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…
While Tony was in New York on the 10th, Cherie “I’m a Socialist” Blair/Booth was in Rwanda, ‘leading’ a bunch of investment bankers.
However, we can’t see her in the photo submitted as evidence of this. It may be that she’s adopted Tony’s aversion to unscheduled photo-calls
https://www.newtimes.co.rw/business/cherie-blair-leads-investment-delegation-rwanda
We hate to see people throwing good money down the drain, even lady investment bankers, and we would be remiss if we did not include a link to Rwanda’s current economic position:
https://tradingeconomics.com/rwanda/government-debt-to-gdp
Kagame’s on record as wanting to turn Rwanda into a knowledge-based service economy by next year. Get your skates on, Paul. Right now it’s aid and speculators funding you.
Ah. Kagame’s important enough to be photographed with:
https://www.facebook.com/PresidentPaulKagame/posts/10156101300492282?_fb_noscript=1
Congratulations on the black belt, Cherie. Origame, perhaps? Or Ryomen?
Yesterday found the international bore in Ukraine, exuding at Yalta International Strategy’s annual conference. YES is the brainchild of zillionaire Israel-supporting oligarch Victor Pinchuk, who has long had a profitable relationship with Blair, and its purpose is to lever Ukraine into the EU. Not the first visit by Blair to this one. Blair’s opinions anent Brexit were fully aired, as usual.
In other news releases (regionals please copy) Blair has demonstrated hitherto unsuspected sensitivity to public opinion and instructed the Institute for Global Blair to announce that the one thing uniting the UK public its weariness with hearing about Brexit. We might perhaps have thought that Tony could draw the obvious conclusion and *STFU* on the subject on his infrequent stopovers here, but we know him much, much better than that.
Erratum:…YES is Yalta European Strategy…of course. Not ‘international’.
Back to Africa again on the 13th; this time inserting himself in the G5 Sahel Summit in Ougadougu, Burkina Faso. Here he endorsed the “Desert to Power” initiative, drawing on his immense experience of
photoelectric devices and transmission networkstalking. The project is a particularly obvious one: the Sahel region gets a lot of sun, hasn’t much useable land and is ideal for solar power generation. 10GW capacity is envisaged, and what must only be a startup fund has been promised: $20M. The best of luck to the Sahel, but you can certainly save some cash by dispensing with Blair’s services.https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/g5-sahel-heads-state-throw-their-weight-behind-african-development-banks-desert-power-initiative-30106
A possible gig for Tony has been rejigged: The Invest in West Africa Forum, at which Naguib Sawiris was certainly scheduled to appear, will now be held in November, in Brussels rather than Togo.
Continuing to pursue the dream, Tony did his bit for Eurotourism again this weekend:
https://www.youtvrs.it/lex-premier-britannico-tony-blair-in-vacanza-a-pesaro-e-fano/
Allegedly to attend a friend’s wedding, but we couldn’t discover who the friend is. Though there can’t be that many to choose from.
DIARY:
Blairing at the Web Summit* conference
ALTICE ARENA & FIL, LISBON
NOVEMBER 4-7, 2019
https://websummit.com/speakers?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6dOsvo795AIVmKztCh0_hQ8WEAAYASACEgJO2_D_BwE
Might be entertaining, since Blair will inevitably be whining about Brexit, which may actually have happened by then. We don’t have a schedule for this yet, but Blair is also booked for the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ dinner on the 4th, and we imagine the blairing in Portugal will have to be later. Priorities, d’ye see?
*”Web Summit” is the name of the Irish corporate events company organising it. It is not in any real sense a summit meeting, but a networking bash.
To the Muslim World League, in Jeddah, yesterday:
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1564711/saudi-arabia
The Muslim World League is the creation of and financially dependent on the Saudi government. Effectively a platform for promoting Wahhabi Islam and sharia law worldwide, its record on fostering religious tolerance is to say the least, invisible. Yet this was among the topics of discussion with Tony. We wonder if the promised co-operation between an organisation whose contacts with terrorism are unclear, and The Institute for Global Blair, whose contacts with money are very clear. could have anything to do with the Saudi payment to the TBI earlier this year. Or is this a new contract?
Yesterday, in Edinburgh, the Scottish Parliamentary Journalists’ Association endured a blairing which inter alia explained that the Scottish independence movement was a Good Thing (although Blair disagrees with it and it has always been populist) while Brexit is a terribly, terribly Bad Thing (because Blair disagrees with it and it’s populist). Here we see a clear agenda. Butter up the ScotNats, in the hope that they can help destroy Brexit. Simultaneously, though, the Dear ex-Leader (presumably remembering who gave the Scots devolved government in the first place) Warns Labour – In Capitals – Not To Give The Scots Another Indyref.
A further point made for the benefit of all editors everywhere was that Tony may not vote Labour next time. It’s antisemitic, naturally; he has a dinner with the Board of Deputies next month. It’s divided; it doesn’t consist largely of Blairites. And it’s no place for centrists: well, of course it bloody isn’t, and only was when Tony completely subverted its historical purpose and tradition to propel himself into the style to which he has now become all too accustomed. But Tony feigns existential conflict here. He may, or he may not vote Labour. His too-visible support will maintain the divisions: reneging will probably lead to his expulsion, and the loss of his last illusory, but useful, tie with socialism.
His hesitation, even so, is strange He is impaled on a fence of his own manufacture. Neither his wife nor his son voted Labour last time. Jump, Tony!
A classic blairing, in other words.
Also, while in Edinburgh, the great man clandestinely had a word with Ruth Davidson re. Scottish independence. He has not had a word with Labour on this topic, but continues to issue instructions to the faithful via the media.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/17973602.ruth-davidson-tony-blair-secret-talks-independence/
We are happy to report that Tony’s association with Naguib Sawiris continues, unhindered by the sale of M-ASRI. Here’s Tony at the very pretentious Pier 88 Egypt, with the owner and Naguib, last month.
http://www.instagimg.com/user/giovannibolandrini/3756470922
Looks like the hair plugs are rejecting his scalp.
(Page link:scroll down: the image location has a very long URL)
And so to Delhi, where his employer, JP Morgan, has been having a business conference in Delhi aimed at drumming up lucrative opportunities in the land of outsourcing. Possibly the most nauseating picture of the ingratiating bastard this year, but we are not sure how the image of Modi’s arm being twisted by an imperialist will go down with the Indian public…
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/pm-narendra-modi-meets-tony-blair-john-howard-henry-kissinger-in-delhi-2121072
Blair’s announcement that the Brexit now on offer was “meaningless” (true), which somehow failed to take account of his sustained efforts to scupper it over the last three years, was apparently made from this location.
Julian Borger, in the Guardian, also noticed the happy gathering in Delhi:
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2019/oct/23/architects-major-modern-conflicts-kissinger-blair
We are surprised that this even made it to ‘commentisfree’, but it’s encouraging to see the paper doesn’t suppress Tony’s critics completely:
On the notorious Nixon tapes, Kissinger can be heard referring the Indians as “such bastards” and calling Indira Gandhi a “bitch”…..There is no sign of huffiness at the JP Morgan bash. The fact that when Blair and Rice were in office, their governments imposed travel bans on Modi after anti-Muslim rioting killed a thousand people under his watch has also been consigned to the past.
It may be that once you rise to the top level of such grand strategy, it no longer matters what side you were on or who you killed. They all add to the mileage on your platinum card. To have taken part and come out the other side, prosperous and smiling, is enough.
DIARY:
Next week will be a busy one for the omnipresent Mr. Blair. Monday evening dinner (noted earlier) with the Board of Deputies of British Jews, then on Wednesday to (a) Brussels, to meet Frans Timmermans (and discuss how to foul up the UK election?)
https://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_CLDR-19-6210_en.htm?locale=FR
and (b) to the Web Summit in Lisbon (noted earlier). Blair will be displaying his masterly command of waffling on a topic of which he is completely ignorant, at 10.30 on the Centre Stage (surprise!) of the Web Summit Lisbon (Altice Arena & Fil, Lisbon). Pious title: “None left behind: making tech work for the many.” Probably unmentioned: the notion that video conferencing has long made planet-spanning luxury flights between networking events completely unnecessary…