How many jobs does an ex-PM need?

Tony Blair is accumulating jobs all around the world. He runs the risk of making him look like a global butterfly

Andrew Rawnsley The Observer, Sunday March 16 2008 Article history
About this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday March 16 2008 on p37 of the Comment section. It was last updated at 00:04 on March 16 2008. Fresh from his triumphant success at mediating a historic resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict (the Nobel Peace Prize surely has his name on it), Tony Blair is now going to save the world. In the Far East this weekend (if it's Sunday, it must be Japan), the former Prime Minister is calling for a 'global revolution' to tackle climate change.

Er, hold on. When I last looked, the Israel-Palestine conflict remained as unresolved as ever. And yet the Middle East mediator has now added global green crusader to his plump portfolio of retirement jobs.

There's the six-figure salary he draws as an adviser to Zurich Insurance. There's another six, maybe seven, figure salary from JP Morgan Chase. There's the speaking engagements that have him clocking up the airmiles over the Atlantic and across the Pacific. He greets first-time visitors to his house in Connaught Square by saying: 'How do you like the new gaff?' But the gaffer is not often at his London gaff at the moment. He may even qualify for non-dom status. There's now no doubt that one reason he left Parliament early was so that he would not have to declare his golden global income on the Register of MPs' Interests.

The former Prime Minister's friends like to stress that his diary is not just packed with opportunities to boost the Blair family fortune. There's also the unpaid role as an adviser to the government of Rwanda, which reflects the intensity of his interest in Africa, as well as the visiting fellowship at Yale where he will preside over a course on religion and globalisation. There's his Sports Foundation. And then there's the Inter-Faith Foundation that he will be launching before the summer.

Somewhere in between all that founding and earning, in pauses for breath between making peace in the Middle East and saving the world, he is also supposed to be finding the time to write his memoirs. Not content with all that, he did nothing to discourage Nicolas Sarkozy from canvassing the idea that Mr Blair could become the new 'President of Europe', even though that makes several large assumptions, including whether Europe wants him and could afford him.

Some of his old associates explain this hyper-activity by putting it down to Tony Blair's weakness for saying yes to everyone. One friend was horrified to learn that his former boss had agreed to nearly 500 days of engagements in the year ahead. That Blair weakness is worse now that he does not have civil servants to say no on his behalf.

There's clearly something deeper to it than that. Some of this manic job collecting is an expression of a large and restless political ego trying to reconcile himself to being an ex-Prime Minister. When Sir John Major was put out of his misery by the electorate, he was rather relieved to leave the stage. Since he departed Number 10, Sir John has quietly made pots of money and written some engaging books about cricket. His interventions in politics have been the more effective for being carefully rationed.

By contrast, Tony Blair is as driven, if not more so, as ever he was when he was Prime Minister. It's partly his age. By historical standards, 54 is a young age to be an ex-leader. John McCain is hoping to become American President at 72. As he was preparing to leave Number 10, Mr Blair would wistfully sigh to friends that, far from being tired and ready to go, he had never felt fitter or more equipped for the job.

You do not get to the top and stay there for a decade without having a pronounced streak of narcissism. All this globetrotting and attention-seeking feeds that appetite for applause which is an essential feature of nearly all big politicians. Meshed with this is his legacy quest. He hoped to find some redemption for what has happened in Iraq from a settlement of the Palestine-Israel conflict. Global warming seized his interest only towards the end of his time in Number 10. It is business left unfinished by his premiership.

The revelation of his new role on climate change comes at a time when the media are full of reflection and analysis to mark the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the largest, most controversial and most divisive act of his premiership. Iraq was, in the eyes of his colleagues as well as most of Britain, his most monumental mistake. It is surely not entirely coincidental that on the fifth anniversary of the invasion he wants to draw our attention to other dimensions of his political character and career. The war will ever be a large part of his legacy, but he hopes to be remembered for more than just Iraq.

What must Gordon Brown make of it all? This could be a nightmare for him, having a hyperactive predecessor with global star quality. Before Mr Brown took over, some of his people were highly nervous about how Mr Blair would behave towards his old friend turned deadly rival. Most recent ex-Prime Ministers have not been gracious towards their successors even when, especially when, they were members of the same party. Ted Heath sustained a sulk about Margaret Thatcher for more than a decade. She, in turn, relentlessly undermined Sir John Major, to the point where that normally soft-spoken man would howl with private rage.

Gordon Brown can have no complaints about the behaviour of Tony Blair. He has not positioned himself as a King Over the Water. He has maintained a self-imposed vow of silence about domestic politics and told his old followers to be as supportive as possible towards his successor. The leader who dominated Britain for more than a decade has almost entirely vanished from these shores. The only time he has said anything about domestic politics in the past six months is when he made a few anodyne comments about the retirement of Ian Paisley.

He is never to be heard - publicly, at least - bad-mouthing the man who replaced him at Number 10. His advice has been tendered privately in the form of handwritten letters to his successor. However sore Mr Blair may feel about the plots that preceded his departure, and Mr Brown's hand in them, he has been determined not to look bitter. Unlike Margaret Thatcher, who damaged herself as well as Sir John Major with her disloyalty, he has been impeccably behaved towards his successor.

The risk to Tony Blair's post-Number 10 reputation lies elsewhere. The danger is that by taking on so many tasks he gives the impression that he is not pursuing any of them with total dedication and absolute seriousness. It would be an act of ridiculous vanity to think that you could both save the world and sort out the Middle East and do both on a part-time basis.

Old associates say that he is still committed to his mediating role in the Middle East. He has set up headquarters in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The job consumes, they say, about a week of his time every month. He is preparing to host a major donors' conference in Bethlehem in May which will be crucial for drumming up money to rebuild the ravaged Palestinian economy. But you can't avoid the conclusion that he has realised that he can never play the same pivotal role there as he did in Northern Ireland. I'm told that Condi Rice, the US Secretary of State, has made it bluntly clear to Mr Blair that she is in charge of the process and the Americans have different ideas about how to approach it.

Before he took on that role, friendly voices warned Mr Blair that it would not requite his ambitions to be a global peacemaker. A settlement remains very elusive. Even if there is one, he will not be the key player in reaching it. He seems now to have seen that himself. It would certainly explain his definite interest in the European presidency.

You get the feeling that he is accumulating so many jobs because, the swelling bank balance aside, none of these roles offers him what he is looking for, none of them is as satisfying as being a Prime Minister. When he was at Number 10, one of his worst faults in the eyes of his closest aides was to butterfly from one thing to another. His friends often yearned for him to prioritise, to grasp one big challenge and stick with it. No one was with him in Downing Street for longer than Jonathan Powell, his Chief of Staff. In a revealing interview with the Guardian's Weekend magazine, he says this is what most irritated him about his former boss: 'Not sticking to things once you've decided them. He would sometimes be a bit flibbertigibbet.'

Tony Blair has the energy, the charisma, the global name recognition, the political talents and the access to the powerful still to get things done. He might better serve his own reputation as well as his causes if he dedicated himself to making a success of one large task. It was true of his premiership that he left it late to decide what he wanted to do with power. He should make a choice about what he really wants to make of his post-premiership. Before more people start calling him a flibbertigibbet. That would not be a great title for the last chapter of those memoirs.

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