Why Blair needs £5 mill a year just to break-even

[David Guyatt]

Bless.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...rrer=yahoo

Tony Blair: Why I need £5m every year just to get by

By Jason Groves and Sam Greenhill
Last updated at 9:39 AM on 31st March 2010


Hefty sum: Tony Blair, who intervened in the election campaign yesterday, is thought to have a wage bill of over £5m

Tony Blair has told friends he needs to earn at least £5million a year just to break even.

The former prime minister has been heavily criticised for cashing in on his contacts for personal gain and is thought to have made around £20million since leaving office.

But last night his former election agent John Burton claimed Mr Blair needed the astonishing annual income - and possibly much more - to pay spiralling wage bills at his growing list of companies and charities.

The revelation about his finances came as the former premier returned to the political fray with a lukewarm televised endorsement of Gordon Brown.

Mr Burton, one of Mr Blair's most loyal political friends, said: 'What I asked him was, you know he gets this criticism about what he earns. I said how many people do you employ? And he said 130.

'I mean it was 25 about two years ago and he said to me I have got to earn £5million a year to pay the wages, so God knows what he has got to earn now to pay the wages.'

Mr Burton's extraordinary claims mean average wages could be as high as £200,000 a year. And his figures suggest Mr Blair now needs to make £20million a year.

The former prime minister was making a controversial intervention in the election campaign yesterday as he addressed the Labour Club in his old constituency.

It followed a warning from a former defence minister that his appearance could trigger a public backlash against Labour from those angry over the Iraq War as well as Mr Blair's business dealings.

Sporting a bizarre orange tan, Mr Blair spoke in support of his long-time rival Gordon Brown and attacked the ' vacuous' Tories - but stopped short of personally criticising David Cameron.

The Tories were relaxed about the appearance, with Mr Cameron taking a dig at the former premier's lecture circuit earnings, joking: 'It is nice to see him making a speech that no one is paying for.'

Security was tight as Iraq War protesters demonstrated outside the Trimdon Labour Club, in the Sedgefield constituency in County Durham.

Only a handful of local journalists were allowed to join a hand-picked audience of Labour activists, and they were banned from asking questions.

Labour strategists believe Mr Blair, who made only a passing reference to Iraq yesterday, could help reassure floating voters that New Labour has not lost its way.


He is expected to make around half a dozen interventions during the election campaign.

But many senior Labour figures fear his involvement could harm the party. Chief among critics was former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle, who warned that Mr Blair was now a 'negative factor'.

He said: 'He evokes a strong antagonism, particularly because of the Iraq War, but not only that.

'Also the kind of things going on with allegedly Blairite former ministers and their apparently venal approach to life. He epitomises everything people think is wrong about New Labour.

'It is a mistake by the so-called strategists. It may seem a good idea to them, but to many people at the grassroots level it is not.'

But Labour's election coordinator Douglas Alexander insisted the former prime minister was still 'one of our two biggest assets'.

However, Mr Blair appeared to offer only a lukewarm endorsement of Mr Brown. He said Labour had a 'solid' programme for a fourth term in office and praised Mr Brown's handling of the economic crisis.

But he had little to say about the Prime Minister's personal qualities.

Instead he focused on attacking the Tories. He contrasted Mr Brown's 'certain leadership' with the 'confusion at the heart of Conservative policy-making'.

And he described the Tories' 'it's time for a change' campaign as 'the most vacuous slogan in politics'.

Mr Blair also tried to suggest Mr Brown had a better grasp of the future than Mr Cameron. 'The central point of the election (is) who "gets" the future? This is not a matter of age or personality. It is a matter of comprehension,' he said.

[Magda Hassan]

'I mean it was 25 about two years ago and he said to me I have got to earn £5million a year to pay the wages, so God knows what he has got to earn now to pay the wages.'

If his employees get 200,000 pounds per year, yes. But I doubt he pays his secretary this amount. :dancing2:

[David Guyatt]

Tony Blair auditions for remake of celebrated Spatman film in role of the Clownster:

[Jan Klimkowski]

Surprizingly neutral article from the Daily HateMail in the original post.

For more on Blair's deliberately opaque finances, see here:

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...php?t=2719

For Blair's payments from companies including a South Korean oil firm, see here (eg post #63):

http://www.deeppoliticsforum.com/forums/...614&page=7