 2016 at 3:53 pm
However, Blair is trying to sell Chinese investments in Sri Lanka this time. Not Prabhakaran’s investments.
http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2016/01/06/gota-frowns-on-tna-blair-talks-on-accountability-etc-bhc-we-arent-coordinating-former-prime-ministers-visit/
More on that, though necessarily in veiled terms:
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/92250/dubious-chinese-investments-in-lankas-satellite-sector-cause-national-security-concerns
dubious deals seem to have been solicited by businessmen with doubtful integrity or no experience to run such companies dealing with critical technological know-how. Sources say that they are basically fronting for China.
In a related development, former British prime minister Tony Blair has landed in Sri Lanka to participate in a high profile investment drive. The visit and the investment drive are being coordinated by persons of dubious repute to push the Chinese agenda.
Batting for Beijing, eh, Tone?
Though the FCO may not be quite as distant from this operation as it suggests:
https://www.rt.com/uk/310834-blair-china-fco-documents/
Redacted phone transcripts indicate that Clinton, while keeping Blair on a lead, treated him with mild contempt, to which Blair’s ego was blind and deaf. Blair does not appear to have pontificated at the SL economic conference, but schmoozed with the opposition leader and the Tamils. And Tony Blair is now in Burma, in the glow of Aung San Suu Kyi’s positive political aura. He’s certainly in need of a recharge.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Suu-Kyi-and-Shwe-Mann-meet-Tony-Blair-30276425.html
More details, but not many, on the Visitation to Myanmar.
http://www.irrawaddy.com/from-the-irrawaddy-archive-burma/is-tony-blair-pursuing-a-governance-mission-in-burma-2.html
In which we learn that during a previous visit in 2013 (not the previous visit, which was before the elections this year) the Global Guffmeister,,,
… was in Burma … meeting with top government officials.
He led a “delegation,” including Britain’s ambassador to Burma, Andrew Heyn, which met with Vice President Nyan Tun at the ostentatious Presidential Palace in Naypyidaw ….
Once again, that hint that HMG and Tony are in very close cahoots. And that, at least on the press release from TB Associates, Tony outranks a mere ambassador.
The present visit probably marks the only occasion on which Tony has been upstaged by a box of tissues and a bunch of bottled water. Is it all for him?
My bad. The picture at 11.01 pm is allegedly from Jan 2015 (though I have no record of Tony being there then. He seems to have visited in March, though) The previous post is correctly dated as far as I can tell.
Meanwhile, an intriguing deal between Romania and Kazakhstan, not unnaturally invoving oil, seems to have Blair lurking in the wings….
In early 2014, the government signed a memorandum Ponta Rompetrol group that Kazakhs escape a debt of half a billion dollars. After two years, the liberal Lucian Isar harsh accusations: clear how the debt has been paid for Ponta advice given by Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Great Britain. At the same time, Blair advises and in Kazakhstan, informs –
http://www.nasul.tv/exploziv-pe-cine-a-platit-ponta-stergand-datoriile-rompetrol/
(via Google Translate)
Group consulting firm of former Prime Minister Blair government announced a tripling of profit and expansion team. This period overlaps with the management team to former premier Ponta in Bucharest.
Bloomberg Source here.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-07/former-u-k-prime-minister-tony-blair-sees-profits-triple
At the same time former Prime Minister Ponta has done a nice gift Rompetrol Group.
In the same period the currency in Kazakhstan Tenge had a spectacular fall. Bloomberg Source here http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-20/kazakhstan-scraps-currency-trading-band-moves-to-free-float
In summary consulting former Prime Minister Blair to Kazakhstan brought a ticket, certainly benefit 600 million through Rompetrol hill but macro instability. Excellence in Pass down to certain Romanian Prime Minister has proven a former prime minister Blair and Mittal axis Sidex Galati supporter in campanie- privatization. Perhaps this is the specialization of the company.
The consulting services are expensive and are difficult paid from the state budget. Consequently a picture stadium in South Africa obscuring reality captured state can cost a company a major erasing debt … “luck” that came bundled together and others that too was nothing on the land.
It is still of great interest as Gazprom would pay at large to lecture (probably ‘to be lectured by’ -BZ) a former premier who can explain how to reset royalties delayed for 4 years.
http://lucianisar.com/general/ponta-rompetrol-blair/
In English, this is known as a conflict of interest. Blair, simultaneously advising Romania and Kazakhstan, is thought to be the driver of Romania’s cancelling a major Kazakh debt. Which is hardly to the advantage of Romania, happy as it might make Nazarbayev, Blair, and, presumably Ponta, who authorised it. But I am using Google Translate as my guide.. Better translations welcomed.
(Sidex Galati is one of Lakshmi Mittal’s steel mills. Lakshmi Mittal is one of Blair’s best mates.)
(Harp arpeggio: Romania Today dissolves to Romania Then…
n 2002, a British member of Parliament, Adam Price, made public a controversial link between Mittal and Prime Minister Tony Blair, an affair later referred as the Garbagegate or Cash for Influence. Through his Dutch Antilles-based company LNM, which gathers less than 1% of its workforce (estimated at more than 100,000) in the United Kingdom, Mittal sought Blair’s European influence in its bid to take over control of Romania’s state-owned steel industry. Price obtained a copy of the letter Blair addressed to the Romanian government, which insinuated that the privatization and sale of the firm to LNM might ease the process of Romania’s entry into the European Union.
In return, Mittal donated $245,000 to Blair’s Labour Party after the 2001 general elections.
http://www.ceo-watch.com/lakshmi-mittal.html
And Victor Ponta, canoodling with Blair earlier this year, subsequently resigned following a messy corruption trial. Perhaps he hadn’t paid attention to Blair blairing about good governance? No matter. He’ll probably be back soon:
http://www.nineoclock.ro/former-pm-victor-ponta-returns-to-politics/