Blair set to earn £40m after emotional farewell

BENEDICT BROGAN and JANE MERRICK
UK Daily Mail
Friday May 11, 2007

Tony Blair is waving goodbye to Downing Street - and hello to a staggering £40million from book deals and lecture tours.

The shape of his future emerged as he bade an emotional farewell to loyal supporters in his Sedgefield constituency, remaining the showman to the end.

The ex-premier will create a charitable foundation to forge "greater understanding" between faiths and help bring Israelis and Palestinians together.



Don't you just love me! Tony Blair milking the applause following his farewell speech in Trimdon Labour Club

But as one of the architects of the Iraq war, his decision to position himself as a peace campaigner in the region will surprise many.

As an ex-prime minister, Mr Blair will travel the world promoting his new cause. But he will make sure there is plenty of space in his diary for speaking engagements at up to £125,000 a time.

Cherie Blair, repeatedly accused of cashing in on her husband’s name with lucrative speaking tours, is likely to "piggy back" on his bankability by arranging her own lecture dates to coincide with his schedule.

The international speaking circuit which will provide the Blairs with the long-term income to top up the Prime Minister’s £117,500 a year pension and £90,000 annual ‘public service’ allowance which are his for life.

Mr Blair’s thirst for peace in the Middle East is said to have been reinvigorated by the success of restoring power-sharing to Northern Ireland.

He wants his foundation to concentrate on the world’s most intractable conflict, rather than Africa, because there would be too much of an overlap with his old friend Bill Clinton’s work and the Gates Foundation of Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and his wife Melinda.

On Thursday Mr Blair brought the curtain down on his 13 years as Labour leader - and the longest goodbye in political history - with a grudging apology and a tear-stained plea for understanding.

Pursued by the horrors of Iraq, one of the most remarkable politicians of his age was reduced to begging for his place in history, mixing sentimentality with defiance.

He offered the British people "apologies to you for the times I have fallen short" but insisted: "Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right".

Yet even as he spoke in the Trimdon Labour Club, where his political career began in 1983, his trademark "New Labour New Britain" logo was being airbrushed from the party website.

It was replaced by a white rose on a purple background, recalling the logo used by Neil Kinnock. A party spokesman denied, however, that this heralded a return to more traditional policies, while Gordon Brown said he knew nothing about the switch.

Hounded out of office by the party he led to an unprecedented three general election victories, Mr Blair tried to make a virtue of his departure, saying: "Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down." But he could not get around the issue of Iraq.

He insisted it was right to remove Saddam but admitted: "The blowback has been fierce, unrelenting and costly.

"For many it can't be worth it. For me, I think we must see it through.

"The terrorists who threaten us here and around the world will never give up if we give up. It is a test of wills and we can't fail."

Mr Blair's announcement that he will stand down as Prime Minister on June 27 triggered a six-week march to Gordon Brown's coronation at a Labour conference on June 24.