The sheer venality of the current political class, while not necessarily a radical departure from what has been the case in the past, still has the capacity to make me rub my eyes in amazement. Get a load of this:.
Tony Blair waged an extraordinary two-year battle to keep secret a lucrative deal with a multinational oil giant which has extensive interests in Iraq.
The former Prime Minister tried to keep the public in the dark over his dealings with South Korean oil firm UI Energy Corporation. Mr Blair – who has made at least £20million since leaving Downing Street in June 2007 – also went to great efforts to keep hidden a £1million deal advising the ruling royal family in Iraq’s neighbour Kuwait.
In an unprecedented move, he persuaded the committee which vets the jobs of former ministers to keep details of both deals from the public for 20 months, claiming it was commercially sensitive. The deals emerged yesterday when the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments finally lost patience with Mr Blair and decided to ignore his objections and publish the details.
Of course, the fact that Mr Blair makes a lot of money is hardly a reason for criticism per se, and given that the story is in the Daily Mail, a noisy mixture of rightwing populism on social issues, economic nationalism and Blimpish anti-Americanism, I tread a little carefully. But even so, it is pretty galling that a man like Blair who has largely risen to where he is on the back of artifice and bullshittery of heroic proportions should be making so much money. Also, considering that one of his most contentious decisions to support the war to topple Saddam was always going to be attacked by the usual types as being “all about oil”, it does seem incredibly crass for this man to validate the usual Blair/BushHitler/Halliburton/Blackwater/blah blah conspiracy theory tropes of the Michael Moore left and Raimondoesque right.
Oh well, at least he can keep Cherie Blair in the lifestyle to which she is accustomed. I would not be at all surprised if Blair ends up becoming a tax fugitive from the UK.
Mr Blair is, of course, a classic example of the political class so ably described by Peter Oborne, the British journalist. No doubt Messrs Obama and Sarkozy are taking notes.
In some ways UK politics has reverted to the 18th Century model, as described by the likes of Lewis Namier, when different gangs of folk with remarkably similar views scrapped for the spoils of office. And as Mr Blair now shows, those spoils are remarkably lucrative indeed.
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I don’t object to people making money, per se. However, I don’t like the increasing trend for people to make lots of money after retiring from political power, using the connections it gave them. It seems only slightly better than using government position to extort wealth directly, and far too close to oligarchic systems where the way to real wealth is patronage, not providing better goods and services.
Surely it is better to have a system in which people get rich first and only them decide to go into politics, because they can afford the time and money to promote things they believe in, as a competitive game in itself, or out of a sense of altruism?
In what meaningful way can he be considered to have earned this amount of money in three short years?
Given the utter mess he has made out of this country, I wouldn’t pay the fucker to give me the correct advice on crossing the road!
Old time Labour Socialists like Nye Bevan and George Thomas would have the cunt swinging from a lampost.
Tut ! Tut! Such a suprising lack of understanding here on Samizdata.
Mr. Blair worked hard to earn 20 Mill Pounds in less than 3 years (it’s only roughly 1 pound per working second) so that he could pay lots of taxes to support the Welfare State. He should get a medal.
I think the most interesting aspect is that this guy is the “Quartet’s” special envoy on the Middle East – and he takes a personal commission from the ruling family of Kuwait? How is that not a conflict of interest?
Love your irony Alice, but if the Treasury see more than a few pennies of Tones current stash, then they will be amazed.
His accounting procedures make Lord Ashcroft look like an amateur.
Who alone, amongst the venal fuckers from every party in the Expenses scandal, managed to get his expenses record “accidentally” shredded?
Yep that straight kinda guy, Tone!
I see no problems earnings after as long as there was no “pump priming” in advance, as in scratched backs in advance of a return scratch upon retirement.
Of course Labour hypocrisy over taxes should not go unmentioned. However, seeing as it would be a good thing to end income taxes, ideally we would not be caring one jot.
As far as I can tell TB has already, in advance, added millions into the UK economy by buying his house in Cavendish Sq right at the top of the market for something around £3.5m. I do wonder how much of (what is left of) those millions (once Cherie has been at them) just goes to pay off the mortgage.
That’s our Tone for you: Coining it while sending other mother’s sons off to die in his illegal wars.
He must be thinking he’d backed the wrong horse by becoming a Catholic. Either that, or “it’s déjÁ vu all over again”. He spends a decade protecting his ministers from paedophile charges, only to find His Holiness may be forced to resign for protecting paedophiles. See Paddy Power are giving 3/1 on the Pope resigning.
I do not agree with Lewis Namier about 18th century Britain.
However, if he had been writing about now he would have had a stronger case – never before has politics been so lacking in real principles. In the past politicians were often corrupt, but they also had strong beliefs and differed with others on the basis of those beliefs (there is no contradiction here – although the young and innocent might think it is impossible for a corrupt person to also have strong beliefs and to act on those beliefs).
Today there is just the corruption – not really much else.
Guido has posted a couple of times his theory that TB is already non-resident, and is carefully keeping his time in the country below the threshold needed to maintain that status.
I may have been unfair about Mr Blair.
He is a very corrupt man – but there may be genuine beliefs mixed in there as well.
They are not beliefs that I share (social democracy, “nation building” in overseas wars, and so on), but that does not mean that Mr Blair does not believe in them.
As I say – there is no contradiction between being financially (or otherwise) corrupt, and really believeing in what you are doing (and corruptly profiting from) AS WELL.
Mr Blair may be one of these cases.