THE DAILY EXPRESS: As he lands another giant payday, our former Prime Minister is cashing in with a vengeance on companies who are happy to buy his star quality...no matter what his lack of expertise
YOU have probably never heard of Phil Wilson. Since July 20 last year this miner’s son from County Durham has been MP for the rock-solid Labour seat of Sedgefield.
Whatever qualities as a New Labour drone, he will no doubt demonstrate for decades to come the most interesting thing about him is the date of his election: just 22 days after the previous holder of the seat, Tony Blair, resigned as Prime Minister.
In the past, PMs have tended to linger on the backbenches after leaving Downing Street. Ted Heath stayed for 27 years, while Jim Callaghan stayed for eight and then became an active member of the Lords. Margaret Thatcher kept her seat until the 1992 general election allowed her a graceful exit, while John Major remained a backbencher throughout New Labour’s first term.
But not Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. Delighting, as ever, in driving a limousine convoy through the usual way of doing things, the three-times-elected Premier could not give up his Westminster seat fast enough when the time came.
Having “never pretended to be a House of Commons man”, as Blair told MPs in his farewell appearance, he billed his resignation from Parliament as a clean break: lesser figures might keep the seat for the salary and the perks but Honest Tone would rather make way for a younger man to do the job properly.
In a further sign of his People’s Ex-Premier credentials, he also let it be known that he had no desire to become Baron Blair of Baghdad. The flummery of the House of Lords wasn’t his style, he told us.
Six months on, it is becoming clearer why. While the former PM has racked up voluntary commitments with the appetite of a hyper-active toddler – Middle East peace broker, inter-faith ambassador, global warming guru, sports messiah for the North-east, chair of the World Economic Forum in Davos – it is his greed for lucrative private-sector jobs that has stunned admirers and critics alike.
SINCE he left office he has set himself up for the kind of fortune he would never have got away with as an MP – when he would have had to declare every penny – a staggering £10,254,000 in just one year. That figure is predicted to rise to £40million in the next five years. This month, it was announced that he had taken an estimated £2.5million a year part- time job with US bank JP Morgan. The Blair Rich Project >>> By Simon Edge
Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)
sinecures
