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i have mixed feelings over tony blair, he is not the demon made out by many, nor is he the saint that some paint him as. on balance he probably did more good than harm, regardless of that the iraq war is going to loom over his achievements.
that the war overshadows him is evident when it came to his book signings. ‘stop the war’ coalition, along with some from the ‘real ira’ were out to protest his signing in dublin. they threw shoes and eggs (they missed) they chanted (including that he had blood on his hands – of course it doesn’t matter that the ‘real ira’ have killed people – they are freedom fighters. no really that makes it ok) and they were outnumbered by those who wanted to get a copy of the book signed.
one of the strands of comment about the event was the cost of protection that was incurred protecting mr. blair. of course one could argue that there isn’t a price too high to ensure that we all benefit from freedom of speech.

in response to it all mr. blair cancelled the signing at waterstones in piccadilly and the book launch at the tate modern. a shame really i had been looking forward to going to both, not that i can afford his book.
blair doesn’t care about having to cancel. the book is selling like billy-o.

oddly he is criticised for cancelling because he is seen as caving into to protests (the same people would have complained about the cost after the event) thus proving that in some cases you can never been right in politics.

over at the daily telegraph they were banging on about how they had an exclusive interview with tony blair, the only newspaper to have one. one of the things that struck me as i read the mary riddell conducted interview was just how similar it was to the andrew marr one i had watched on the bbc. i couldn’t work out if they were told that they could only ask certain questions which meant the answers had a rehearsed feel to them, or that blair had decided that no matter what the question was he was going to give pretty much the same form answer.
in one part of the riddell interview she asked if his dash for cash was unseemly. she pointed out that blair gets £2.5m from jp morgan chase and a reported £2m from zurich financial services.
to which blair replies: “i am basically a public service person. i spend two-thirds to three quarters of my time on unpaid work.”

fuck me tony get off the cross. if i could bag £4.5m a year from doing very little then i am pretty sure i could give up a large chunk of my time to work for free. yet it wasn’t even that that annoyed me it was that the ‘free work’ that tony is doing is all pretty much geared to making sure that brand ‘tony blair’ has a lot of equity in it. that it ensures the tony rolodex is filled with names that are useful to him and to those who might employ tony as an advisor in the future.
it is not like tony is giving up his time to work at his local hospice or is stuffing envelopes for a small charity; no he is doing very public global work. so the ‘free work’ he is doing will all go to fill the coffers at a later date.
if i am honest i don’t even begrudge him that.
what pisses me off and makes my nipples ache in anger is that he has the gall to get all sanctimonious about it, that he gets on his moral high horse about how he isn’t about the money, that he is all about the service.
arsewipe.

when he was being elected he was all about the aspiration. it is a little hard to sell the idea that you are still aspirational when you are rolling in cash
take my advice tony: keep up the good works, just don’t ask us to be sympathetic to all the ‘free work’ you do.