An Apology 2256

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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…

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2,256 thoughts on “An Apology”

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    • Ba'al Zevul

      She will be attending this next month, with Bono:

      http://skoll.org/skoll-world-forum/

      It seeks to accelerate entrepreneurial approaches and solutions to the world’s most pressing problems by uniting social entrepreneurs with essential partners in a collaborative pursuit of learning, leverage, and large-scale social change.

      Or, in other words encourages making money out of the world’s most pressing problems by uniting middlemen with donors in a process of indoctrination, coercion, and the universal imposition of globalist mores.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    We might enquire, at this stage in Tony Blair’s corporate agglomeration of interests, whether the UK taxpayer – who, if the current signs are true will be facing further draconian cutbacks in all services this year – should really be paying a penny piece towards Tony’s security, even though the number of people who hate him, and are armed, is increasing daily. Should we not rather let nature take its course?

    EG –
    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/12/tony-blair-police-protection-costs-taxpayers-millions-report-claims
    http://metro.co.uk/2016/07/07/this-is-how-much-tony-blair-is-worth-and-how-much-it-costs-you-to-protect-him-every-week-5991568/
    https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/290977/boris-johnson-turns-down-tony-blairs-bid-for-extra-resources-as-his-total-bill-hits-taxpayer-for-almost-3m-a-year/

    We think so. Petition Parliament to end this outrageous abuse of the taxpayer’s charity:

    https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/186047

    And pass it on, please.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    From her triumph among the Tories, Cherie Blair is today to engage in a conversation with Laura Bush on the subject of “the role of first ladies across the globe”. Which is, of course, to make as many contacts as possible in order to assure a post-first-lady career bellowing comfortable platitudes at audiences prepared to pay $$$ for a seat.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqA4oXCBZZA

    Interestingly, Hillary, epitome of the tragically underprivileged first lady, and close associate of the Blairs, will not be there. Has Cherie gone completely alt-Right? Or is Bushism the new centrism?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Since we’re here, here’s a charming recent photo of Cherie with Ben Murray-Bruce, a Nigerian media and real-estate tycoon, in a pub.

    http://www.juliablaise.com/2017/03/photos-of-ben-murray-bruce-cherie-blair.html

    Murray-Bruce is alleged to owe substantial quantities of money to Nigeria’s Asset Management Corporation, which stepped in when Bruce’s Silverbird group hit the skids around 2014…

    http://www.brandish.com.ng/how-ben-bruce-retrieved-his-silverbird-group-from-amcon/

    Is Omnia about to get another customer?

  • Ba'al Zevul

    If Craig’s still in Ghana, Tony may be found there too today. At the Institute for Economic Affairs, blairing about democracy. He may be finished now, in fact, and our best guess is that he’s doing his annual concern-for-Africa run, which usually terminates in the UAE or Xrael.
    Or maybe Egypt: an unusual journey by one of Sawiris’ Bombardiers probably fits the schedule, although full details are not yet available.

    https://citifmonline.com/2017/03/28/tony-blair-to-meet-akufo-addo-today/

    • Ba'al Zevul

      A little more on what must have been an epic blairing, telling Ghana it must make difficult choices in order to develop. Mineral resources get a specific mention: relevant to current CM post ‘Thoughts From Ghana’.

      … this country has huge potential. It’s got resources that it can develop and exploit. What is necessary is that it sets the country on the right path, to take difficult decisions and improve the lives of the people”.

      http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Ghana-must-take-difficult-decisions-to-develop-Tony-Blair-523156

      Those difficult choices – Trash your environment and mine everything you can as fast as you can. JP Morgan will assist you in this. Or maybe you’d prefer the Chinese? Tony has contacts there too.

      Make everyone live in cities as the countryside and forest are devastated. The citizens can sell each other mobile phones and they will then be entrepreneurs. Bish bosh, peoples’ lives improved.. Make sure the bits round the international airports look good because very few visitors will ever see anywhere else, and you’ll be an economic miracle and a monument to transformative change.

      And if the President will take the advice of an ex-PM who bitterly regrets not doing the same himself, make yourself de facto president-for-life like Kagame and don’t forget to stamp out corruption in the opposition party. If they get their claws on the aid funds, that pension of yours won’t look nearly so good.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Yup, looks like he’s flying Air Sawiris again. Whose Gulfstream 650 (not Bombardier, sorry) was very coincidental with Tony’s lunch date in Accra. The Sawiris clan is heavily into property development and telecoms. Naguib S. backed Sisi’s installation. (Kagame remained in the US to ingratiate himself with the Atlantic Council.)

      • Ba'al Zevul

        Overnight in Burkina Faso – not on the usual schedule, but major gold reserves and recent new president – then on to Nigeria. Which he has just left, if it’s him. Buhari wouldn’t even give him lunch?

        • Ba'al Zevul

          On closer examination, looks as if Tony overnighted in Accra, while his pumpkin and mice went to Burkina Faso, returning to pick him up in the morning, on the way home. This may be because Sawiris’s Endeavour Mining has a huge and profitable goldmine in Burkina Faso, and the implication would be that Tony’s offer of his vast governance expertise and detailed knowledge of the region to the 110-minister government of Ghana was not the priority here. (Something similar happened last year when the taxi overnighted in Uganda, but Blair didn’t appear to have gone with it.)

          Tony would seem to be back in the UK now, anyway. At a guess, in residence at South Pavilion last night.

        • Ba'al Zevul

          And Tony paid a flying visit (fnaarrr) to Togo after departing Accra yesterday. Not Nigeria, though: We wondered about that flight track:

          https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://koaci.com/togo-visite-tony-blair-marche-pays-vers-commonwealth-107860.html&prev=search

          Not content with wangling the Balkans into the EU (tx for all the Romanians, Tone), he’s now looking for customers for the Commonwealth/UAE/ JP Morgan. Admission of Brexit defeat, if you ask us.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Revised itinerary, based on latest clues.

    Yesterday:
    1. Ghana
    1.5 Possibly Burkina Faso
    Today:
    2. Togo
    3. Sao Tome
    3.5 Possibly Angola.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    With Tony Blair still very possibly in the general area of West Africa, and no recent blairings elsewhere, we are beginning to worry about him. One of the Sawiris jets having snuck back to Luton after apparently depositing him handy for Sao Tome, we think we see rescue on the horizon: leaving Cairo yesterday, subsequently doing an about-turn over the Algerian Western Desert and diverting to Algiers, the other Sawiris executive jet landed at Conakry last night.
    Tony and Guinea go way back:

    https://guineaoye.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/guinea-mining-alpha-conde-and-his-viceroy-tony-blair/

    Mind you, Conde was telling the audience at an international conference on the re-emergence of Africa that Guinea should cut the umbilical cord tying it to France and pull further away from its colonial past….not a natural Remainer, then.

    But we could be wrong in thinking Blair is anywhere near this, we admit. Even now he and Mandelson could be in the South Pavilion mancave, constructing an IED to deposit under the PM’s seat in the Commons.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    If Blair is now in New York – as his transport for the last three days now is – he will be coinciding with Egypt’s al-Sisi, who is also visiting the land of the arms salesmen free. He will be talking to Trump, or vice versa, on Monday. Given Blair’s continuing interest in fucking up the MidEast beyond repair, and his close recent contacts with Jared Kushner, it may be that this is more than a coincidence. Indeed, we speculate that Sisi and Blair might even have been on the same aircraft. The timing would fit. Subject to confirmation…

    http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/abdel-fattah-el-sisi-leaves-meet-donald-trump-170401111718617.html

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Alas, our fantasy was just that. Sisi flew into Andrews AFB, Washington, aboard the spectacularly expensive Presidential A340, while M-ASRI landed at Teterboro, NY. Sawiris -or one of the Sawiri – regularly visits his NY property, so this may be routine.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    After Prescott’s revelation, the denial could not be far behind:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-39482992

    While Prescott said that Blair had told him Paisley was being bugged, …in a statement to the (BBC) on Monday, Mr Blair’s spokesman said: “This story is wrong.

    “No authorisation for the phone tapping of a member of parliament was given during Mr Blair’s time as prime minister….”

    Which is rather far from being a denial of the original story, that he had told Prescott he was being bugged. If Prescott is telling the truth, which is rather more likely than that Blair is, on balance, Blair knew Paisley had been bugged, and knew that it was unauthorised by him (officially). So Paisley was bugged unofficially, yet with Blair’s knowledge? That looks like the only possible interpretation, and Blair’s denial is revealed as lawyerly obfuscation. Again.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    We missed one….Cote d’Ivoire, last Thursday. Where Naguib Sawiris, according to Africa Intelligence (exorbitant paywall) took Tony in order to thank President Ouattara for selling Naguib’s Endeavour Mining a 25% stake in a goldfield.

    Here’s the happy group:

    http://www.presidence.ci/galerie-photos/

    So it’s fairly clear that the Tony Blair Institute (For Global Change) hasn’t actually changed much. Tony will continue jetting round the world in the company of very rich men, in order to stitch up deals with variously unscrupulous leaders who are looking for a good price for their nations’ resources.

    We note also that a Guy Baron has just been recruited to what is probably erroneously described as the Africa Governance Initiative and as a charity. This organisation has now been subsumed into TBI(FGC), which is not a charity. Baron, a managing director in its leveraged finance business who left late last year, and has just arrived as an advisor at the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative. Baron has a background in technology advisory, so will be focused on information and communications technology (ICT) and strategic investments at the firm. Tony Blair’s firm provides funds to advisors which allow them to help governments get projects off the ground across Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda, Guinea, Nigeria and Ethiopia. Baron will work in Rwanda.

    http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/279170/rbc-capital-markets/

    Well, that’s one way of looking at it. Another way suggests that, despite his protestations earlier this year,Tony hasn’t wound up his business activities at all.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Last week, then, Tony Blair visited:
      Ghana
      Cote d’Ivoire
      Togo
      Sao Tome
      Guinea
      Gambia.

      There is a common factor, and it is much less to do with the relevance of Blair’s deliverology/governance/transformative change bollocks, than with gold mining.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Blair’s been rather quiet the last few days. Other than graciously permitting the obsequious Ilford MP, Wes Streeting to ‘interview’ him – one of the takeaway thoughts from this was the assertion that left-wing populism can’t beat right-wing populism, conveniently neglecting the Russian and Chinese Revolutions, but explaining Blair’s eagerness to work for Kushner and/or Trump. He hasn’t even congratulated Aleksandar Vučić on winning the presidential election in Serbia this week. Tony, it will be recalled, is or was working in some vaguely specified capacity for Vučić, and it is thought that this involved sprucing up Serbia’s image prior to joining the EU. The cost of the project was funded by the UAE, probably by Mubadala.

    But Serbian interest in joining the EU has rather waned, and the governance issues standing in its way haven’t. Vučić’s victory suggests that Tony is redundant here, as everywhere, and if he has not already picked up his P45, it will be waiting for him at Reception. On the whole, that’s a fail, then.

    http://www.politico.eu/article/aleksandar-vucic-eu-the-biggest-loser-in-serbia-elections-eu-the-biggest-loser-in-serbias-elections/

  • Ba'al Zevul

    CURSE OF BLAIR

    Two years ago, Tony was busily engaged in helping to privatise Vietnam’s state-owned enterprises for the ‘reforming’ government of Nguyen Tan Dung, much as he did here while himself masquerading as a socialist. This report, from 2015, appeared, complete with the same photo, but purportedly current news, in a couple of VN outlets. this week:

    http://vneconomictimes.com/article/vietnam-today/tony-blair-to-help-vietnam-in-soe-equizations

    But Nguyen Tan Dung is no longer VN’s PM. He was forced to step aside last year, amid accusations of encouraging corruption, departing from socialism and over-rapid reforms. In a word, globalisation.

    Fail, Tony. Fail.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    After a hiatus, we find Tony Blair again in Africa, delivering a blairing yesterday at Jo’burg’s Monash University. This was a plea for good governance, in order to allow Africa to ‘connect to the world…(which )was globalising like never before’. Good governance, it transpires, means strong government, and instances were cited in which some highly dubious regimes have allegedly succeeded rather regardless of their lip-service to humanitarian and democratic values. Egypt* and Kazakhstan were not mentioned as instances of good governance, but we have – or at any rate he has – no doubt that his uniquely valuable input has made them so.

    Tony was last seen in S.Africa, which hasn’t run out of resources yet, in 2015, blairing at the 2015 Mining Indaba. He doesn’t seem to have been invited this year, though. Although Global Tony (plc) will always be happy to introduce you to global speculators who want your resources, and to help reshape your institutions to meet their requirements. Contact The Spokesperson of Tony Blair for further details…

    *Neither of Sawiris’ executive jets appear to have been involved in the trip this time

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Central figure in the Romanian affair, linking Victor Ponta, Blair, an extraordinary day’s wages for the latter and the suspicion that massaging the former’s reputation for probity might have broken its neck, after a long absence, here’s Sebastien Ghita:

    http://www.b92.net/eng/news/crimes.php?yyyy=2017&mm=04&dd=14&nav_id=101027

    Ghita is suspected of abuse of confidential information, bribery, influence peddling, and blackmail in addition to stumping up Blair’s fee for a public appearance with Ponta in exchange for political validation.

    We’re not sure about the blackmail, but we can see similarities with Tony. And of course that sort of behaviour, at least from an ex-PM, isn’t regarded as criminal over here.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    We were glad to see that this (we noted it some time ago) was a serious attempt to bring Blair to book, and can only wish you luck with that, General Abdul-Wahid Shannan ar-Ribat:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/16/uk-attorney-general-in-bid-to-block-case-against-tony-blair-over-iraq-war

    Aggression is apparently not a crime in British law, even though Tony’s pal Goldsmith said it was.

    The attorney general claims the case is hopeless, in part because the crime of aggression does not exist in English law, even though it does exist in international law. But that argument appears to be undermined in a document written by Goldsmith himself.

    In his 2003 memo on the legality of the Iraq war, Goldsmith, then attorney general, appeared to concede the key point of those now seeking his prosecution.“Aggression is a crime under customary international law which automatically forms part of domestic law,” he wrote.

    Interesting.

    Even so, looking at the establishment forming a protective circle round our toothy and amoral friend, we think it might be more productive to concentrate on Blair’s influence-peddling, his close relationships with foreign governments, and the probability that he has breached the OSA in the course of his business adventures, although no doubt a QC can be found to say that those aren’t dodgy, either.

    One day. One way or another.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Meanwhile, the man who has opposed Brexit tooth and nail from the outset, and structured his latest quasi-business specifically to wreck it, has called on Britons to use the opportunity of a snap election to vote for MPs who have an “open mind” when it comes to Brexit.

    Sure, Tony. Like your open mind, eh?

    …Writing on his website, he said: “The political situation the country faces is unprecedented and dangerous. We risk a Parliament which is lop-sided in its make-up; which has a big Tory majority.”

    http://www.itv.com/news/update/2017-04-18/blair-use-election-to-vote-for-mps-with-open-mind-on-brexit/

    Ah yes. This from the Dear Leader, who, still playing the populist violin for the late Diana, led his neutered and fat-cat funded party to that massive 179-seat landslide in 1997. Big majorities looked very different then…the Blairite tendency still prays for the day when the sleeping king under the pile of money will awake and lead his loyal followers into a strictly non-violent battle for the hearts and minds of big business. Lopsided in his makeup though he undoubtedly is.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Curiously, while a 1200-word blairing was circulated to UK editors, Italy’s Corriere della Sera seems to have got a personal audience with the Great Unifier:

      https://www.facebook.com/corrieredellasera/posts/10155019008307530

      Though there is no mention of when and where on the paper’s own site – just the blairing, faithfully reproduced by Italian Huffpost.
      Could it possibly be that the frugal Mr Blair spent his Easter break at the Casa Fribi again? We wonder who the lucky Euro-billionaire was this time.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    In the interests of balance – we frequently cite the Mail and Telegraph, whose loathing of Blair frequently highlights his latest antics – here’s something from Sputnik:

    https://sputniknews.com/radio_level_talk/201704201052811610-eternal-immunity-for-tony-blair/

    Hugh (Kerr – ex-Labour MEP) says that because the international political environment is different from that in the UK, Mr. Blair could find it difficult to travel abroad in the future.

    Now that could be a worthwhile outcome, given that Tony is never happier than when waving his hands for a foreign audience..

    Probably more discussion here of the ins and outs of prosecuting Blair for war crimes than the UK has ever produced – ignore the short tirade against capitalism at the beginning if the mandatory Moscow input annoys you.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    OK. WTF does this job requirement mean? Enjoys supporting dialogic spaces specific to navigating identity, difference, and community

    Is Tony looking for someone to prop up the roof of a conference centre while shapeshifting? Sadly, no.

    https://mr.linkedin.com/jobs/view/300288365?trkInfo=searchKeywordString%3AStudent%2BManager%2CsearchLocationString%3A%252C%2B%2Cvertical%3Ajobs%2CpageNum%3A34%2Cposition%3A11%2CMSRPsearchId%3A59e0d2d6-5963-4f89-837b-a08596608ebd&refId=59e0d2d6-5963-4f89-837b-a08596608ebd&trk=jobs_jserp_job_listing_text

    The ‘Generation Global’ racket was formerly a wheeze of the TBFF (RIP) and is designed to indoctrinate young people with the Attitudes of Tony Blair, as far as we can see. As with any Blair operation, it is multi-tentacular (We offer this to any lover of business bolloxspeak), and involves private education, very large finance houses, and e-learning. Which last costs virtually fuck-all to set up and attracts little or no scrutiny as to content, as Laureate Universities and Sonny Varkey’s GEMS have found to their advantage, in association with Blair. Monash University, where Blair blaired last week, is the latest of many Laureate associates to get a blairing, and GEMS is even closer to the Great Educator, Educator, Educator:

    http://www.tonyblairoffice.org/news/entry/tony-blair-partners-with-global-education-providers-to-break-down-barriers-/

    The emergent word is dialogue, and we suspect it may slowly be supplanting ‘transformative change’ in the blairspeak lexicon.
    It is presumably code for ‘spinning’ as there is little evidence that, however many hours of oratory Tony has uttered, dialogue formed any part of them. He left that to the minions.

    Business as usual, then. The focus on education is possibly a response to uninspiring African commodity prices.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Letters in the Guardian today, pointing out that ordinary Labour Party members face expulsion if they advocate tactical voting for another party.
    It may not be up long, given the close relationship between the Guardian and Tactical Tony*, so here’s one:

    Some 20 years ago, when I was chair of a constituency Labour party, one of our members, who had previously stood as a Labour party prospective parliamentary candidate, publicly called for members to vote Liberal Democrat. He was charged under Labour party rules with “bringing the party into disrepute”, and with the aid of the NEC (national executive committee) was expelled from the party. By calling for members to vote for “remainer” Lib Dem or Tory candidates, Tony Blair is in breach of exactly the same rule. He is undermining the elected Labour leader and bringing the party into disrepute, and should be expelled as soon as possible. Incidentally, that same expelled member later joined the Lib Dems and stood as a Lib Dem prospective parliamentary candidate. I suspect it won’t be long before Blair does the same!

    (Signatory’s name supplied)

    * Which may be weakening. See:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/25/tony-blair-right-labour-party-brexit-election

    for a pro- Zipit thinkpiece

  • Ba'al Zevul

    All media, please C&P and use instead of news:

    Tony Blair: Theresa May will be PM ‘if the polls are right’

    The rest may be found in:

    http://www.burytimes.co.uk, troontimes.com, eastlothiancourier.com, yeovilexpress.co.uk, penarthtimes.co.uk, .epsomguardian.co.uk, chardandilminsternews.co.uk, walesfarmer.co.uk…..and dozens of other publishers of the handout, identically worded.

    So why is the Echo Chamber of Tony Blair so intent on pointing out the bleeding obvious to every local paper in the land? Because, if it is perceived that May will win a big majority, it’s safe to vote Labour and return a Blairite to your marginal or threatened constituency.
    Which makes a complete nonsense of his urging everyone to vote tactically earlier this week. The reverse ferret was starkly illuminated, as in the glare of headlights, as it dawned on him that that no,.votiing tactically wasn’t even going to play with his own kind (who want to keep their jobs too).

    He’s lost his grip.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    We were saddened to see Tony Blair’s multiplicity of tax-opaque companies being rationalised into a single, equally opaque, entity. Where was the sense of empire, of being the goldplated spider at the heart of the filigree platinum web? The choice of bank accounts available for the deposition of speaking fees and rakeoff from aid budgets? But things can only get better -for Tony – with his recent involvement with his wife’s property interests. After all, if his Gulf chums can sink their ill-gotten gains in the UK property bubble, why shouldn’t he?

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4457560/Tony-Blair-joins-wife-Cherie-buy-let-landlord.html

    Keep checking Companies House, lads. There’ll be more.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Rather further from home than Harcourt Ventures Ltd (possibly named, like Windrush Ventures, for a location near Oxford), is Ramash Haradinaj. A deeply contentious figure, not least in Serbia, which wants him for war crimes allegedly committed during his time in the KLA.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramush_Haradinaj

    He has, however, escaped extradition from his present location, France. His lawyers were, according to Albanian media quoting the Serbian ‘Kurir’, Matrix Chambers, one of whose founders was, of course, the fragrant Cherie. It is alleged that a payment of 360,000 Euros was made to achieve this result. There are weaknesses in the story, however. Cherie left Matrix in order to run her own no-win-no-discount outfit, Omnia Strategy, around three years ago. Still and all, even a loose connection with freedom-fighter/ war criminal Haradinaj would suggest that Edi Rama, who has supplied both Omnia and Tony with well-paid work, might have been advised once more by Cherie.

    http://tiranatoday.com/serbian-media-kosovian-ex-pm-released-albanian-prime-minister-tony-blair/

    Quite how Aleksandar Vucic, the Serbian PM, will respond to Haradinaj’s escape from Serbian justice is uncertain. Tony Blair is currently believed still to be advising Vucic, on a contract paid for by the UAE, although Albania’s Edi Rama discarded him last year We look forward to Omnia Strategy’s epic tussle with Matrix Chambers in some further attempt to extradite Haradinaj, and hope it will not undo all the good work Blair did by bombing Belgrade.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    The Illusion of Tony Blair continues to dissipate. The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will be reporting on the failure of successive governments to obtain compensation from victims of Libyan-supplied IRA attacks. The Telegraph makes no mention of Blair’s (fully documented) insouciant and inadequate responses to the committee’s questions, nor of the evidence supplied by other witnesses almost explicitly stating that Blair knew more about this than he was admitting. However, the report goes so far as to add to the line of question marks over Blair’s chumminess with Gadaffi.

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/29/tony-blair-will-lambasted-mps-failing-get-compensation-british/

    British victims of IRA terrorists supplied weapons by Muammar Gaddafi should be paid compensation by the UK Government for repeated failures to secure them a deal with Libya, a scathing report by MPs is expected to conclude.

    The select committee report, due to be published this week, is understood to demand that the next Government sets up a fund to assist thousands of victims of The Troubles.

    About bloody time.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      FOR victims of Libyan-funded etc, not ‘from’. From Libyan funds. Brain fart.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Questionable statement of the century:
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4463226/Corbyn-swats-aside-Tony-Blair-s-return-politics.html

    I’ve actually spent the vast bulk of my time since leaving office on pro-bono charitable work in Africa and elsewhere and all I can say about my so-called wealth is the reports of it are greatly exaggerated,’ he insisted.

    Asked by the newspaper whether he was worth £50million or £30million, he replied: ‘I’m certainly worth neither of those things. A lot less.

    ‘I’ve got a very nice house in London, nice house in the country, each with significant mortgages. The equity in those is the bulk of my wealth. I have given away more than I’m worth.’

    He’s spent around a week a year in Africa since 2014, setting up investment opportunities for some distinctly dodgy leaders. Aside from his AGI workers turning their hands to the pump during the Ebola crisis – to their credit, not his, and even so they weren’t actually burying corpses – and a co-initiative with Clinton sourcing malaria nets, there’s very little evidence of whose bono he’s been pro in Africa. However, he may be referring to his (believed ongoing) consultancy work for Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, his close but undefined relationship with Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris, or for his still unexplained attachment, during and after office, to Muammar Gaddafi. His effect on the governance of countries he has visited (briefly, but in the case of Rwanda, frequently) has been minimal-to-nonexistent: their governments have long learned that if they make the right noises, the kickbacks will follow, and everything can carry on as it was before.

    While Blair’s finances are unknown to anyone, including, in all probability, his accountants, he is underestimating his property holdings considerably. Particularly if we include his family, and the extent to which his wife is involved in both speculative buy-to-lets up North, and the upmarket residences of the Blair spawn, bought jointly by them and Cherie. Quite apart from the lease on the Blair Inc HQ in Grosvenor Square, believed to have been subsidised by a Gulf state. Now expired, and The Empire of Tony Blair may have had to relocate for that reason. And the Marble Arch offices which contain Cherie’s operations as well as Euan’s.

    It may be true that Blair is still paying the mortgage on Connaught Square, which was for £3.65M, to run for 25 years from 2004. But it would seem unlikely. Since then, he has spent at least £10.75 M on property, excluding Cherie’s ventures, some of it in cash. How large a mortgage would your provider give you on additional properties while you were paying off the first, £3.65M, one? He isn’t paying the mortgage on the £800,000 mews house at the back of the Connaught Square house, anyway. That’s paid off. And that’s two town houses, not one.

    It may be true that Blair has given away more than he’s worth. In the same report, he cites the £10M he has ‘given’ to the Tony Blair Institute (actually nearer £9M). But this is merely the balance remaining in the closing Windrush account, and what happens to it now is as absolutely unknowable as it ever was. He has probably ‘given’ considerable amounts of foreign aid, institutional donations made to his vaguely-purposed ‘charities’, to set up bureaucracies and seed resource extraction operations, notably in Africa. But it wasn’t his money in the first place, and, as usual, no accounts are available. The question of how much commission he’s paid himself for these dealings is unanswerable. And he’s generously given top-dollar housing to his own family, within easy walking distance of his own.

    Never mind the flannel, Tony. If you want to be believed, release the data. We estimate a minimum of £20M, and very possibly £30M thanks to the ‘healthy’ London property market, if he cashed-up tomorrow. And we are still intrigued by his US securities trading outlet…

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Pro-bono?

      https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=ro&u=http://www.mediafax.ro/social/dna-a-cerut-inca-doua-mandate-de-arestare-preventiva-pentru-sebastian-ghita-16247592&prev=search

      That was £180K for a day’s ‘work’.

      According to the latest Press Release of Tony Blair he is willing, this living saint, to ‘get his hands dirty’ to overturn the clearly expressed will of the British people. Well, considering the provenance of some of the money that’s passed through his hands, we doubt if we’d notice any difference… Alternative reading, he is becoming such a toxic brand to all but hardcore Blairites that he can no longer rely on his sympathisers to undermine his own party while he feigns detachment, as he did with Ed Miliband. It’s a last-ditch move. If he’s going to stand for Parliament he will have to declare his interests, and interesting they will be. His only alternative, other than continuing to induce the gag reflex in most of his hearers, is to form a new party. And at the centre of this will be a collection of similarly toxic brands, from Mandelson to Owen Jones. Fun times ahead.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      Our current estimate of the Property Portfolio of Tony Blair may have been a little on the low side. 29, Connaught Square went for £3.65M in 2004. The latest Zoopla estimate is for £9.77M! That’s for the 5-bed house alone, it would seem. But even if the mews house which Tony uses as an office at the back were included that would still be a hefty profit.

      http://www.zoopla.co.uk/property/29-connaught-square/london/w2-2hl/25001801

      Despite having a place of his own, when Nicky was recorded as a director of Harcourt Ventures Ltd, for a day, his address was given as 29, Connaught Square rather than his own residence (thanks, Mum) within walking distance. While Tony is not yet a director, both he and Cherie are listed as persons with significant control, having split the shares 50-50.

    • Ba'al Zevul

      We were having a little trouble finding our hero at this time, we recall. We had forgotten to check out the Milken Institute’s 2017 Global (obviously) Conference. Tony has been a regular attender, and appears to have obtained a couple of sinecure positions with organisations highly supportive (like junk bond pioneer and convicted fraudster Milken himself) of Israel, following previous appearances there.

      We’ll be keeping an eye on Ha’aretz.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    We don’t know what poor Ireland has done to deserve a blairing, but it’s getting one:

    http://www.politico.eu/article/michel-barnier-tony-blair-ireland-to-speak-in/

    Keeps him out of our hair for a few hours, we suppose.

    Blair will speak about Brexit at a European People’s Party (EPP) meeting in Wicklow on Friday alongside Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan, Barnier and Manfred Weber, the EPP leader in the European Parliament.

    The Labour Party has never been a member of the EPP, a consortium of Christian Democratic, ‘centre’-right national parties*.

    According to its website, the EPP is “the family of the political centre-right, whose roots run deep in the history and civilisation of the European continent, and [which] has pioneered the European project from its inception”.

    Fr. Blair is preaching to the converted, we think. Or maybe he’s thinking, at last, of leaving the party he so comprehensively betrayed?

    *Which proved too hard to stomach even for the UK Tories, who pulled out in 2009, rejecting its endorsement of EU federalism and the erosion of national sovereignty.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Here’s Tony, dusting off A Conversation/Evening/Fireside Chat With Tony for the LA Chamber of Commerce. Not quite Davos or Aspen, but presumably it all helps towards the mortgages.

    …”Technology and migration are changing our lives,” said the Former Prime Minister.

    We wonder if his audience was unaware of this before he blaired? We’d have demanded our money back, us.

    http://www.lachamber.com/news/2017/05/08/press-release/former-british-prime-minister-tony-blair-joins-l.a.-mayor-eric-garcetti-and-more-than-900-business-leaders-for-kick-off-of-91st-annual-world-trade-week-celebration/

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Just a reminder that cheering crowds will probably not be lining Tony’s route as he is driven in state to the EPP’s meeting ‘around the Newtownmountkennedy area’ of Co. Wicklow today, but no doubt the Gardai will be visible at the actual, vaguely specified location:

    https://www.facebook.com/EPPGroup/videos/10154675432497689/

    There are three decent hotels in Newtownmountkennedy: our guess is that the Druid’s Glen Resort, being (a) the most expensive (b) secluded and (c) easily covered by police marksmen, will be the focus of the centre-right Euro-grouping’s bash.

    The EPP are single-state Euro-evangelists, and as mentioned before, the UK Tories left the grouping years ago due to its Euro-assimilative opinions. If the Reverend Blair is preaching there, it will be to the completely converted. As his abortive past iattempts to rewrite Catholic theology showed, that won’t prevent a blairing.

    In other news, Tony and Alastair Campbell indulged in a mutual image-polishing session for lad rag GQ this week. Blair’s old spindoctor Campbell does a regular monthly interview for GQ, and is touted as being a heavyweight. Needless to say, there was no punching during this bout. GQ’s 2014 Philanthropist of the Year made the usual noises, and press releases were released.

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