In Blair Inc. three veteran journalists from left-leaning publications that have been critical of Blair's foreign policy adventures, take the former prime minister to task for what they see as his lack of interest in his job as Middle East envoy, and for their perception of his single-minded focus on making as much money as a former prime minister possibly can.
Nick Kochan, a freelance financial journalist in the UK, joins Francis Beckett and David Hencke, two journalists with long associations with The Guardian and The New Statesman, who have written two books on Tony Blair, one of which, The Blairs and Their Court, was described by The Guardian as an "unremitting ... assault on both his conduct and character".
Blair Inc. continues in this vein: three disaffected and disappointed leftist journalists bemoan what they see as the moral failures of a man more interested in lucre than his legacy. The book meshes with the kinds of criticism common under Blair, that he watered down what the Labour Party once stood for, and had a large number of bizarre opinions on foreign policy to boot.
After leaving the office, the US Department of State wrangled him the job of Representative of the Quartet (the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia) on the Middle East. The authors quote a “well-placed Washington source” who said that Blair’s appointment was a direct reward for his loyalty to the Bush administration in Iraq. “Blair sacrificed his political career for me,” George W Bush said, according to the source.
Blair’s responsibilities are confined to improving the economic lot of Palestinians in the occupied territories. His job does not involve tackling political issues, which one would think essential to ensuring the improving the lot of Palestinians in perhaps the world’s most intractable conflict. This was a deliberate objective of a US State Department keen not to erode its monopoly on negotiating peace deals, the authors say. Attempts by previous incumbents to expand the role have been rebuffed.
Blair spends a few days a month in the region, with figures on the ground disagreeing as to whether he spends two or four days a month in Palestine. Blair’s predecessor, James Wolfensohn, a former president of the World Bank, had the same job description as Blair, but chose to live in Palestine and work full-time. Wolfensohn resigned after overwork damaged his health.
Conflicts of interest between his role as quartet representative and his private business dealings abound, the authors allege. Blair is on the board of JP Morgan, who appear to have an excellent track record of brokering contracts in areas where Blair is doing political work. JP Morgan has benefited from at least two projects Blair has lobbied for in his role as the quartet’s representative, the book shows.
Blair lobbied for a gas-extraction deal that led to British Gas Group, a client of JP Morgan, winning rights to develop a field off the coast of Gaza. Mr Blair lobbied the Israeli government in his capacity as quartet representative, and did so on behalf of the Palestinians, according to his spokesman. Blair later claimed to have “no idea” that BG Group was a client of JP Morgan.
Blair also lobbied for Israel to release mobile phone frequencies to allow Palestinian telecoms company Wataniya International to launch a new phone service. Wataniya is owned by Q-Tel, another client of JP Morgan. A letter from Blair, seen by the authors, on notepaper headed “Office of the Quartet Representative”, makes the case for the telecoms deal directly to Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-moon, Sergei Lavrov and Carl Bildt. A spokesman for JP Morgan later said that Blair was unaware that Q-Tel was a JP Morgan client, at the time of his lobbying.
JP Morgan contributed about US$200 million (Dh734m) of capital to these two deals, the authors say. Tony Blair is paid an annual salary of £2 million (Dh11.39m) for his services.
That a number of conservative Israeli donors have contributed to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation has given Palestinian leaders further cause for concern. Haim Saban, an American millionaire who describes himself as "a one-issue guy, and my issue is Israel", is a major donor to the foundation, according to The Sunday Times. The authors point to the appointment to the Office of Tony Blair of Lianne Pollak, a former Israeli army intelligence analyst and Netanyahu staffer, as further evidence of how the quartet representative views that Palestinian cause. They quote several senior Palestinian sources who state that the apparent partiality of his appointments and donors undermines the appearance of neutrality needed for Mr Blair to do his job properly.
Blair’s dealings with Libya under Qaddafi came to light after the Libyan revolution. After leaving Downing Street, Tony Blair met Qaddafi on at least six occasions, according to papers found after Qaddafi’s death. On at least two of these visits, Mr Blair was flown in on a private jet paid for by Qaddafi. On one occasion, Tim Collins, a trustee of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation interviewed by the authors, was flown in apparently to discuss a donation from Qaddafi to fund the purchase of anti-malarial bed nets. But instead he was asked to invest in launching a beach resort in Tripoli. Blair brokered the meeting.
Collins was left nonplussed – was Blair working to raise funds for charity, or was he hoping to match an unwilling investor with a Libyan dictator? He remains unsure, the authors say.
It is safe to say that Blair has not brought peace to the Middle East. The authors’ main charge is that Blair has used his quartet role to broker introductions for his business clients, and to drum up new consulting work. Since Blair’s work for the quartet is unpaid (aside from £750,000 in rent for a custom-build house in Jerusalem), his business and charity donors fund him. It is not always clear exactly for whom Blair is working – JP Morgan, the Palestinians, the Israelis or the Office of Tony Blair.
Presumably, to those who deal with Blair, it is not always clear to whom one is talking – a diplomatic envoy, a philanthropist or a businessman.
What is clear is that Blair’s activities have been immensely profitable. The authors estimate that the former premier has earned £90 million since leaving office, and now owns, along with his wife, a property portfolio worth somewhere between £20 million and £30 million, depending on whom you ask.
It is difficult for the authors to establish a complete picture of Blair’s business activities, or of his unpaid work. That is in part because Blair’s offices refused to cooperate with the authors – and this is, in part, because Hencke and Beckett wrote a hatchet job of the former PM in 2005.
This poses a problem. Is Blair a man fuelled by an insatiable desire for self-enrichment? Is he really trying to make Palestine a better place to live? Or is he simply attempting to win more work for JP Morgan?
On the evidence given, it is hard to say. The authors do a reasonable job of providing enough context and detail to raise further, and significant, questions about Blair’s activities and motivations. But there is no smoking gun – just a lot of coincidences, and judgements from sources who probably never saw eye-to-eye with Blair to begin with.
It is also true that the book does not contain a significant number of important revelations.
It reads mostly as a collage of existing reportage, livened up with colour from new sources.
But the lack of hard fact is Tony Blair’s doing. His press team declines to respond to questions concerning his clients, activities, fees, salary, staff or office locations. His staff sign non-disclosure agreements that make those of investment banks look feeble, the authors say.
The legal structure that underpins his offices is Kafkaesque. Windrush Ventures and Firerush Ventures, which own Tony Blair’s various enterprises, appear to be designed solely to frustrate the efforts of individuals seeking to work out how much Blair earns, lawyers say. The man who championed the Freedom of Information Act before entering office has set up a network of companies that, by design, disclose almost no information of interest.
Peter Mandelson, a former cabinet minister and close friend to Blair, once said that the Labour Party under Blair was “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich – as long as they pay their taxes”. Perhaps he really is doing his best to improve the Middle East, as he sees it. Perhaps, somewhere, there is other evidence that could help us to look more favourably on Blair’s career after Downing Street.
But that depends a good deal on Blair deigning to enlighten us.
This book is available on Amazon.
Adam Bouyamourn is a business reporter at The National.