Blair Inc--The Man Behind the Mask

by Francis Beckett

  This gave us a few comical moments. We asked the press officer at the Tony Blair Faith Foundation (Blair’s religious organisation, supposedly aimed at getting religious groups to work together and respect each other) – more as an icebreaker than as a serious question – where the TBFF’s office was. When she abruptly changed the subject, we suddenly became really interested in the location of the office, and eventually the acutely unhappy press officer said she was not authorised to disclose it on the telephone. She could only, she said, give us the address on the website, which is PO Box 60519, London W2 7JU.

  So could we write in and ask, and be given it? This, apparently, was a matter way above her pay grade. We should write to her boss, the director of communications and strategy, Parna Taylor – and, no, it wasn’t possible to speak to Ms Taylor on the telephone.

  So we emailed Ms Taylor, and the response was: ‘The address for all correspondence to TBFF is public on our website – this is the PO Box address.’

  We asked Ian Linden, then TBFF director of policy – we got him on his mobile because they wouldn’t put us through at the office – and he hung up on us rather than tell us.

  We asked Rupert Shortt, a former employee, who twisted and turned in abject misery and said he supposed they had to be careful about terrorists finding out the address. ‘There’s a bulletproof screen on the ground floor and all the post has to be scanned,’ he added by way of explanation.

  Then we saw some letters sent to various folk by Tony Blair’s office. The heading was simply ‘The Office of Tony Blair’ – no address, no contact details at all. The ‘signature’, too, was ‘The Office of Tony Blair’ – no name, no actual signature. They were even keeping secret the name of the person writing the letter.

  In the hope of some cooperation, we sent several emails to Ciaran Ward, media officer for the Office of Tony Blair – the hub round which Blair’s charities, his commercial consultancy and his work as Middle East envoy revolves. On the fourth try we got an answer. It looked quite hopeful:

  Apologies for the delayed reply.

  It would be great to get some more detail on the book. Specifically, what are you looking to cover in the book? What would you like to speak to Mr Blair about? What stage of the writing process are you at? What’s the timescale for publication and also, when would you need to do an interview with Mr Blair by?

  The only omen of what was to come was that it arrived in an email with no contact details. Still, we gave him the information he wanted, and back came an offer of a meeting with him and his boss, the head of communications Rachel Grant.

  ‘We’re happy to come to you,’ he said. But we don’t have a central London office and they do, so, we asked, could we meet in their office? Apparently not. Mr Ward wrote back to offer a meeting in a coffee bar.

  It occurred to us to say that we already knew where their office was, so they might as well let us come to it, but things seemed to be going so well that we thought better of it.

  It was a friendly discussion. They said, sorry the TBFF press office seemed unhelpful, we’ve got nothing to hide, why don’t you put everything through us in future? We said, fine, and, by the way, what is the address of the TBFF? And they looked at each other, and Mr Ward said, ‘I think it’s been in The Sunday Times,’ and Ms Grant said, ‘All right, then,’ and Mr Ward said, ‘Well, it’s in Marble Arch,’ though he avoided giving the exact address. (It’s 1 Great Cumberland Place, London W1H 7AL, and it’s the last building on the right as you come towards Marble Arch, since you ask.)

  We said, ‘Can we have an interview with Mr Blair?’ And they said they’d ask. We said, ‘Can we have an interview with the new director of the TBFF?’ And they said they’d ask. We said, ‘We’ve got some questions,’ and they said, ‘Put them in writing.’

  They asked whether we would like two of Mr Blair’s speeches on Europe emailed to us, and we said yes, please. And, when Mr Ward sent them, lo! he’d put in his telephone numbers, both landline and mobile. We were in now, we thought.

  And that’s almost the last we ever heard of them. We emailed Mr Ward half a dozen times after that, asked questions, said we hoped we’d get that interview with the chief executive of the TBFF, and there was no reply. So we phoned both the numbers we’d been given several times. Our calls were never answered and there was no voicemail.

  We told our troubles to Matthew Taylor, once chief of staff to Blair in Downing Street and the partner of former TBFF chief executive Ruth Turner, and he promised to see if he could persuade his old colleagues to talk to us properly. He couldn’t.

  Taylor expanded on a theory he held, which he hoped we’d explore: that, unlike the USA, Britain gives former prime ministers no role at all in the state. Former US presidents are still known as President – we still talk of President Bush and President Clinton – and they have their foundations and their libraries. Former British PMs have nothing, and that – he seemed to be saying – was why Blair has floundered, uncertain what direction to go in.

  Similarly, the Conservative MP for Kensington Malcolm Rifkind told us that ‘the only official role he has is as the Representative of the Quartet. Everything else he does is as a private citizen. He has exactly the same rights as any other private citizen. If he wants to spend his time flying around the world like the Flying Dutchman, that is his sacred right. It is something we had better get used to, we have the cult of youth. Prime ministers are in their forties or fifties when they retire. You can’t expect people who have had full-time occupations to simply go into gentle retirement playing golf from forty or fifty onwards.’

  It seemed a promising area for investigation, though we felt a little sceptical. Our prime ministers leave office financially secure from years of well-paid work and the very best pension arrangements, and with international reputations and bulging contacts books should they wish to work. It seems enough, and we’re not convinced they need further cosseting.

  But Taylor hoped we would explore the thesis. So we tried, even though no one close to Blair was willing to offer us any evidence. It led us to the conclusion that there was some significance to the way Blair had created for himself as near a replica as he could of the life he once lived in 10 Downing Street. This idea is pursued in some detail in this book.

  A few people spoke off the record, but these were always edgy, difficult conversations in which they were evidently terrified that the smallest piece of information might be traced back to them.

  Some edged towards us flirtatiously, then rushed away, some disappearing suddenly and refusing to pick up the phone, others apologising profusely and lingeringly with what seemed like genuine regret, as though they would speak if they dared.

  Others were less polite, though none were quite as determined to be unpleasant as our old friend Charles Clarke, who wrote to us of ‘your pleasure in a rather unpleasant and very unjournalistic reputation which you try and promote,’ adding, ‘You have a set of views (to which you’re entitled even when they’re miles off course).’

  We did eventually meet the official press officers again. Towards the end of this project, there appears to have been a partial rethink. One of us went to the same coffee bar to meet Rachel Grant, who was personable and professional and dealt with some queries. Mostly, her answers were along the lines of, ‘We never give the amounts of our fees’; ‘We never give names of donors’ – but they were answers. At a late point in our researching process, the Africa Governance Initiative did also provide us with an account of its contribution to the international effort to counter the Ebola outbreak in West Africa

  Meanwhile, the TBFF got a new press officer, William Neal, who didn’t seem unremittingly hostile, which was an advance. We had a civilised coffee with him, and he, too, dealt with a few queries for us. He even finally managed to get an answer to our year-old request for an interview with chief executive Charlotte Keenan. The answer was no.

  So we’ve done the book the hard way.

  GETTING RICH: BLAIR’S SECOND
CAREER CHOICE

  Tony Blair is the first British prime minister in history whose life after he left power has merited a book of its own. Most people pursue second careers to do more of what they enjoy with less stress. This is not the case with Tony Blair. He struts the world stage, travelling, we understand, for a third of the year, constantly on and off private jets and in and out of splendid hotel suites. He seems confused about his goals and conflicted in his responsibilities and interests.

  How comfortable can the businessman in pursuit of excessive wealth be with the Labour Party politician who once protected Thatcher’s legacy? Successful by the standards of a businessman, Blair still haunts the screens, giving his opinions on the lives of the ordinary folk who once voted for him in droves. Contradictions haunt him at every stage. He once asked a stranger at a garden party, ‘Why don’t people like me?’

  How can the poor of the Middle East rationalise the international salesman, in his expensive suits, his salesman’s smile at the ready to greet a dictator or oligarch, with the ‘Representative of the Middle East Quartet’ supposed to bring investment into the Palestinian economy?

  How does he answer the charge of many distinguished public figures that those he solicits for funds for the Palestinians are confused about whether he is also seeking funds for Tony Blair and his sponsors and companies?

  This book will seek to answer these questions. Our conclusions are both shocking and disturbing for British public life and for the political class that Blair damages.

  The story begins on 27 June 2007. That was the day Tony Blair officially resigned as prime minister, was appointed Middle East peace envoy, and set about making himself seriously rich.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A HANDS-OFF ENVOY: BLAIR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

  ‘For Tony Blair to say, “I would like to talk to you about the peace process” is a very different entry point from saying, “I would like to get an oil concession in the east of your country for a client or I would like to become an adviser to your country.”’

  – JAMES WOLFENSOHN, BLAIR’S PREDECESSOR AS MIDDLE EAST ENVOY.

  ‘Jim Wolfensohn resigned because he is a man of great principle and courage who did not want to be used. They had to find someone who would play the game, and Tony Blair accepted the role.’

  – DR HANAN ASHRAWI, PALESTINIAN NEGOTIATOR.

  At 8 a.m. on 27 June 2007, a big white removal van drew up outside 10 Downing Street. A man stood at the corner where Downing Street meets Whitehall – the nearest the public can get to No. 10 – with a placard saying, in huge capitals: ‘GOOD RIDDANCE’. Around him were a large number of protestors against the Iraq War. As far as anyone knows, there was no one there to support the outgoing PM.

  But if Tony Blair noticed the stark contrast between his last day as Prime Minister and the day, ten years earlier, when he had entered the building in triumph, he gave no sign of it. In Parliament at midday he gave his standard non-apology for Iraq, saying of Britain’s soldiers, ‘I am truly sorry for the dangers they face in Afghanistan and Iraq. I know some people think they face these dangers in vain. I don’t and I never will.’

  There was something for MPs to congratulate him on. That day he was stepping down not just as Prime Minister, but also – unusually for a retiring PM – as Member of Parliament for Sedgefield, and he announced that he had accepted an invitation to become Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East. The Quartet is an international diplomatic group consisting of the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. Its website spells out Blair’s mission:

  Tony Blair is charged with implementing a development agenda in line with the Quartet’s mandate: promoting economic growth and job creation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and supporting the institution-building agenda of the Palestinian Authority (PA). The goal is to produce transformative economic change on the ground, underpinning the top-down political process.

  In the House of Commons, the Rev. Ian Paisley said, ‘He has entered upon another enormous task. I hope that what happened in Northern Ireland will be repeated, and that at the end of the day he’ll be able to look back and say: it was well worth while.’

  As we write, seven years later, Tony Blair, with his magnificent Jerusalem offices, his armour-plated car, his Jerusalem staff, would be a fantasist indeed if he were looking back with the satisfaction that Ian Paisley hoped for. Peace in the Middle East looks further away than ever, and the Quartet envoy seems entirely irrelevant to what is going on in the region.

  Could he have made a difference? Could a different Quartet envoy have made a difference? It’s hard to say. It’s hard even to say what success might look like. All you can ask is that the envoy should put his heart and soul into it. Did Blair do that?

  Blair’s appointment was not straightforward. The Bush administration in Washington drove the appointment. According to a well-placed Washington source, the State Department opposed the appointment, but Bush insisted, saying, ‘Blair sacrificed his political career for me.’

  The new British government under Gordon Brown may have been privately pleased that Blair might be spending a lot of time abroad, but EU leaders were lukewarm and the Russians positively hostile – they endorsed the appointment unwillingly. The Israeli government welcomed the appointment and the Palestinian Authority was not consulted.

  As the Quartet Representative (QR), Blair has to ensure that the group’s mandate and primary aim is met. The position is unpaid. He says he spends about a week a month in the region, but all of our sources – including diplomats and Middle East correspondents of British newspapers, who monitor his activities as closely as he will allow – tell us that this is an overgenerous estimate. ‘About two or three days a month’ is the assessment given to us by a veteran British Middle East correspondent, while Middle East-based journalist Jonathan Cook, who has excellent Palestinian sources, says, ‘It’s widely known that he spends as little time as he can get away with in the region.’ The typical pattern of his one week a month in the Middle East, according to a diplomat quoted by Jonathan Cook, is, ‘He’ll arrive on a Monday evening and leave Thursday morning.’1

  The French journalist Jean Quatremer, Brussels correspondent for Liberation, talks of his ‘rare appearances’ in the Middle East, and the appearance of being more interested in making money.2

  A Palestinian negotiator, Dr Hanan Ashrawi, told us, ‘He is very part-time. His presence is not intrusive. It does not feel like a week a month. He certainly doesn’t report to me once a month.’ If he were spending any time with Palestinian negotiators, Ashrawi would either be there or at least know all about it.

  Blair’s office does not give any indication of how much time he spends in the region, but told us that journalists would not be aware of all his visits, so their estimates would, we were told, not be reliable. However, the office declined to offer its own estimate.

  MATCHING UP TO WOLFENSOHN

  There is no doubt that his predecessor in the job, James Wolfensohn – for whom Ashrawi had much more respect – spent much more time in the region than Blair does. Wolfensohn, former president of the World Bank, did the job for a year, from April 2005, after being appointed by the four partners.

  Wolfensohn told us that, to do any good for the peace process, you have to put a lot of time into the work. ‘The point about the Israel–Palestinian thing is that there is an important job to do. To a degree it is a full-time job and you cannot do that on a timetable of two or three days. You cannot do anything in a rushed manner in the Arab world. Condi [Condoleezza Rice, then US Secretary of State] found this; I found this.’

  Wolfensohn worked on the job of QR almost full time. By contrast, Alex Brummer, city editor of the Daily Mail, who ghostwrote Wolfensohn’s autobiography, said on his newspaper’s website that ‘far from being embroiled in his mission of deepening economic and security ties between Israel, the PA and other parties, [Blair’s] feet rarely touch the ground in Jerusalem’. According to Brummer, ‘
Blair’s approach to the job has been a stark contrast to that of his predecessor as Quartet negotiator the former World Bank president James Wolfensohn …

  ‘The former head of the World Bank used to be in non-stop negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians, shuttling between Gaza, Jerusalem and Ramallah.’

  Brummer says that Wolfensohn addressed issues such as the removal of rubble left by Israeli bulldozers when, at the request of the Palestinian Authority, they destroyed the settlements inside Gaza, and organised openings at the road crossings between Israel and Gaza so there could be free movement of buses for the Arab population and goods between the West Bank and Gaza.

  Brummer adds,

  What the Wolfensohn experience demonstrated is that the quartet’s work was not about great geopolitical thinking or the war on terror, familiar territory for Blair’s high-flown rhetoric, but about detailed on the ground negotiations.

  There is nothing exciting about bus routes, Gaza border openings and security barriers in the West Bank. But this is what being the Quartet negotiator was meant to be about. It is a job to which Blair, with his once over lightly, butterfly approach to diplomacy was entirely unsuited.

  That has not bothered the former Prime Minister. The Quartet sinecure may pay him no money directly but has been a godsend for his broader ambition of making as much money for Blair Inc. as quickly as possible.

  So while the Middle East has lived through some of its most traumatic and bloodiest modern episodes – the aftermath of the second Israel–Lebanon war of 2006 and Israel’s Gaza campaigns of 2009 and 2014 – Blair was hardly to be seen.

  Instead of continuing with the effort to bring Israel and Palestine together, through economic and security cooperation, on the former PM’s watch the situation worsened dramatically …