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…
Friday found Tony in Washington having what was almost certainly not a Full English breakfast with SID. Not the gas guy of embarrassing memory, but the Society for International Development, Washington Chapter. This is a monster thinktank-cum-talking shop devoted to agreeable meetings promoting globalisation, probably taken seriously by anyone wanting to make an ethical-seeming profit out of an African dictator and an aid budget. Its Wikipedia entry was manifestly written by its own PR team, so is no help, but the presumption must be that it is funded clandestinely, at least in part by the USG. We welcome further information.
Tony was talking about the TBIfTB, as usual. Nothing original was said as far as we know.
There are few insights to be found in this podcast, made by a venture capital firm, Andreesen Horowitz, a major investor in wholly intangible digital applications which make loadsamoney out of data. The blairing is Globalist Harangue #3, and is notable only for Blair’s assumption that it is the politicians who tell the public what to do, rather than the other way around. The Institute for Global Blair’s meme (“for the many not the few” – stolen from Labour) is shoehorned into the summary, but somehow fails to conceal the demonstrable fact that Tony is paid by, and only ever talks to, the “few”.
https://a16z.com/2019/06/16/politics-technology-policy-regulation-tony-blair/
We could find no other record of this rather un-Blairish blairing than some Colombian outlets. It is credited to the BBC, but with no date or details. But we would like to believe that The Master has now comprehensively alienated the entire population of Colombia with some words which should be enough to get him the Colombian necktie (Google that. Unless squeamish)
No, we don’t think it’s Blair, unless he was pissed. But what fun it would be if it was…
https://comunicar-jacsanjosebaq.blogspot.com/2019/07/opinion-muy-dura-contra-el-pueblo.html
We’re always interested in other peoples’ attempts to discover where Blair’s income comes from. One such is a Mr. PJ Rees. Who asks, under FoI:
Dear Cabinet Office,
What public duties did Tony Blair and David Cameron carry out in 2018 that justifies the payment of the (Public Duty Costs Allowance -K)?….
This is probably a most entertaining can of worms, and I do not anticipate a straight answer emerging from the Cabinet Office. For instance, were his many conversations with European leaders last year, and to date, plotting against stated Government policy to obtain Brexit, been subsidised from this convenient source? His media appearances, attacking the elected leader of his own party as well as its opponents?
The opaque machinations of the Institute for Blair in general? Has the UK (as opposed to one or two of its corporations) benefited in any way from these? Should this payment be made at all to someone already being paid handsomely by the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and foreign corporations?
We may never know. But there’s no harm in asking. Repeatedly and in detail.
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/pdca_2
https://files.whatdotheyknow.com/request/public_duty_costs_allowance_guid/pdca%20guidance%202016%20release.pdf
DIARY:
https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/tony-blair-to-speak-at-the-board-of-deputies-dinner-in-november/
Just in case Corbyn hasn’t been “sacrificed*” by then. Still waiting to see Tony invite himself to a Muslim Council of Great Britain bash, though. Funny, dat. Location and date not yet clear. Look for the security cordon.
* https://skwawkbox.org/2019/07/20/board-of-deputies-has-not-deleted-video-calling-for-corbyn-to-be-sacrificed-or-apologised-to-him/
Our ribs were definitely tickled by some of the comments to the Twitter announcement of the Reverend Blair’s forthcoming manifestation, though…
https://twitter.com/BoardofDeputies/status/1155475483749998593
Some classic hasbara trolling there, too, of course.
“Tony’s” lambasting of the Colombian people* has now been reproduced pretty well word-for-word, but with the target switched to the Mexican population. Whoever’s doing this presumably shares our own high opinion of Mr Blair, and we wish them every success in making the name a hissing and a byword throughout Latin America:
https://www.elsoldemexico.com.mx/mundo/los-mexicanos-son-cobardes-critica-tony-blair-ex-primer-ministro-de-reino-unido-3964363.html
…and from other, presumably dissident, Mexican outlets.
“They voted for Andrés López Obrador, more than a year ago, there have been electoral frauds as in other countries. They called the demons and now it will be difficult for them to get rid of them, ”he said.
Tony, as we noted at the time, joined President Obrador at the Coparmex (Mexican employer’s federation) conference last October, but criticism of El Jefe was notably lacking from his blairing. Who’s next? Bolsonaro, ideally.
* https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-57/#comment-881582
Damn. Someone’s twigged it’s a phoney:
https://polemon.mx/oposicion-hace-ridiculazo-difunde-nota-falsa-sobre-tony-blair-para-atacar-amlo
But if it’s the work of Senor Ortiz, why is a nearly identical fake tirade aimed at Colombia? We don’t have the ultimate source yet. One thing we do know is that the author has not spent nearly as much time being revolted by Blair as we have. If he had, he would know Blair’s tone (sorry) is invariably sweetly reasonable, even when he is trying to destroy his own party. And as far as we know, he’s still working for the Colombian government; if so, why would he want anyone to overthrow it? Poor research, we’re afraid. Has never read Blair Miles.
Thanks for correcting my error, Mods!
In August 2018, Venezuela was addressed in similar terms by not-Tony-Blair…
https://heraldodemexico.com.mx/tendencias/es-cierto-que-el-ex-primer-ministro-de-reino-unido-tony-blair-nos-llamo-cobardes/
Someone is definitely having a laugh.
ESOTERICA:
Tony Blair was the guest speaker at the first National Mod Meeting (as in scooters, parkas and seaside riots) in Peterborough, in 1985.
It appears not to have been a triumph (even a Triumph Tina): “In hindsight, it would have been better if Buster Bloodvessel had been the guest speaker and Tony Blair was given something he could cope with, like playing a tambourine or triangle”,, writes someone in Classic Scooterist. Very, very few people know that.
https://www.classicscooterist.com/soul-shoutin-a-mod-called-joe/
It all fits.
DIARY:
The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and the Alliance for Peacebuilding are excited to convene an Insights Forum in Nairobi, Kenya from 20-21 November 2019. We will bring together organisations working with religious actors in the preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) and peacebuilding sectors across the Sahel and sub-Saharan Africa
https://www.linkedin.com/company/alliance-for-peacebuilding
(relevant entry will descend and possibly disappear with time)
The Alliance for Peacebuilding is a poorly documented not-for-profit based in Washington DC. Its president and CEO is one Chic Dambach. Who also happens to be the Chairman of the Board of the Coalition for American Leadership Abroad.
Senior fellows include:
Tanya Domi – ex State Department
Larry Garber – ex- USAID, National Defense University, former CEO of the New Israel Fund
Ravi Venkatesan – former chairman of Microsoft India and venture capitalist.
It all looks rather neoliberal – something for which the burgeoning peacebuilding industry has been widely criticised – and very well funded. By whom? we don’t know…
We notice that the somewhat rotund form of Kathryn Blair has been spotted in Sardinia, where she has been in the process of marrying a James Haslam. (Who he?- K) (Is he loaded? – CB) It looks like the whole family has gathered at San Teodoro, and flights by M-USIK to and from Sardinia at the end of last month give further corroboration of this exclusive event.
http://www.lanuovasardegna.it/nuoro/cronaca/2019/08/03/news/la-figlia-di-tony-blair-si-sposa-a-san-teodoro-1.17861717
We have our suspicions regarding the marriage of Kathryn Blair, as reported by a Sardinian outfit, above. They certainly didn’t get their own picture, as the one they supplied was of Euan Blair’s ostentatious nuptials in Blighty six years ago. …..
https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/the-wedding-of-euan-blair-and-suzanne-ashman-at-all-saints-parish-church-in-wotton-underwood-buckinghamshire-britain-14-sep-2013-3025095b
File with a pinch of salt. With her mother’s tendency to pork and mouth dimensions, but her father’s bottom lip, we fully understand that getting wed may not be a walk in the park.
Supplementary to the above:
M-USIK flew from Zurich to (probably) Olbia on the 31st July
On the 2nd August, it did a round trip from Olbia to Mykonos and back. Today it is still at Olbia.
The Sawiris yacht, YALLA, is currently moored at Porte Cervo, N. of Olbia.
The other Sawiris yacht, CRAZY ME, is anchored nearby.
This is the traditional freebie time for Tony, of course, but we will have to wait until the paps find him, and his daughter, for any further confirmation that the no doubt lucrative Blair-Sawiris connection endures.
More detail leaking through the security perimeter:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.lanuovasardegna.it/tempo-libero/2019/08/03/news/kathryn-sposina-supervip-1.17861996&prev=search
The wedding was today, allegedly.
We wonder if the entrepreneur hosting the tribe might be Silvio Berlusconi, who has been adding to his villa complex nearby. Tony was last reported as staying there in 2004, but there have been several contacts since.
Yet more:..
http://www.lanuovasardegna.it/tempo-libero/2019/08/04/news/un-angolo-di-paradiso-per-il-si-di-kathryn-blair-1.17862413
…salient points being that Locations, spaces and roads have already been monitored in recent weeks by the British secret services in connection with Italian colleagues. FoI requests as to the cost to the hardworking UK taxpayer of policing this and previous Blair weddings are overdue. There may be further taxpayer-secured high jinks back home, in the course of a religious endorsement of the Sardinian civil ceremony. Palau is a nearby locality,not as far as we are aware a family of entrepreneurs, further information welcome.
As it is on the fortunate groom, whose origins and occupation still appear to be a closely-guarded secret. We will venture a small wager that James Haslam is either a lawyer or an accountant, rather than a gay Elvis impersonator:
https://pressreleases.responsesource.com/news/98177/first-best-lgbtq-elvis-tribute-act-award-porthcawl-elvis-festival/
…but we have been wrong before.
The captains and the kings have departed, it seems. M=USIK flew to Cairo – perhaps, since ADS-B data is incomplete for this. Other options would be Sharm or Hurghada. YALLA is now at Athens, but CRAZY ME is still off the Costa Smerelda. The Mail adds the information that the exercise was conducted while the ‘royal’ Family was on holiday, and the question of Tony’s whereabouts remains open. Although the sleb-studded crowd (Madonna, Kourtney Kardshian, Steve Jobs and Alisher Usmanov have all been flaunting their bikini-clad boobs/perfect abs/money near San Teodoro last week) must be an attraction, the possibility of being spotted anywhere but in the close company of an African dictator or in a pro-European television studio seems to be the better part of discretion these days. A freebie aboard CRAZY ME, is our best current guess.
However, YALLA’s 9.5m ‘limousine’ tender (TT YALLA) remains at Porto Cervo, with CRAZY ME. Great for coasthopping guests, and privacy on demand for transfers.
We erred earlier. There are two YALLA’s. The Sawiris YALLA (KY reg) is still at Porto Cervo It is the other similarly ostentatious gin palace by that name which went to Athens.
We suggested at the time that the World Humanitarian Forum, in April, as we noted, attended by the humanitarian Blairs, might be in some way connected with Turkish interests. The three listed directors of World Humanitarian Forum Ltd all have unmistakeably Turkish names. We hear an invasion by Turkish arms of eastern Syria’s Kurd-controlled territory is imminent. No doubt this will be as humanitarian as all get out.
DIARY (probably)
The GovTech Summit, which is coy about its intentions but appears to be a networkfest for dynamic global entrepreneurs looking for yet more ways to milk global taxpayers, takes place in November. The organisers, “PUBLIC” (see what they did?) have already obtained the Blair imprimatur and given him an interview platform, so we can expect to receive further platitudinous arm-waving waffle at the event. 14th November, Palais Brongniart, 16 Place de la Bourse, 75002 Paris.
https://govtechsummit.eu/
PUBLIC is a venture capital fund. We have no idea where it gets its money, but someone’s taxpaying public is probably the ultimate source. Its CEO is Daniel Korski, a name which may be familiar in Craig’s circles,and who was latterly one of David Cameron’s SpAds. It is perhaps no coincidence that the Govtech Summit claims both the UK Embassy in Paris and the UK Science and Innovation Network (also government -run) as partners.
Its internet domain is the British Indian Ocean Territory (.io).
DIARY:
African Green Revolution Forum, 3-6 Sept 2019, Accra, Ghana. (Tony also attended last year, in the company, naturally, of Paul Kagame.)
3rd Sept:
AASR – The role of Private Sector in Ag (sic)…Fireside Chat, with Mr Blair
4th Sept:
Supporting CAADP Priorities for Progress, 1100-1300; Brief remarks by Mr
ToadBlair.Plenary, 1430-1730. Mr Blair moderates the Presidential Summit.
The Institute for Global Blair is well embedded in Ghana’s government.
Meanwhile, in the Balkans….
http://rs.n1info.com/English/NEWS/a507108/Tony-Blair-links-Vucic-with-some-PMs-accused-of-corruption.html
The link wording is a little misleading and the translation shaky. However, the article points out that Vucic, Ponta and Brnabic have all been advised by Blair, and are all, allegedly corrupt. We are sure our own numerous posts on these relationships could have given no-one that impression! Good to see Sebastian Ghita (aka Gica) hasn’t been forgotten,
““inside Blair’s circle, Vucic is linked to other common allies like Saudi Prince Mohammad bin Salman, also advised by Blair, as is UAE, which, Brnabic said, paid for Blair’s consultancy to her Government through ‘Tony Blair Associates’ company.” “
We were pleased to see signs of rationality surfacing among Blair’s clients…
https://www.trbusiness.com/regional-news/international/tfwa-president-defends-selection-of-tony-blair-as-keynote-speaker/170633
With this in mind, there may be some industry stakeholders (attending the TFWA conference -K) who believe a cheaper keynote speaker would have been more viable and would rather have seen the money invested elsewhere. TFWA has not revealed the fee for his services.
But, just as Brutus was ‘an honourable man’, so Tony is an “authoritative” speaker. And it costs good money to have a team writing your speeches.
We learn also that Blair is to undergo a brutal interrogation by Natasha Kaplinsky at the Board of Deputies bash on November 4th. Natasha, best remembered for setting fire to her boat while on holiday at her 5-bed mansion on Corfu, lends her celebrity status to holocaust-related causes*, and we imagine that Labour’s alleged antisemitism will get a full airing.
*Notably for pissing £75M of taxpayer’s money on yet another memorial: https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/05/britain-doesnt-need-another-holocaust-memorial/
Further to:
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-56/#comment-880529 …
https://www.trtworld.com/magazine/multi-billion-dollar-fine-on-pakistan-puts-the-spotlight-on-a-secret-court-29141/amp/?utm_source=googlenewsstand&utm_medium=amp_rss
In which a mining company screws Pakistan, and is ably assisted by Cherie Blair…acting for Pakistan…
The fine has left experts wondering if the three-men tribunal considered Pakistan’s economic woes or if Islamabad’s lawyers, including Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, brought up the possibility that paying such an award could cripple the country.
Increasingly, as the Blair security cocoon tightens, the Thoughts of the Dear Leader emerge over someone else’s byline, and from the Institute for Global Blair. This week, some extremely intolerant vapourings on the subject of the ‘far right’ – a sector to which Blair himself gave increased credibility both by pushing the Overton Window rightwards and endorsing unrestricted immigration. Summarised here:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/far-right-extremism-hate-groups-media-appearances-bbc-list-ban-a9081191.html
Brendan O’Neill, in the Spectator, deals with this much better than I can.
To use legislation to punish people before they have committed a crime, before they have done anything violent, takes us squarely into tyrannical territory where you can have your fundamental rights negated on the basis that you might at some point do something bad, or inspire someone else to do something bad.
But then, in the minds of the authoritarians at the Tony Blair Institute, these ‘designated hate groups’ have done something virtually criminal — they’ve said things Tony Blair and Jacqui Smith, who wrote the report’s foreword, disagree with. How dare they. If this report were to be acted upon, it would set a dreadful precedent: it would open the door to the censorship of any group that holds edgy, difficult or, yes, hateful views.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2019/08/does-tony-blair-think-free-speech-isnt-for-everyone/
Blair’s meditations on criminalising people who disagree with him are echoed this morning by The National.
Strap: “The voices of hate must be silenced”.
This is a UAE-based newspaper, owned by Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan’s company, the Abu Dhabi Media Investment Corporation. Al-Nahyan, a member of the undemocratic ruling family, is deputy PM of Abu Dhabi, and The National is appropriately selective in its reporting of controversial news. Abu Dhabi reportedly funded Blair’s London office during his time as Quartet envoy, and the UAE’s sovereign fund, Mubadala, probably underwrites the cost of The Institute for Global Blair’s employment by other states, such as Serbia. (see above, passim)
Even if Blair and the UAE were not umbilically connected, the National, given Abu Dhabi’s appalling human rights record, is exactly the kind of outlet we would expect to be promoting Blair’s authoritarian outburst.
Freedom of speech, indeed.
The Human Rights Watch issued a report regarding the violation of the rights to freedom of expression in the United Arab Emirates. On 15 March 2017, Tayseer Najjar, a Jordanian journalist, was sentenced to a three-year prison term and a fine of 500,000 UAE Dirhams by Abu Dhabi Federal Appeals Court. He was charged with insulting the state’s symbols and criticizing Egypt, Israel and Gulf countries through comments he made on Facebook during Israeli military operations in Gaza in 2014, before he moved to the UAE. Ten days after preventing him to travel to Jordan for his wife and children on 3 December 2015, UAE authorities summoned al-Najjar to a police station in Abu Dhabi and detained him. They also prevented him to contact with a lawyer for more than a year before bringing him to trial in January 2017.[146]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates
We return to the 1MDB – Petro Saudi affair. And refer you to Sarawak Report (ironically, enough, founded by Gordon Brown’s sister-in law), which has documented the allegedly criminal intent of the 1MDB fund set up by then Malaysian PM Najib Razak. This is a can of worms, and we recommend further exploration of the site.
http://www.sarawakreport.org/2014/11/how-1mdbs-development-money-paid-tony-blair-rm218000pm/
But there’s Tony! (we’ve noted this before). How could he have possibly become involved in something shady?
Enter Jho Low, also a beneficiary of 1MDB, and currently in hiding from the authorities. Petro Saudi was not the only company to benefit from the generosity of the Malaysian PM – or rather his people. Here, both 1MDB and Mubadala (which still pays Tony, as far as we know) are investing in Thomas Kaplan’s Electrum Group. And ex-Blair SpAd Jonathan Powell, an old Oxford mate of Kaplan’s, also surfaces. Kaplan is the President of the Board of Directors of 92nd Street Y, which we have visited in these notes, as Tony has spoken there more than once. 92Y has the reputation of being anti-Zionist, so this is a little perplexing, as Kaplan is a major funder of the pro-Israel UANI, which Powell has also advised. See –
https://lobelog.com/document-reveals-billionaire-backers-behind-united-against-nuclear-iran/
We’re adding Sarawak Report to our favourites.
NOTE.
This thread is concerned with Tony Blair. We try not to deviate from this. However, there is an enormous field of research arising from the 1MDB proceedings, and superficial enquiry suggests that the Bush-era Zionist neocons have reassembled under the banner of UANI (United Against Nuclear Iran) and are both supported by Trump and advise him. That Mubadala, the UEA sovereign wealth fund, is complicit in this. That Kaplan is central to this, and by close association, Jonathan Powell, (also Daniel Kawczynski, MP). That instability in the Middle East is actively fostered by Kaplan for his own commercial ends. We hope someone has the time and energy to go further.
We have a little something (delayed – our fault) on Blair’s (and Soros’s) contacts with the EU at Davos:
The European Commission is keeping secret details of talks between EU commissioner Pierre Moscovici, former UK prime minister Tony Blair and Hungarian-US billionaire George Soros, about a second Brexit referendum.
The commission told EUobserver in reply to an access to documents request that the need to protect the EU’s decision-making process weighed heavier than any public interest in what was discussed last January in Davos. It released an emailed summary of what was discussed with the French EU commissioner Which was heavily redacted in some places.
Six lines were redacted that followed the sentence “Soros and Blair: discussions with the two earliest backers of a ‘People’s Vote’”.
Despite the assertion that the Juncker commission had led “an unprecedented wave of transparency”, by consistently disclosing when commissioners meet lobbyists….Moscovici’s meetings with Blair and Soros (had) not been listed on the commissioner’s web page, three months after they took place.
Also, Frans Timmermans who wants to succeed his boss, commission president Jean-Claude Juncker, reported a meeting on 6 November 2018 with the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.
However, according to the commission no documents existed relating to that meeting: no minutes or presentations, or even emails sent in advance for setting up the meeting.
Overall, The lack of minutes for lobby meetings with EU commissioners has been repeatedly revealed by access to documents requests by (euobserver.com).
https://euobserver.com/brexit/144724
No comment required.
A Norwegian take on Tony:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=no&u=https://akroma.no/&prev=search
With a synopsis of the Institute for Global Blair’s newspeak proposals.
Geriatric vegetable. We like it. A pumpkin perhaps – orange and tasteless?
Job applications for ‘country head, Burkina Faso’ at the TBIfTB close on Sept 4th. This presumably follows Blair’s visit in April, where Tony offered his unmatched expertise to the President. Good luck with that one, chum. The FCO advises against all travel to the larger part of Burkina, and only necessary travel to the rest, due to terrorism. (Naguib Sawiris part-owns* the country’s Karma, Hounde and Youga gold mines, and accompanied Blair in April – see, passim)
Tomorrow, Blair will be in Ghana. (Sawiris part-owns* the Nzema gold mine in Ghana.)
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/02/an-apology/comment-page-57/#comment-884635
*30% stake in Endeavour Mining, possibly more – K.
It’s another jet tour round Africa’s aid recipients, en route to the Green Africa Forum in Ghana:
Yesterday in Gambia, to announce that Gambia is wonderful…
https://gambianewstoday.com/tony-blair-gambia-has-made-progress-under-barrow/
Not enough –
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/05/gambia-key-human-rights-concerns/
Even Barrow’s undertaking to end capital punishment is now on the back burner, to be his ‘legacy’ and awaiting his departure.
Gambia is wholly dependent on foreign aid, and is digging itself deeper into debt under Barrow. Cherie Blair’s firm is representing Gambia against the claims of (British) African Petroleum to offshore licenses, with questionable success. We see a deep and meaningful relationship developing with the Institute for Global Blair.
Also yesterday, Senegal, with Pres. Sall:
https://wanema.info/2019/09/03/ressources-petro-gazieres-tony-blair-a-dakar/
In which Blair hijacks a scheduled discussion on oil and gas and unsubtly introduces the governance-related fields in which Blair can pick up a profit.
Today’s Wednesday…must be Ghana. As foretold:
https://firstreportsonline.com/osinbajo-ex-uk-pm-tony-blair-hold-bilateral-meeting-in-accra/
“Bilateral meeting” means that there were two people meeting, we think. And, subs please copy, the AGI ceased to exist when incorporated in the Tony Blair Institute for Global Blair two years ago. Vice-president Osinbajo, not the big cheese, Akuffo-Addo, no details of what was bilaterally discussed, and no interview. Though this last may have had something to do with Tony’s persistent throat problem. Too much talking, and too much jet cabin air?
Yemi Osinbajo is vice-president of Nigeria, of course, not Ghana. He, and President Buhari (of Nigeria) have been in Ghana presumably to discuss the response of his country to anti-Nigerian violence in South Africa. Apologies for the misleading account.
Surprisingly little press coverage of Tony’s illumination of the Africa Green Revolution Forum,(which is unconcerned with environmental concerns such as deforestation for farming, monocultures and sustainable energy – Tony hasn’t waxed ecological for eight or nine years)
He appears to have delivered some platitudes juxtaposing agriculture and technology, been interviewed by a Rwandan journalist – the conversation segued into Brexit, and Tony’s hitherto secret plans to take legal action* against Brexit – and tiptoed lightly out. Where to, we have yet to discover. We suspect it was not the WEF Africa conference in Johannesburg, where foreigners are being killed and looted by some poor locals (54% unemployment in the 16-34 y-o range) with their own take on populism. Togo, maybe.
*Wouldn’t bring the wife into this, Tone. That Pakistan case was a shambles.
Yesterday, to Westminster Abbey to put on our #grave/concernedface in memory of Paddy Ashdown, along with chums Brown, Major and Cameron. Then off to Kings College London to open the latest social science magnet for foreign paying students, the International School of Government, and have a public blether with its boss Alexander Downer.
In 2014, KCL’s business school underwent some criticism from abroad, the tenor of which was that the UK’s universities were fine, but UK business was a lost cause and who were we to be trying to teach anyone? Much the same might be said of our politics, of course. The school’s website could have been written by the TBIfTB, and like it, gives the impression of a globalist managerial cult aimed at eliminating national styles of government and developing advanced algorithms for fooling the public. Impression confirmed by the reports that the audience actually laughed at Tony’s quips as he put his elegantly shod hoof into his party leader, again. He never loses an opportunity to be paid to do that.
A heartwarming meeting of old chums, and minds, at Westminster Abbey yesterday:
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/09/10/15/18304706-7447101-image-a-89_1568126236619.jpg
Berkowitz, with expensive appendage, Major and the Great Pontificator, celebrating the prolonged death of the Mother of Parliaments. No long faces there! Mandelson was also present at the photo-op.
Today, Mr Blair, unelected busybody, gave an audience to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, presumably in New York. We have no further details as to the invaluable advice exclusively vouchsafed to Senor Guterrez at this time. That some of it concerned Brexit is almost a racing certainty, though.
https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/appointments-secretary-general
Mr Blair emphasised his commitment to socialism further by attending Cantor Fitzgerald’s celebrity charity event in commemoration of 9/11, or 11/9 as it is more properly known, also in New York. Tony was not the star of the show at K-F’s sleb-thronged offices: Prince Harry was. Both pretended to do some trading in imaginary money for the assembled hacks, Harry ‘closing’ a billion dollar ‘deal’ – his commission would in theory buy him a Gulfstream of his own.
Strangely, the Standard failed to mention Tony’s presence. Cantor Fitzgerald does institutional equity, fixed income sales and trading, and serves the middle market with investment banking services, prime brokerage, and commercial real estate financing. It isn’t the first visit by Blair, and it is excusable to wonder whether he donated to the charitable pot or whether his nonprofit think-tank/aid leverage outfit was one of the beneficiaries.