Blood money or a grand gesture

[stoop]

The offer of the money is the real issue here not whether it's accepted. Blair has profited too much from his time as PM for my liking and this offer just shows what a callous man he really is.

£4.5m to ease his conscience is what it's really about. As I said above - imo it's up to the BL members to decide if they want it or not.

[Scunner]

From The Independent:

"Speakers classed in the industry as "double A" grade earn more than £25,000 per booking, and include international sports stars, retired prime ministers and presidents. Bill Clinton is reputed to earn more than £130,000, while Margaret Thatcher has charged £30,000 ~ The former Conservative Party leader William Hague is the most popular speaker on the circuit, again commanding up to £25,000. But Edwina Currie can only expect £4,000".

I'm surprised you single out Blair.

[Beep]

I totally agree with you Stoop and with due respect Keith we are not talking about after dinner speakers and income earnt thereon - we were discussing the morality of how the earning of this particular money came about I thought. I'm sure that the BL will decide what is best for its members and my greatest respect for them and their tireless work.

[desmartinson]

quote:Originally posted by barry44544

If you are a Tory you hate him....
If you are old Labour you dont Trust him.
I think he made a brave call with the information he was given.
A very Honorable gesture by a good man.

read beeps post again. he knew beforehand there were no WMD but went ahead, could it be his good pal G W Bush helped him make a decision.

[Scunner]

quote:Originally posted by Beep

the morality of how the earning of this particular money came about I thought.

I was assuming Margaret Thatcher would be speaking about her time as PM when she was being paid £30k per appearance rather than discussing her favourite recipes. Why are these earnings being considered different to Blair's earnings from his book? Under Thatcher many suffered, under Blair others suffered. Both are making/made big money from talking about it, why is it ok for Thatcher and not for Blair? I am entirely lost by your argument!

[Beep]

I would go back to the initial topic by Highlander Keith "Blood money or a grand gesture" - we were not talking about Margaret Thatcher at all but the fact that Tony Blair is to give the profits from his book to the British Legion (if they accept them).
It must be accepted of course that a large part of this is actually tax avoidance on his part so it is in fact the British Taxpayer that is making a large part of the donation - not Mr Blair although Mr Blair gets the publicity ;-)

[Scunner]

We are talking about ex-PMs making money from the very fact that were once PM. Could it not be blood money for Thatcher's pocket, from the lives her Government destroyed through the disastrous economic policy that eventually lead to the meltdown of the ludicrous Exchange Rate Mechanism, Black Wednesday, Poll Tax and various other mismanangements that caused great suffering to many people.

Surely blood money to pay £30,000 to Thatcher to tell a room of drunken toffs how people lost their jobs and homes while she was not for turning.

[Beep]

You seem to have a fixation over Mrs T :-)

Well indeed you could be correct but she didn't invade an effectively defenceless country causing the deaths of 1000s of civilians and soldiers to my recollection but doubtless you will disagree.

[Scunner]

A defenceless country that has not been defeated in 7 years of trying. No, Thatcher didn't invade Iraq, you are correct. John Major did. Or is Afghanistan the defenceless country you are referring to, which has defended itself against the mighty Soviet Union and then the Allied forces?

[barry44544]

If Mrs T was that good why did they dump her?
and as for knowing what information Tony Blair had, only the security services
of the UK and the USA know the full story.
I suppose he was only Gassing his own people because they were defenceless .
Good old Saddam... we miss him.
Its funny it's not a fixation when your slagging Mr Blair.
But Maggie was a saint !
Funny old game aint it.