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…
To Jordan on Sunday, to bask in the praise of its education minister for not actually doing very much.
http://jordantimes.com/news/local/officials-commend-positive-effects-blairs-generations-global-programme
Amusing soundbite from the Pope of Globalism ™:
The future is for the open-minded
It is uncertain what is meant by ‘programme’, and to what extent someone other than Blair is doing the heavy lifting – though we are happy to guess . It’s a rather neat scam. Its public manifestation is a website through which teachers and pupils can interact with other creeds and cultures, as if this were not perfectly possible throughout the internet. It is unknown who is funding it, but it looks like a Good Cause to which rich idiots and educational charities will be free to donate far in excess of its costs. It assumes that increasing mixture and erosion of cultures is a given, and that the global lion will lie down with the global lamb if you talk nicely to both.
In this the poor old chap resembles
Prosperous idealists
Who talk as if men reached for concord
With their clenched or grasping fists
(William Plomer)
At last – it’s been some time since Tony last solved the problem of Scottish aspirations to independence:
https://www.thenational.scot/news/17607549.tony-blair-takes-aim-at-indy-supporters-in-bizarre-interview/
In which you nationalists are revealed as being as thick, ill-informed and thrawn as us Brexiteers. Glad we’ve got that much in common, anyway.
A curious tale from the Jewish Chronicle: Tony was (allegedly) ‘leaned on’ to do an interview condemning Labour’s (alleged) anti**m*t*sm. And this allegation was confirmed by “Labour donors, well-known Xe*ish figures”. We wonder how they knew. Possibly the first recorded occasion on which Tony’s words ‘lacked passion’, too.
https://www.thejc.com/news/the-diary/the-jc-diary-emily-maitlis-tony-blair-interview-revelation-1.483764
It doesn’t really stand up, though, and we suspect an elaborate joke. Tony would need no encouragement to beast Corbyn’s Labour project, of which his loathing is never other than passionate.
DIARY:
Monday 13 May 2019, 7.30pm–9pm, ‘Central London’
Blair will be blairing at Guardian globalist Paul Lewis at a circlejerk …As part of The new populism series, the Guardian has partnered with the YouGov-Cambridge Centre to produce a new annual study, and the largest of its kind, on the public state of globalisation ™. In the fortnight that we publish the results, we will explore the issues it highlights and whether increasingly hard-line and polarised politics is addressing the population’s true concerns.
We think any conclusion drawn on this topic by Blair, the Guardian, or for that matter YouGov, will easily qualify as foregone. However, for those wishing to attend the globalist ™ echo chamber, be aware as usual that this isn’t for plebs, just the elite:
One ticket per person and tickets are strictly non-transferable. Government issued photographic proof of ID must be shown and must match the name on the ticket. If you cannot be provided this proof you will be refused entry.
By purchasing a ticket you acknowledge that there will be strict security arrangements and that we will be conducting security checks of clothing, bags and other items as determined by us. Large bags must be checked in the cloakroom.
Attendees will be given details of the location one week prior to the event.
That’s the wonderful thing about globalism ™. No barriers to participation!
What Tony Doesn’t Like:
‘Harsh nationalist politicians like Alex Salmond’….
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17624286.tony-blair-harsh-nationalist-politicians-like-alex-salmond-put-me-off-being-scottish/
What Tony Does Like:
Harsh nationalist politicians like Benjamin Netanyahu,
https://www.flickr.com/photos/israelipm/5418825571/
We continue to observe Blair’s progression into utter, barking insanity. It’s very depressing, and we aren’t sure how much longer we can continue to observe his trajectory. Some recent quotes:
“What makes me optimistic about the world is when you take a step back, the world is actually becoming a better place.”
“Trying to keep both sides happy is not possible”. (see also Third Way) And…
“A second referendum could be a healing process”
Tony, the populist of 1997, has morphed into Tony, the ultracentrist – if there can be such a thing – of 2019. When he isn’t jetting round Africa inserting his suits into undemocratic governments, he’s here, method-acting the role of Elder Statesman and explaining what a bad thing populism is. It would appear that this, amazingly, isn’t true:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/revealed-populist-leaders-linked-to-reduced-inequality
Sure, freedoms may get eroded, but we wouldn’t expect that to bother Sisi’s and Kagame’s advisor, would we?
Cherie announces that she voted LibDem in support of her lifelong devotion to Socialism:
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/revealed-cherie-blair-voted-for-lib-dems-in-european-elections-a4154996.html
And young Euan- who was reportedly considering being parachuted into Bootle for Labour five years ago, goes a stage further:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7091677/The-Blairs-Lib-Dem-love-continues-Tony-Blairs-eldest-son-poses-selfie-Jo-Swinson.html
Tony says he voted Labour. He really is out to destroy them.
And so to Bar-Ilan University in Israel, yesterday. Tony is as usual preaching to the converted. Corbyn doesn’t know he’s an antisemite. But Tony does. Possibly G-d told him?
https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-israel-blair-says-corbyn-is-an-anti-semite-but-he-doesnt-know-it/
The article appears to have been written by G-d, too. All hasbara editors, please c&p.
Tuesday, to Durham University to present the Leo Blair Prize* to a graduating law student:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69f5gCQRihg
Tony’s dad worked at Durham University and there is a picture of that furred lawcat** in St Cuthbert’s College. Cuths hasn’t gone broke yet, we assume.
*whatever that is.
** Tip of the hat to Rabelais, there.
Tony plugs Lome’s port facilities (heavily dependent on Chinese participation):
https://africanbusinessmagazine.com/region/west-africa/tony-blair-urges-investors-to-go-to-togo/
..and touches base with cuddly Faure Gnassingbe, who has been in power for 14 years due to inheriting the post from his dad and a subsequent election deemed by the EU to be ‘fraudulent’. Another fraudulent election is scheduled for next year, and Gnassingbe will be standing again.
Togo, advised by the Institute for Blair, hopes to become a regional infrastructure hub, lacking deposits of rare minerals. Of its 5,965 miles of roads, 994 miles are paved. And the Chinese have been financing and building ports for all its neighbours, too. We do like a trier.
While Tony has been tireless in his attacks on the leader of his own party, in a rare fit of self-effacement, he has not yet issued any edicts regarding the Tories’ leadership contest. Indeed, his silence on the current government’s non-Brexit issues has been striking.
Some time ago we noted that an FoI request had been made, asking whether the Tony Blair Institute for Global Blair could legally call itself an Institute. We didn’t follow up on this, but the sequel is here:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/453475/response/1109480/attach/html/3/Final%20redacted%20documents%20to%20be%20disclosed%20ver0.1%209.pdf.html
In which we learn that the Institute initially attempted to back its claim to be an Institute by submitting evidence from itself (in its previous guise of the two Blair charities which merged and de-charitableised to re-form as such in 2016). This was not acceptable to Companies House. Independent confirmation was required. Alex Harle, Tony’s legal helper at the time, accordingly obtained endorsement from the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, and, despite the TBIFGTB not formally existing at the time, GCERF were happy to affirm that their experience of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation amounted to a track record which could be extrapolated to its successor. What is GCERF? A Geneva-based public-private body with a branch-line to the international aid track, with very vague and flexible objectives. It combines the appealing prospect of countering violent terrorism with funding in tens of millions. However, its 2019 budget is 33% unfunded at the most recent estimate: the proportion of public money to that of – as far as we can see – undisclosed private donations is not known.
We also learned that the TBIfTB tried to change its name to the TBI – snappier, we suppose, and more focussed on its core concern – but that doesn’t seem to have happened, and we do not yet know why.
CURSE OF BLAIR:
November 2018:
President Weah Holds Tête-à-tête With UK’s Tony Blair
https://www.emansion.gov.lr/2press.php?news_id=4724&related=7&pg=sp
June 2019:
Liberia shows President Weah the yellow card, threatens red
Alleged corruption, misappropriation of funds, suppression of free speech and intimidation of opponents.
Liberia is advised by the TBIfGTB.
Link to second item:
https://www.theafricareport.com/13855/liberia-shows-president-weah-the-yellow-card-threatens-red/
The Independent is mildly surprised that Tony Blair was not at his mentor, Bill Clinton’s side today to receive the gratitude of Kosovo for helping to create it as a state. Mr Blair was unable to attend, perhaps because he had important business elsewhere. But we are less surprised. As we have noted before, Blair is currently advising the Serbian government, on matters ill-defined as usual, having plastered over the little matter of his bombing the shit out of it during the last Balkan war. Tony is also well in with Kosovo’s Hashim Thaci, described by some as a bizarre monster. And Cherie’s firm, Omnia Strategy, has accepted quite a lot of money to represent Kosovo in its dealings with Serbia. There are two factors bearing on Tony’s divided interest. The first is that both Kosovo and Serbia want to join the EU. The second is that Serbia wants to redraw the border with Kosovo, and does not in any case recognise Kosovo. And this is turning into gunfire.
Hence…McCavity’s not there. Wouldn’t want to lose the Serbian contract, no matter how many streets and children the Kosovars have named after him!
DIARY:
A blairing will be endured by global development movers and shakers in Brussels at the Kapuscinski Development Lecture (part of the European Development Days) on 18 June 2019. The EDD is a monster gathering of suits anxious to address the world’s inequalities and keep themselves in well-paid jobs, under the auspices of the EU. Mr Blair will be orating, with gestures and gurning, on the topic of “Inequality, exclusion and democracy”. These are matters which are best not considered in the context of Rwanda, Egypt, Senegal, Togo etc, all of which Tony’s merry suits advise on governance, nor of Gaza, whose plight changed little under Tony’s Quartet Envoyship.
Venue: Tour & Taxis, nearest Metro is Yser, follow the suits. Online booking, ID or passport required.
But we suspect that this is not the prime purpose of his visit to Brussels. We look forward to pap snaps of him in the arms of Juncker et cie.
WE omitted to point out that Tony will also be delivering the keynote speech at the Brussels gig on the 18th. It will be “Transformative government: The path to development” and we imagine it will cost a bomb.
Nice to see that old favourite “transformative” out for a gallop in Platitude Park. But it is in new company. It used to be the tautologous “transformative change,” ie “change in the process of changing” (we are guessing, of course). Now it is “transformative government”, which, in the context of globalism ™ as it undoubtedly is, is an oxymoron. “Tony is unfamiliar with “plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose”, evidently.
Also at the European Development Days tomorrow, and sucking hungrily at the EU taxpayer’s investment teat, will be Paul Kagame, Blair’s equally evil political twin, and Macky Sall from Senegal, whose investiture Blair and also Sarkozy attended earlier this year. Sall is particularly receptive to foreign investment/aid ($7.5 Bn in 2013), but rather slow at actually developing, it is said. The event will be opened by Juncker.
Outside the event, about 50 members of the Belgian Rwandan community protested against President Paul Kagame and Mr Blair whom they described as “war criminals”.
Kabere Fidele, who has lived in Belgium for 10 years, said Mr Kagame had “shut down political opposition” in Rwanda and that Mr Blair was an adviser to him. He said: “Paul Kagame is not a friend to democracy.”
(Irish Times)
DIARY:
Surreally, the Tax Free World Association’s annual conference (29 September to 4 October 2019 in Cannes, France.) has secured the services of a Mr. Tony Blair as its keynote speaker.
That’s another Tony Blair, presumably. Not this one, who has always enjoyed the support of the taxpayer:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-one-million-taxpayer-claim-public-duty-cost-allowance-prime-minister-cabinet-office-a8616731.html
Although we quite understand his earlier opposition to limiting the tax relief on charities. He was running three charities at the time.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-17737368/tony-blair-on-charity-tax-and-incoherent-coalition
Earlier still, in 2003, Tony was in favour of retaining the UK’s right to retain control of its tax and defence policy. This, under threat of a referendum on EU membership. Which was not held. Phew.
But hold. The TFWA is not as we might have thought, a cabal of Republican survivalists. It is an association of duty-free and travel retailers. Little doubt then, that Tony’s incessant expenditure of carbon credits as he flits round and round the planet like space debris in a low orbit qualifies him uniquely to wave his hands and gurn at the event. It’s not quite the presidency of the EU but it will have to do for now.
It gets crazier. Cherie is to be the executive producer of a film about the Xrael-Palestine conflict. We wonder if it will be in any way critical of Xrael…
http://www.irishnews.com/magazine/entertainment/2019/06/19/news/cherie-blair-to-make-first-foray-into-movie-making-1645324/
Or is the benefit of bringing stories about the reality on the ground to a global audience the opportunity it gives for promoting the Xraeli narrative. The producer, John Deery, is an old chum, predictably enough, and wrote Labour’s 1997 manifesto film, The Road To The Manifesto at Mandelson’s request. This contained the abominable Things Can Only Get Better
DIARY:
25th/26th June, Manama, Bahrain, location, where the security is thickest.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/breakfast-tony-blair-program-leaks-kushners-bahrain-workshop
Tony, whose vast experience in not mitigating the Palestinians’ lot by one iota fits in very nicely with the criminally ill-considered Trump ‘plan’ (to give it a loose connection with a product of rational cerebration it does not deserve), qualifies him well to put his ubiquitous oar in, will get 15 minutes of fame in the minimal reflected light from Jared Kushner. The former British prime minister will undoubtedly take advantage of the “networking” opportunities to benefit his business as a richly paid lobbyist for Gulf regimes.
He won’t be networking with too many Pals, anyway:
Just one Palestinian, Ashraf Jabari, who is universally shunned in his home city of Hebron for his collaboration with Israeli settler groups, is listed on the draft program.
Indeed Jabari is so reviled in his community that his own family has publicly disowned him.
Somewhat less partisan analysis of the Kushner initiative here, for anyone exploring further.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-jared-kushners-bahrain-conference-wont-do-much-for-the-palestinian-economy
Allegedly the blairing is today. The ‘peace’ plan is a blatant attempt at buying off the Pals without any prior political adjustment, and polls indicate that 80% of the Pal public reject it out of hand. The Israeli government and Palestinian government officials are absent: the former because they will never allow the Palestinians economic parity, the latter because it’s Trump’s idea, and Trump has already sold them down the river on settlements and Jerusalem.
The Saudis are at odds with Kushner, too.
Blair’s mandate as Quartet representative was exactly the same as Kushner’s misconception: improve the Palestinian economy and they’ll stop complaining. Blair failed utterly, and Kushner is making the same mistake, which is to assume that the Israelis are in any way
interested in the economic welfare of the Pals, have any serious intention of accommodating their rights, or regard them as anything other than cheap labour.
We were concerned to note that Naguib Sawiris’ Bombardier, in which Tony has racked up so many air miles, had flown to Tucson on the 21st May, and not moved since. Exactly the same had happened to G-CEYL, Tony’s previous taxi, in 2015, which was sold not long afterwards. And yes, M-ASRI is for sale. $16.5 M will make it yours. We hope that Bombardier’s service facility in Tucson will attach a blue plaque in honour of the plane’s famous passenger. Will Tony be forced to work to Nassef’s and M-USIK’s flight plans? Will Naguib buy (or lease) himself another executive jet? Will Tony have to attach himself to another billionaire with dodgy political chums altogether? Watch this space…
https://www.globalair.com/aircraft-for-sale/ListingDetail/Global-XRS?AdId=86266
Included as relevant and timely comment on Tony Blair’s African chicanery, with particular reference to Gnassingbe.
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/10435-like-all-colonialists-tony-blair-the-man-of-many-faces-is-trading-african-lives-for-profits
What Blair pretended to not see was a government also willing to use excessive force against demonstrators, arbitrarily arrest, harass and torture political opponents and common citizens. He was willfully blind to Togo’s unfortunate human rights record and the state-sponsored terrorism. In the context of business, he even happily turned a blind eye to the child labor rife in the country. Ironically, in London, Gnassingbé got the chance to speak about the Jihadi threat in his country. These are threats from without, and indeed they need to be addressed but there is an elephant in the room: Gnassingbé himself. Dictators are no more than terrorists who captured the States they purport to lead.
Tony criticises politicians for obsessing about Brexit, unlike Tony…
https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair-ambitious-government-proposal-spotify-technology/
And returns to his dream of ID cards for all. Electronic ones, this time. You godda, y’know, embrace technology and do transformative ™ global ™ dehumanisation. Trust me, I’m Tony.
Blairing in Bahrain today (condensed):
Blair thinks economic input will help the peace process.
But pigs need to fly: there needs to be “deep cultural acceptance” by both sides. (neither of whose politicians attended – K)
And a short-term end to the violence (again – K)
A two-state solution is a solution.
The Middle East has come to realize that it’s up to the Israelis and Palestinians to solve the conflict in the end.….
(but not, it seems, the West -K).
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/middle-east/1561557397-tony-blair-i-firmly-believe-in-two-state-solution-cultural-acceptance-needed-on-both-sides
We have the impression Tony is positioning himself on the fence.
We learn, from the current Private Eye, that Tony’s erstwhile co-pilot’s company OCI UK* has donated £200,000 in the last two years.
To the Tories…
A division of Orascom Construction International, founded by and still part-owned by the Sawiris family.
Perhaps that’s paying off, too. Mark Lancaster, our armed forces minister, was in Egypt last week flogging arms to the Sawiris-supported dictatorship, which Tony advises.
A sighting of Blair’s spoor by a native guide in Kenya:
https://www.capitalfm.co.ke/news/2019/07/president-kenyatta-michael-joseph-among-speakers-at-collymore-memorial-service/
….to address mourners at the Memorial Service of late Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Bob Collymore on Thursday.
We’re guessing that Mrs. Blair will also be there, as Collymore, Safaricom, Mrs Kenyatta and she have collaborated in their endeavour of bringing
phone marketing and banking servicesempowerment and mentoring to the wimminz of Kenya.No, apparently…
https://3dwnh01icn0h133s00sokwo1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/tony-blair.png
Being seen at an event like this with Tony, presumably in his role as ‘governance advisor’ on the basis of the TBIfTB contract, will do Kenyatta no good at all. There was considerable disquiet when Tony was hired in 2015: couldn’t Kenya govern itself? And he doesn’t seem to have made much difference:
https://www.nation.co.ke/news/Kenya-debt-problem/1056-5141464-l19rdh/index.html
A seemingly unaccompanied Tony is not scheduled to address the mourners, either. Safaricom shops were closed for four hours in tribute to the extremely rich but apparently venerated Collymore. Might have been a day, but business is business.
Wrong again. A blairingly blairish tribute to the dead businessman was blaired. And the Institute for Blair backs this up with the blairingly obvious: that Kenya has ‘a need for transformation’. Like firing the entire government, including Kenyatta, and its advisors, including yourself, and replacing the lot with relatively honest men who can control their greed? Oh, come on.
Tony spots another prospective mug:
https://www.iol.co.za/news/africa/former-british-pm-tony-blair-keen-to-meet-zimbabwes-mnangagwa-28715097
Of course he is. And Mnangagwa badly needs access to the aid and development trough. His nest egg isn’t big enough yet. A marriage made in heaven, and Tony’s insouciance regarding democracy has rarely been more obvious…
https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2019/07/05/mnangagwa-intensifies-rivals-purges/
As the mass media whip themselves – or are whipped – into yet another lather about antisemitism in Labour, we missed this last month:
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/tony-blair-at-bar-ilan-anti-semitism-imperils-britains-labour-party/2019/06/04/
While Radio 4 have, this week alone, given friendly interviews to Euan Blair (plugging his taking-a-cut-from-recruiting apprentices business), Cherie Blair (plugging a film in which Xraelis and Palestinians are reconciled by football, which she is to produce) and ‘Lord’ ‘Cashpoint’ Levy (bewailing a**isem*t*sm in the Labour Party and accepting uncritically every allegation contained in last night’s Panorama disgrace). No awkward questions were asked.
We blame James Purnell, BBC Director of Radio and Education (see what the BBC did there?). Formerly one of Blair’s myriad advisors and bypassers of conventional government, and wholly Blairite former MP, Purnell has the mandatory PPE degree from Oxford and has never had a real job. We expect to hear more of the Blair family and friends on R4, as there is plainly a move afoot to sanitise their activities and revive Blair’s market-friendly neutering of Labour.
Cherie’s been fighting for the Pakistan government, which arbitrarily cancelled a mining contract in Baluchistan. The World Bank International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes has fined Pakistan $5.95 Bn for this. However, Cherie trousered $14,583,300.43 for her not-too-successful work.
https://fp.brecorder.com/2019/07/20190715497548/
Cherie doesn’t do no-win-no-fee, then.
DIARY:
Today, 0930 local
Secretary Pompeo meets with former United Kingdom Prime Minister Tony Blair, at the US Department of State.
(CLOSED PRESS COVERAGE)
Also 1630 to 1715 local, and closely connected with the above, a blairing will be inflicted on the Ministerial To Advance Religious Freedom:
https://www.state.gov/ministerial-to-advance-religious-freedom-schedule-of-events/
In the Dean Acheson Auditorium. However, the US Holocaust Museum will be closely involved on all three days of the event….
https://www.state.gov/ministerial-to-advance-religious-freedom-convenes-opening-and-closing-events/
so not too much religious freedom. And we would be surprised if Iran didn’t get a few mentions.
Reluctant as I am to cite The Duran, which is strongly connected with Russian media including RT, this may be of interest in the context of the Blair-Pompeo nexus:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/PuClrlg-xVw
Obviously the narrative here strongly supports the Russian objective of alienating the UK from the US (and anyone else), but some valid points are made. Good summary of Blair’s domestic agenda.