I am so committed to getting my book finished I really don’t have time or energy to blog at the moment, and realise it has been very desultory the last few weeks. I am well and happy, it is just that writing a properly researched history is incredibly intensive. I realise there is much of great interest happening in the world, but I must sometimes cut myself off from it.
This is why I don’t ask for donations for the blog…
Mystic Ba’al parts the veil again!
We said, apropos the re-engagement of Hamas and Fatah, and Tony’s coincidental reappearance in the Middle East:
If we are correct, a communique from the TBIfTB should follow. (all editors, including the Little Snoring Parish Newsletter, please copy verbatim)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-42/#comment-701700
And it did. Or at least a Guardian plug did, which comes to the same thing. Complete with reverse ferret, or shitweasel…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/tony-blair-hamas-gaza-boycott-wrong
Interviewed for a new book Gaza: Preparing for Dawn, out later this month, Blair said: “In retrospect I think we should have, right at the very beginning, tried to pull [Hamas] into a dialogue and shifted their positions. I think that’s where I would be in retrospect.
“But obviously it was very difficult, the Israelis were very opposed to it. But you know we could have probably worked out a way whereby we did – , or to be more accurate whereby MI6 did, without anything to indicate Blair’s participation.
Blair’s ever-present running-dog, Jonathan Powell, manages to twist the knife in the wound to Blair’s credibility:
Also interviewed in the book, Jonathan Powell, Blair’s former chief of staff at Downing Street, goes further, saying the Quartet strategy was “a terrible mistake”. Negotiations with Fatah alone – long promoted by the US – meant that “you have to make a concession to Fatah, then you have to make a new concession to Hamas afterwards. You want to have one negotiation, not two … If you got a united Palestinian team to negotiate with, then life would have been a whole lot easier.”
No shit, Sherlock. Didn’t manage to convey that insight to the then Quartet representative, Mr. ACL Blair, did you?
ROFL. Rather than cry.
Gaza: Preparing for Dawn is by Donald Macintyre, who regularly writes for the Guardian. Notwithstanding that, he is an informed and realistic commentator on the Palestinian issue*, and doesn’t seem to belong to Netanyahu’s fan club. Could be a good book.
*eg: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/12/theresa-may-rethink-uk-attitudes-isr***i-palestinian
(link redacted to evade filter)
This item now copied by all editors everywhere. Told you.
This is a significant about-turn from Blair’s position prior to 2015 (when he started making faint noises about including Hamas, and just before he got the push from the Quartet role, in which his support for anything the Is***lis told him to support was unwavering – perhaps those noises were why he got the shove, ultimately).
But like his admission that opening the UK to unrestricted immigration might not have been such a good idea, like his switch from greasing Gaddafi to countenancing the man’s destruction, and like his shift from damning Corbyn to damning Corbyn with faint praise, this is undoubtedly a tactical retreat, not a conversion. Netanyahu will undoubtedly do all he can to divide Hamas and Fatah, as he has always done, and he will do so with Blair’s full support, which he has always had. Indeed, more so now, as Blair has no official involvement in the region, and his meddling will be largely undocumented.
And it’s deliciously ironic that the man whose claim to be capable of advising foreign governments has always been based on the the Good Friday Agreement’s success due to the inclusion of all parties to the conflict, should have so resolutely refused to apply the same principle to the Gaza issue from the first – and only now try to restore his shattered credibility by admitting (though never apologising for) his error. Thousands died because Blair’s awe of US power and romantic attraction to the Apartheid State overrode his reason, and even, we are prepared to believe, his original vague intention to do some good.
Again.
Talking of the Good Friday agreement, we see that, its effects having been perhaps less lasting than was hoped (or spun) at the time, old fraud Bill Clinton was to have flown in for a blether with Stormont today. Hurricane Ophelia has forced a postponement, but tomorrow’s looking good for Bill. Although mutual toxicity – and the need to transfer allegiance to a Republican president, or two – has somewhat reduced the bond between Clinton and Blair, we rate it highly likely that both will be in NI tomorrow. Indeed, we suspect that Bill is enjoying South Pavilion’s legendary hospitality as we type.
Sorry, off topic. But wouldn’t you?
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/10/16/harvey-weinstein-helped-pay-bill-clintons-legal-bills-during-monica-era-washington-post-archive-reveals.html
We have maintained, on occasion, since undertaking to record in one place what could be known of Blair’s activities, that some of them were indicative of active collusion and support by the UK government. Someone went further, and put in an FOI request. Amazingly, this produced a result.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/652394/FOI_0776-17_Response_letter.pdf
Not only were FCO officials seconded to work for/with Tony after he had left office, on his hugely ineffectual Quartet project, but in one case an FCO official took more than a year’s unpaid leave to work for him.
We have seen Nick Banner and Gareth Bayley before, whose association with Blair was known to some. Five more secondments are identified only by their (high) grades It’s rather surprising that with such high-level FCO input, so little was achieved, especially with regard to Gaza. Unless we subscribe to the view that this was wholly intentional, that is.
Interesting that the above FoI release was picked up within 4 hours by the obscure ‘Foreign Affairs Monitor’ run by one Andi Pacurar – and at this time is the only external report of the release to figure in our Google search. Pacurar is a regular writer for pro-settlement Is***li outlets, and strongly supports the line that the country is entitled to grab what it can and fuck the natives. FAM’s Israel page consists of a piece on what you can expect when you join the IDF…paradise on earth. We’re not sure what’s going on here, and forbear to speculate, for once.
Just in case this disappears, the relevant section is this:
The FCO provided the following members of staff to the Office of the Quartet Representative from 2007-2013:
One Senior Civil Servant from July 2007 until April 2010, as Chief of Staff to the Quartet Representative. This role was filled by two different FCO officers, first Nick Banner until February 2009, and subsequently Gareth Bayley.
One Grade 6 equivalent from March 2010 to June 2013 as Senior Adviser to the Quartet Representative, Tony Blair.
One Grade 7 equivalent from July 2007 to August 2009, as Deputy Chief of Staff to the Quartet Representative, Tony Blair.
One HEO equivalent from August 2007 to August 2010, as Private Secretary to the Quartet Representative, Tony Blair.
One EO equivalent from September 2010 to August 2012 as Desk Officer, Office of the Quartet Representative. This role was filled by two different FCO officers in succession.
One AO equivalent from September 2012 until June 2013 as Desk Officer, Officer of the Quartet Representative.
The officers were seconded from the Middle East and North Africa Directorate. We do not hold job descriptions for these roles on file.
One FCO officer (Nick Banner) took unpaid leave to work for Tony Blair from February 2009 to July 2010.
Several questions. Who made the FoI request for this, and why? Why was the FCO supplying staff to a project in which the UK was only involved as a member of the EU, and that itself as only one of four parties? Were Russian, American and UN staff also part of the Blair circus? Who paid (the Quartet Representative gig was allegedly unpaid, although expenses seem to have been unlimited)? Who was pulling whose strings? Was Tony a handy back-channel to the Is***lis for the FCO or was the FCO a useful means of imparting spurious authenticity to Tony?
Informed answers gratefully received.
Ah. One question answered?
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/579206/Office-Quartet-Rep-Middle-East.pdf
In November 2007 the then Secretary of State for International Development approved a one off payment of £400,000 from the UK to UNDP to help with the costs of setting up the Office of the Quartet Representative (OQR). Since then the UK Government has not provided any further financial contribution towards maintaining the OQR.
DFID has, however, seconded staff to the OQR to support its work in reinforcing the prospects of a resolution of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict. The total amount spent on these secondments since 2007 is as follows ; (table follows: total ~£1.5M between 2007 and 2014)
But DFID was detached from the FCO (by Blair) in 1997. Were the DFID-funded staff different from the FCO staff listed above? Or were they additional to the FCO staff enjoying the amenities of Blair’s Is***l base? Did the DFID Banner’s salary during his time out from the FCO? Cosy, if so.
And Blair’s position was nothing to do with conflict resolution – his predecessor, Wolfensohn, had resigned precisely because it wasn’t, but was limited to facilitating the Palestinian economy. In truth, neither of them was a ‘peace envoy’, despite the press describing Blair as such. Blair’s activities in the name of peace were not part of the job description, even had they not supported the Is***li position at all points of dispute.
But a familiar pattern emerges. This was Blair interposing himself, or at any rate his organisation, between an international aid scheme and its notional recipients, if not for money, then for prestige with his other customers.
Proofreader drunk again…
Or were they additional to the FCO staff enjoying the amenities…
Should read:
Or was the DFID paying those seconded FCO staff enjoying the amenities..
And add, why didn’t they second their own people?
Further correction:
Did the DFID payBanner’s salary…
Here the Blair backtrack on engaging Hamas in peace discussions becomes explicable:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/10/17/israel-says-no-talks-if-hamas-in-palestinian-government.html
Tony is distancing himself from Netanyahu’s brazen, and entirely predictable, refusal to deal with anything looking like a unified Palestinian front. It may be that Tony realises that he gains nothing from being associated with an obviously rigged game. But more likely, in our opinion, we are seeing the first overt moves in a joint plan by Egypt and Is***l to install the discredited ex-Fatah head Mohammed Dahlan (currently hiding in the UAE) as their puppet in Gaza. This would require the sidelining of both Hamas and Fatah’s Abbas (who is getting old, and, despite that, showing disturbing symptoms of independent thought) – and likely involve extreme violence.
Just for laughs, if you have an unpleasant sense of humour, let’s revisit Libya, where Blair, who is Gaddafi’s main point of contact with those planning to remove him, is asking the impossible and declining to inform himself of the real situation, having been told not to. More detail than UK papers have ever provided here:
https://www.les-crises.fr/kadhafi-avait-prevenu-tony-blair-que-sa-chute-ouvrirait-la-porte-a-des-attaques-islamistes-en-europe/
Translated:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=https://www.les-crises.fr/&prev=search
Libya is today still in a state of chaos, with no agreed government, and Islamist insurgents continuing to confirm Gaddafi’s forebodings. Largely ignored in US and European media, eg:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-10/18/c_136687359.htm
Some background on the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese whistleblowing journalist who highlighted the comfortable relationship Joseph Muscat enjoyed with Aliyev’s Azerbaijan:
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2017-04-23/local-news/The-Malta-Azerbaijan-connection-chronology-of-a-saga-6736173362
Sunday, 23 April 2017, 11:00 Last update: about 7 months ago
Azerbaijan, along with Panama, has become the most talked about foreign country in the wake of allegations by journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia that the South Caucasus country has been funnelling money, through a company owned by the dictator’s daughter Leyla Aliyeva, to companies owned by Minister Konrad Mizzi, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and the Prime Minister’s wife Michelle Muscat…
…These include an Azerbaijani state company’s involvement in the new Delimara power station, the government’s 18-year obligation to purchase natural gas to fuel it from an Azerbaijani state owned entity, the visit Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff, his communications coordinator Kurt Farrugia and Minister Mizzi made to the country in December 2014, and the dictator’s daughters’ dubious company in Malta that was used to rake in funds from the Azerbaijani telecommunications market.
…In December 2014, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, his chief of staff Keith Schembri and then Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi paid a somewhat dubious visit to Baku. No section of the press was invited to attend, an oversight that the Prime Minister later said had been a mistake.
…The government’s own sparse report on the visit confirmed that Dr Mizzi signed two memoranda of understanding during the visit: one with his Azerbaijani counterpart on strategic cooperation in the field of energy, and the other with SOCAR, the state oil company, to plan and implement this cooperation.
According to the government statement, the two countries agreed on “collaboration in the exploration and production of oil and gas, the trading and distribution of petroleum, the trading of energy commodities in the Mediterranean, the possibility of new infrastructure and innovative services of LNG among others.
And in July, 2014, here’s Tony doing something rather similar in Baku:
https://www.ft.com/content/28b699ae-0d9f-11e4-815f-00144feabdc0
Supplying gas to Malta (first link) must have involved the Blair-‘advised’ Tanap/TAP project(second link)
Before August 2017, Blair’s last visit to Malta was in 2005, at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. This year’s vist was, he said, to renew old memories…”A few years back I remember doing a Commonwealth conference here. It was fabulous, but was full of meetings and I got no chance to see anything.”
He wouldn’t have seen much more in August. He was, as far as can be established, there for a day, having interrupted his usual summer holiday between billionaires in Italy and Sicily. That Malta visit has all the marks of a rush job. Was Muscat slipping in the polls prior to the election? Pre-election polls gave him a 5% lead, but it’s debatable whether Blair, unassociated in any special sense with Malta, and tarnished by Chilcot, would have added many votes to this by endorsing Muscat….one slippery customer boosting another. In the event Muscat won comfortably.
But the recent emergence of allegations regarding the Azeri connection between them could well have prompted an emergency meeting, and this point was made in an interview given shortly before her murder by Caruana Galizia.
Reputation flagging? Time to pay tribute to wholly wonderful old colleague again…
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/10/18/jeremy-corbyn-tony-blair-emily-thornberry-pay-tribute-to-first-out-mp-at-pinknews-awards/
There appear to be no pictures of Tony in front of the Pink News logo at the presentation, however. Anywhere. Corbyn was there, and Thornberry, but the Great Man could presumably only be reached remotely for his saccharine views on Smith, we think.
Chris Smith opposed the Iraq war…
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/feb/26/foreignpolicy.uk2
…and Blair sacked him shortly afterwards.
Gently bubbling under: the affinity between Blair (former Quartet Representative up Is***l’s Backside) and Avi Gabbay, new leader of Is***l’s Labour Party. Gabbay has has spent time in recent months with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and believes that the way to electoral victory lies in transforming his party in to an Israeli version of Mr Blair’s centrist “New Labour”.
https://www.thejc.com/news/israel/gabbay-s-new-labour-1.446189
Bad news for any remaining socialists, then, more particularly as, although the ritual invocation to the long-dead two-state solution has been made, Gabbay has no intention of dismantling illegal settlements, and will maintain the Labour record of refusing to include the Arab List in any coalition. IOW, he’s courting Arutz Sheva readers, much as Blair went for the Daily Mail vote. And while Blair slavers about centrism, the only practical effect will be to shift Is***l’s Overton window still further towards the immoderate right, much as Blair did in Britain.
Another *sincere* tribute, the day before Chris Smith’s…
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sir-sigmund-sternberg-qc8fqw75w
Nil nisi bonum, in this case. But it’s perhaps relevant to note that his influence on Labour (via his donations) was severely diluted when Blair took charge, and Levy started going round with the hat.
Of course, Cherie wasn’t just speechifying in Montenegro*. She was drumming up some business as well:
Cherie Blair has offered assistance to Montenegro in the process of building and strengthening the capacities of its institutions and public administration, as well as in the overall increase in the efficiency of its administration. It has been agreed that communication on this topic will be continued.
http://www.gov.me/en/News/177488/PM-Markovic-meets-with-Cherie-Blair-Mutual-interest-for-cooperation-on-strengthening-capacities-in-legal-matters-is-expressed.html
Will Montenegro’s institutions and administration be strengthened by Omnia Strategy’s legal beagles? And will the efficiency of its administration be increased? The European Commission finds in its Progress Report 2013 that efficiency in the fight against corruption is constrained by frequent legislative changes and the lax attitude among law enforcement authorities to investigate corruption allegations, especially those involving high-level officials. (Wikipedia)
Somehow we doubt it. But as what Omnia actually does remains (beyond some nebulous corporate waffle) a closely-guarded secret, and as its effectiveness is assessed only by those having to justify employing it, if at all, the public will never know.
* https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-42/#comment-701067
Intimidating detail here…
http://www.business-anti-corruption.com/country-profiles/montenegro#
Looks like they needed someone to gratefully accept extra funds for the judiciary.
During Tony’s August hols, as well as a quick visit to Joseph Muscat, the versatile one coincided with Togo’s hereditary president, Faure Gnassingbé who paid a flying visit to the same town in Umbria that Tony was then illuminating. Mere coincidence, if we forget that Tony had visited Togo barely a month previously, borne on the wings of Naguib Sawiris-
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-40/#comment-691307
(Sawiris’ Endeavour Mining doesn’t (yet) have a gold mine or a high-end hotel complex in Togo, but it may be into aggregate quarrying there)
But Tony was in effusive rather than goldmining mode, and Speech #94, “What a Wonderful Country This Is and I Have Always Admired Its Dictator” was accordingly blaired. This seems to have drawn a response from the little people of Togo, and its diaspora, who for some reason would prefer a democracy:
http://www.togo-online.co.uk/opinions/tony-blair-receleur-togo/
And it seems that a Togolese diaspora organisation was, or possibly is still, demonstrating outside what it thinks are the offices of the TBIfTB. But alas, and put not your faith in the TBIfTB’s website… The address they give is that of Bircham Dyson Bell, tax mitigators and company erectors to the mighty, of whom Tony is of course one. He may still be found at 9, Grosvenor Square, or he may not, as the lease is now up and he’s been looking for somewhere else. Safest bet is the Blair dacha: South Pavilion, Wotton Underwood, Bucks, but security is tight there. Diaspora please copy.
TBH, we’re not quite sure what’s going on here: no explicit connections are being made, as is often the way with dissident journalists whose Presidents might object; but for what it’s worth…
https://peuplesobservateursblog.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/togo-uk-ashrevolution-diaspora-togolaise-manifeste-devant-tony-blair-institute-london-westminster/
Some non-Sawiris miners get a detailed namecheck, and we simply don’t know if Tony has any involvement with them. Any clarification welcomed.
Meanwhile, in Togo, Gnassingbe’s (President for last 12 years after stepping uncontested into Daddy’s shoes) doing a Kagame and extending his term limit.
http://ghananet.com.gh/2017/10/20/togo-forces-fire-on-protesters-seven-wounded/
Blair country.
After rioting in Lome (several killed) against the continuance of Gnassingbe’s rule…or regime, as we’d call it if by unhappy chance we were forced to drop bombs on it…the opposition isn’t finished yet:
http://news.icilome.com/?idnews=839665
If the TBIfTB’s hoping to pick up a cheque for sanitising Gnassingbe, it may have to move quickly.
Tony renewed his allegiance to the UAE on Thursday:
Blair’s night at the museum
A tie-less Tony Blair slipped into the V&A museum onThursday night for the relaunch of Abu Dhabi newspaper The National.
The former PM was seen deep in conversation with Tony Douglas, the MoD procurement chief who is off to run Abu Dhabi’s Etihad
airline, and Sultan Al Jaber, chairman of The National.
Among the other guests of editor Mina Al-Oraibi was Katherine Garrett-Cox, who led Alliance Trust in Dundee until a rather large stooshie with investors. Garrett-Cox, 49, is now UK boss of Gulf International Bank.
http://features.thesundaytimes.co.uk/public/2017/Databank-BestBuys/Databank_Oct22.pdf
Blair also gave an exclusive interview to the National, in which the UAE emerged as the best thing since sliced halva, the Saudi monarchy as the next best thing, and all the old Blair hobbyhorses were excruciatingly revisited, platitude by platitude. We will not insult your intelligence with the text of this.
The National was sold earlier this year by its former owners – the Abu Dhabi government, to…a subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation (ADMIC), a private company owned by Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan, half-brother of Abu Dhabi’s ruler and UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan. So no change there.
And the lovely Mina Al-Oraibi was previously deputy editor of Asharq Al-Awsat. Wikipedia tells us that Although published under the name of a private company, the Saudi Research and Marketing Group, the paper was founded with the approval of the Saudi royal family and government ministers, and is noted for its support of the Saudi government.[3] The newspaper is owned by Faisal bin Salman, a member of the Saudi royal family.[4]
Tony’s in familiar company, it would seem.
DIARY:
He’s deaf to all criticism and abuse, so Tony’s forthcoming repeat visit to the Starkey Hearing Foundation’s Hearing Innovation Expo, currently penetrating the untapped African acoustic aid market, strikes us as oddly appropriate. Las Vegas, January 3-7th… …at the luxurious Cosmopolitan™ of Las Vegas — famous for its casino, 40,000 sq. ft. spa and fitness facility, 3,200-seat theater and gorgeous views of the Las Vegas Strip. It’s being upgraded further.
http://www.hearinginnovationexpo.com/
Kerching!
Whoops –
We nearly missed Tony delivering Conversation With Tony Blair #93: ‘I Just Love Your Oppressive Monarchy’s Attempt to Sanitise Its Image (and Can I Help?)’ at the Saudi Future Investment Initiative in Riyadh, yesterday:
http://futureinvestmentinitiative.com/en/program
Branson, Mnuchin, Gulliver, and a glittering array of other global elite moneygrabbers are listed as speakers, but Tony gets a slot all to himself, being interviewed by Nik Gowing. That’s Harvard-PhD, ex-journo, Chatham House, WEF Global Agenda Council member, Nik Gowing. So not too dangerous. Tony is recorded (not many editors have yet copied the release) as enthusing over Saudi Prince Mohammed’s plan to create an economic zone straddling the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian borders*.
Amnesty International describes this as ‘spectacularly tone deaf’ of him, given Saudi human rights abuses. Prince Mohammed also i/c the war in Yemen.That Starkey Hearing Foundation gig can’t come too soon.
* And, necessarily, part of the Red Sea. Floating customs point?
Some more detail on ‘Davos In The Desert’ here:
http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/3/12/280316/Business/Economy/Minister-Nasr-to-present-opportunities-for-investm.aspx
Conclusions: 1. Global brokers of money, power and influence don’t give a fuck about democracy, civil rights, or anything much except profits.
2. Nothing whatever has changed in Blair’s modus operandi.
While Prince Mohammed dangles the notion* of reforming Islam in the Kingdom in front of the salivating fat cats, and the movers and shakers, having endured ‘A Onesided Conversation With Tony Blair’ so often they know it by heart, adjourn to the discreet but still haram bar, perhaps it is time to remind ourselves of the unlikelihood of principle playing any part in the joint FCO/Blair initiative…
http://www.yemenpress.org/world/uk-arms-sales-to-saudis-topped-1-1bn-in-first-half-of-2017.html
The Sunni-Shi’a division Blair so assiduously cultivated has proved particularly lucrative in Yemen.
* He’ll be lucky. The fundamentalists will have him out if he steps out of line.
Blair’s reinvention of Labour’s selection procedure…chickens come home to roost:
http://talkradio.co.uk/news/jared-omara-ken-livingstone-blames-tony-blairs-changes-candidate-selection-17102620259
If only social media had existed during Blair’s undoubtedly callow youth! What fun we would have searching for remarks which would have disqualified him from Parliament!
And not just his youth. We’d forgotten this one:
“Do you want me now?” I asked. It was a clumsy phrase and Blair seized the opportunity to lighten the mood. “Catherine, I want you anytime. Come on,” he replied, suddenly more priapic than Prime Ministerial. “That’s quite something,” I replied, and the room erupted.
The sketch writers had a field day. The tabloids foamed and frothed. “Look out, Cherie,” advised The Daily Express. Others implied the joke was on Blair with headlines such as “Tony Turns Lounge Lizard” and “Frisky Blair Love-Bombs Press with the Launch of his Secret Stud Missile”.
Yet in the longer aftermath, it became clear which of us had to live with the consequences — and it wasn’t Blair.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/02/opinions/workplace-sexual-harassment/index.html
Fnaaarrrr.
For those without manual, numerical or technical skills, as well as those who enjoy debasing the language of Shakespeare, Milton and Ba’al Zevul, mentoring* can be a lucrative occupation. Not only does it involve meetings, seminars and vague objectives applied to people who aren’t quite sure what’s going on, just like management, but it now has a Mentor Summit and a National Mentoring Day. At which the Consort of Tony Blair will, inevitably, be talking.
http://www.thementoringschool.com/summit/
Talking about mentoring is even more profitable, of course, than doing it. Whatever it is.
*ie, being a mentor. See also other instances of nerbs, such as parenting, stalkering &c.
We wonder if the Trades Descriptions Act is still in force. Here’s the Tony Blair Institute (for Tony Blair) advertising for a gofer for the Heads of Effective Governance (who dey?)…As well as overseeing and providing ad hoc support to the wider team, the Executive Assistant will be responsible for the day to day diary management of the Managing and Executive Directors. The role will be working across two areas of work, the Effective Governance and Renewing the Centre Ground.
“Just don’t talk about Kenya (advised by the TBIfTB, and having just had an extremely debatable rerun of a rigged election) or Togo (advised by the TBIfTB and on the verge of civil war under its hereditary dictator). Effective governance is exemplified by Sisi’s Egypt (advised by the TBIfTB, no criticism permitted) Understood? I like the cut of your jib, young man. Hope you’re good at supporting pillars*. Welcome to the aid trough.”
The Trades Descriptions Act? The post is advertised under ‘Charity Jobs’ here. Whatever else the TBIfTB is, it isn’t a registered charity. And ‘Renewing the Centre Ground’ was never part of his former charities (RIP), either.
https://www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/tony-blair-institute/executive-assistant-to-heads-of-effective-governance/535181
* General Pillar Support:
Filing – creating, maintaining and retrieving (paper/electronic) materials for review. For instance- ahead of meetings or in support of projects
Maintaining contact database: Scanning / typing business cards, filing cards and keeping contacts up to date
Gifts and Entertainment – record gifts / entertainment received on the company register
General admin support- assistance to the wider team as and when time permits
Looks like a barrel of laughs.
Meanwhile, filling her
bootsgob…Meanwhile in Kensington at the stunning new Design Museum, guests including ex-Foreign Secretary William Hague and Cherie Blair gathered for a Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security event honoring global trailblazers. Those present enjoyed a champagne reception with carpaccio scallops, beef rolls and broccoli tempura.
Grateful thanks to:
https://www.politico.eu/newsletter/london-playbook/politico-london-playbook-chamber-of-horrors-dds-d-day-trumpland-in-meltdown/
The Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security is an academic institute that is housed in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. It was organized by the late Carol J. Lancaster, former Dean of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service,[1] and was first announced in December 2011 by Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia and then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.[2] It began operations in February 2013.[3] The institute “examines and highlights the roles and experiences of women in peace and security worldwide through cutting edge research, global convenings and strategic partnerships.”[2]
IOW, Googles, throws parties, schmoozes rich people, in order to, er, examine and highlight roles? Why? What for?
The Institute’s Executive Director is Melanne Verveer, former United States Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues and former Chief of Staff for Hillary Clinton when she was First Lady of the United States.[4] Clinton serves as the Institute’s honorary chair.[4] (Wikipedia)
And Verveer runs Seneca Point Global, a womens’ strategy outfit which appears to advise foreign governments and employ numerous people internationally with no publicly visible means of support. Familiar concept? Tony is nodding his head…
Belated addition – It appears that Tony had yet another chat with Netanyahu some time between the 8th and the 22nd October, presumably in the course of his last bout of Mideast meddling. No doubt instructions were given:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/pm-terrorists-launching-rockets-at-israel-will-not-get-away-with-it/
And see, above,
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-43/#comment-702042
Good to think Alastair Campbell reads this blog:
http://www.pamfleti.com/ish-keshilltari-i-tony-blair-mahnitet-nga-gomisteria-shqiptare-me-emrin-e-vecante-i-dedikon-dhe-status
Which refers to the unelected ex-policy maker’s amusement at what might be one of Tony’s offshore investments, but sadly isn’t.
‘Gomisteri Tony Bler’…it’s almost lyrical in English: ‘Tony Blair’s – Tyre Repairs’
But we spotted that a year and more ago, Alastair.
Some worthies, including the Quartet’s wholly impartial former Middle East Envoy, his beautiful spouse, a former donor to the same, the current Prime Minister of God’s personal country, Eric Pickles, and many more. Celebrating the Balfour Declaration, as well they might.
https://www.rexfeatures.com/livefeed/2017/11/02/balfour_declaration_centenary_dinner,_lancaster_house,_london?
Considerably more detail on Blair’s involvement with Guo Wengui, aka Miles Kwok, whom the Chinese government would very much like to interview on the subject of his business dealings, but appears to be resident in California at the moment.
http://en.boxun.com/2017/08/18/bribery-receipts-exposedtony-blair-and-miles-kwok/
While this maybe isn’t as conclusive as it pretends, we have Tony’s Africa trips in July 2015 (plane not specified) and Sep 2016 (T7-GQM. A Hong Kong-owned charter Global Express) apparently being arranged by Kwok.
Passport pages for Blair, what looks like his security detail*, and a Rebecca Thomas, who may have been the ‘Head of Events and Visits’ at the Tony Blair Sports Foundation (dec’d), for the 2016 visit, are also illustrated. It’s hard to see why she would have had anything to offer Blair on a trip related to governance advice, but we are an innocent lizard.
And the schedule for Tony’s Africa trip in April this year. Not the March trip, but its encore on April 9th, for which we didn’t have the full details:( https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-38/#comment-668011 )
He proceeded from Cape Town, via Joburg to Mozambique, Rwanda and Ethiopia. Instead of Sawiris, this too seems to have been closely connected to Kwok, and should the site be authentic, indicates that the relationship was still active recently. Which we didn’t know.
*Tut. Security can’t have been that good, then.
We are intrigued by the reference (above link) to a four-day trip in July of this year, overseen by Kwok. The only one which fits was yet another African speed-date between the 9th and 14th, on a VistaJet plane. Kwok has, therefore, as much input into Blair’s African market stimulation as Sawiris. Does the FCO know?
The deal which Blair allegedly helped Kwok/Guo negotiate with Abu Dhabi went tits-up. And that wasn’t all.
https://www.caixinglobal.com/2017-07-25/101122045.html
The question arising would be whether Abu Dhabi is using Guo as a proxy (or else!), via his remaining holdings, to diversify their interests in Africa. Or has Blair put the bite on him? Blair also has relationships in China. And Blair sells pull.
The original recording of Guo seeing to Blair’s comfort. With a specified stewardess…
https://twitter.com/haowenwen16/status/899251519920459776
Guo’s ?employee reports on Blair’s successful acquisition of some clothes. Who paid for them?
http://omgyoutube.com/watch/v=Lm8fx5ggxNU
Not too much significance should be attached to Gordon Brown’s ‘revelation’ today that the US duped Blair into the Iraq war. It has previously been suggested that the reverse was true, that Blair duped Bush, but that one falls apart given the known ambitions of the PNAC crew. Brown’s contention is that a crucial US assessment was withheld from Blair, who relied on the fake and exaggerated material stitched together from UK intelligence alone. This, given Blair’s constant access to Bush, is almost inconceivable, as Brown very craftily says:
“It is astonishing that none of us in the British Government ever saw this American report.”
Only one needed to, the better to pretend it didn’t exist. And Brown wasn’t him.
Link, sorry.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/05/tony-blair-duped-us-backing-iraq-war-gordon-brown/
The rehashed Tony Blair Institute (for Tony Blair) emplaces a dozen suits in Rwanda’s government, Strategic Capacity Building is their game, which probably means, if it has a meaning, making it easier for global megacorps to get in there and help themselves, We doubt if they will be doing that for free, or without some input from the said megacorps. Will the considerable cost of twelve management wonks be borne neither by the Rwandan taxpayer or international aid budgets.? We doubt that, too
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/50417/
All white? All but two…
Honest Ba’al (The Punter’s Friend) is pleased to offer odds of 2 to1 on*, to those wishing to bet that Priti Patel’s next employment will be with the Tony Blair Institute for Tony Blair, whose ideals, and some of whose contacts, she so clearly shares.
*Terms and conditions apply. Arduous ones.
The Great Advisor is reportedly in Tirana:
https://www.mapo.al/2017/11/artan-hoxha-ne-tirane-ka-mberritur-ish-kryeministri-britanik-toni-blair-pse-pikerisht-keto-dite/1
Why has he come? !!! Why exactly in these days with troubled weather? !!! ….. Alas, Mapo.al supplies no answer.
We were under the impression that Blair, Inc had ceased to advise Edi Rama…
http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/tony-blair-closes-his-collaboration-with-albanian-government-09-22-2016
But Edi’s still worried about Albania’s accession to the European gravy train, so more clandestine fixing will probably be needed. Cue clandestine fixer, daring to go where Priti Patel can’t, and with the knowledge of the FCO.
Clue:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=sq&u=http://www.kohajone.com/2017/09/26/sherr-ne-ps-ish-ministri-tahiri-del-hapur-kunder-kryeministrit-edi-rama/&prev=search
Rama’s cut the budget for justice reform, and flown into flak from his own party. No doubt his move was inspired by Blair’s airy theories on good governance ™ and transformative change ™ etc, so perhaps The Expert has been booked for a couple of expensive days. It’s a guess, anyway.
The truth of this is denied by
http://www.zathur.net/tony-blair-blindon-hotel-sheraton-fantazon-sherlok-holmsi-artan-hoxha/
but this goes no further than to say the original piece by Hoxha is untrue. No evidence.
We have from time to time suggested that the Grauniad might be less than the perfect journal of record. And from time to time we have been forced to eat our words. Herewith, a detailed history of the Blair rapprochement with and subsequent betrayal of Muammar Gaddafi.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/09/how-britain-did-gaddafis-dirty-work-libya
Required reading.
DIARY
Whether or not Tony’s contributing to Albania’s endemic corruption today, make room in your diaries and book your flight to Hong Kong to attend the Yidan Prize Summit (12th December), at which the omnipresent Cherie will be delivering the opening keynote. “How,” asks the blurb, “can we make governments reconsider the value of education?”
Half-arsed private academy schemes, of course, not to mention Laureate Universities, Pearson and Sunny Varkey’s GEMS Education. If the aim of the Chinese is to reduce their high educational standards to those inevitably provided by the English shambles, no better advocate is available than a Blair.
https://zh-hk.facebook.com/yidanprize/?_fb_noscript=1
We’d been waiting impatiently for the name Blair to pop up in a major leak of offshore tax avoidance/evasion. Looks as if sprog Nicky – the football agent one, not the employment agency one – has, er, started the ball rolling…
After the advance of an investigation presented last Monday known as Paradise Papers, which points to people who use tax havens in different parts of the world, and where it was announced that the players of the Mexican National (football – BZ)Team involved in it are Héctor Herrera and Diego Reyes, who opened businesses on the island of Malta to pay taxes of five percent.
This Friday Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity A.C., who heads the investigation in Mexico, announced that for this, Héctor Herrera formed two companies, associating with Nicholas Blair, son of the former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair.
Nicholas took Herrera to Europe and founded in 2014, with Hector as a partner, two companies, both founded on the same day and in Malta’s tax haven: Herrera Holdings Limited and Herrera Management Limited, which “has neither offices nor personnel” , according to the investigation.
The idea of generating a couple of companies is to seek the return of taxes for shareholders, since the treasury in Malta allows the return when it is shown that one carries out most of its activities outside the country; “The fact of including a signature in” the belly of another “yields benefits for the owners,”* the investigation explains. (Google Translate, but you get the idea)
http://www.espn.com.co/futbol/nota/_/id/3695536/herrera-se-asocio-con-hijo-de-tony-blair-para-paraiso-fiscal
Malta, eh? Tony visited earlier this year (see above)…
* No doubt the idea came from Windrush Ventures, Ltd, No.1 Ltd, No.2 LLP, No.3 LP, etc.
RECAP:
Nicky, amid much publicity, started his football agency, modestly named Magnitude Ltd*, at Mummy’s offices in 2007. In November 2013, the Graun reported that he was :
negotiating the transfer of Mexican star Hector Herrera to Portuguese team Porto for €8m. He’s now hard at work on the transfer of another Mexican, Guadalajara’s Marco Fabián, to a Premier League team for €12m.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/shortcuts/2013/nov/11/nicky-blair-football-agent-tony-cherie
Which is passing strange, because Magnitude Ltd had been dissolved the previous May. Nicky also resigned from Mummy’s property empire, Harcourt Ventures Ltd, in March this year. One day after its formation. He appears to hold no other UK directorships.
We conclude that Nicholas John Blair is now fully offshore, despite his budget £1.35M townhouse** in London. We would welcome evidence to the contrary.
*Companies House #06260031
**http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2272239/Blairs-paid-1-35m-cash-home-number-SEVEN-Bought-storey-Georgian-townhouse-son-Nicky.html
Much fuller report:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://elmexicanonews.com/futbolistas-hector-herrera-y-diego-reyes-tienen-empresas-fantasma-en-malta/&prev=search
Of Herrera Holdings, Ltd (Malta) Herrera owned 1,600 shares, while his agent, Nicholas Blair, was the owner of the remaining 400 shares of the firm.
…After the publication of this investigation, sports sources speculate that the participation of Reyes and Herrera in the 2018 World Cup is at stake, despite being fixed in the line-up of the coach of the Mexican national team, Juan Carlos Osorio.
Should do something for Nicky’s professional reputation, we think.
Supporting evidence –
https://contralacorrupcion.mx/web/paradisepapers/futbolistas/assets/doc-11-herrera-management.pdf
That’s Nicky’s town house. Part of it.
(And here’s the rest (2012)
http://idoxpa.westminster.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=details&keyVal=MD65NJRP06A00 )
In other news, Tony attended the Cenotaph service and Tony thinks Labour should be further ahead of the Tories. We think Tony should be facing trial.
Tony’s not an original thinker. Repeating the pattern of week or two’s relative silence, then a flurry of PR (TBIfTB suddenly discovers technology, this time. It’s the way forward. Who knew?)…and then a trip to Africa aboard Sawiris’ Bombardier; today, Tony’s in Cote d’Ivoire.
http://abidjantv.net/actualites/alassane-ouattara-sentretient-avec-tony-blair-ce-lundi-a-abidjan/
Notable only for the grinning-skull pic. Sawiris is probably there as well, checking on his mining investments . A goldminer and a gold-digger, you might say.
Background:
https://www.financialafrik.com/2017/03/31/cote-divoire-naguib-sawiris-annonce-de-gros-investissements-dans-sa-mine-dor-dity/
If he’s going to hop over to Lome to bestow his blessing on Togo’s hereditary dictator, Faure Gnassingbe, last seen with Tony in Umbria, he’d better do it before Thursday, when Gnassingbe’s subjects will be demonstrating against his misrule:
https://togotribune.com/news/trois-jours-de-manifestations/
And here’s what he was up to:
http://abidjantv.net/actualites/les-dessous-de-la-visite-de-tony-blair-a-abidjan/
Seems the locals, whose livelihoods have been constrained by a goldmine at Agbaou, are seeking redress. With Endeavour’s 85% interest in the mine, this is Sawiris (30% of Endeavour) country. It would appear that Blair is in the miner’s camp, in….…une affaire qui risque de compromettre sérieusement les intérêts d’Olivier Colom, son ancien collaborateur, par ailleurs administrateur indépendant du Groupe Endeavour Mining.
….Every morning, those who have their plantations in the perimeters of the mine are forced to gather in front of the entrance of the mine until they are allowed to have access to their fields. It often ends in fights between the mine guards and the planters “.
By ‘(former) collaborator with Blair’, the article alludes to Colom’s secondment from the French Foreign Office to Blair’s office in 2005-2006. Colom is also Secretary General of the Edmond du Rothschild Group. Though, as Bloomberg estimates his wage from Endeavour as a miserly $30K, his interests are unlikely to be much threatened by discord at Agbaou.
Thus far, although Blair arrived on M-ASRI, Sawiris’s private Bombardier, there is no mention of Sawiris himself. Is Tony now the Envoy for Morsi’s Man?
O bugger. Alliteration overcame accuracy there. Read “al- Sisi’s man”.
Regardez Tony solving all the problems of the ivorian education system by agreeing that stuff needs to be done, with the Minister of Education. Sadly she hasn’t yet realised that Tony is not in the business of laboratory supplies but is very good mates with some budget providers of often substandard education in the private sector. So the meeting concluded with warm, rich rays of solidarity, warm handshakes, cooperation, and important (but unspecified and uncosted – BZ) support for the Ivorian school prospects.
http://www.africanewsquick.net/archives/16544
Lagos shortly?
Nope.
Tony “Goldfinger” Blair is currently approaching Banjul, in the Gambia, and descending. Endeavour Mining, as at 2016, had no mines in the country, which is probably the planet’s #1 plaguespot for artisanal gold mining, generally using mercury as a solvent for the metal, and poisoning local watercourses as a result. Endeavour specialises in low-cost operations, and has turned to heap-leaching – which is containable – to recover values from the ore. Gambia would certainly be of interest, as it is to Chinese operators. Blair was in the Gambia in March, also on the wings of Sawiris.
We wonder if this too is part of the pro-bono work to which the no-longer-charitable Tony undertook to devote 80% of his valuable time?
We don’t think Tony will be staying long. President Barrow is scheduled to leave for a “Global Investment Forum (host, Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund?) in Dubai this afternoon. Paul Kagame will also be speaking there. We’re experiencing problems with the crystal ball right now, but we’ll be right back.
https://www.freedomnewspaper.com/gambia-president-barrow-asked-to-out-clean-on-his-upcoming-dubai-trip-dp-world-lobbying-for-the-banjul-ports-expansion-project/
We believe the event in question to be the ICD Global Investment Forum – a bewildering range of Dubai investment, business and financial fora is available at any time of the year. The ICD’s website hasn’t been updated since April, however. It’s the Islamic Corporation for the Development of the Private Sector, and strictly for globalist not-very devout Muslims, it would seem.
No, it isn’t according to a credible source. It’s the Investment Corporation of Dubai. We were right the first time. And publicity is lacking for the event.