Post by mouse on Apr 12, 2015 4:00:27 GMT -5
done British,' he told an American magazine last week, referring to his ten years in Downing Street. 'Where I think I can make most difference is at a global level, working on things that had interested me as Prime Minister but I was not able to devote myself to.'
“The latest wheeze, you see, of our perma-tanned, globe-trotting, property-collecting ex-PM is to create the political equivalent of International Rescue”
Yes! At 'a global level'! According to this grey-haired Scott Tracy, the reason he and his pals like Bill Clinton would make better leaders than serving politicians is because they don't have to deal with pesky little problems such as explaining themselves to the media, which Blair dismisses as a 'wall of noise'. Or, indeed, the tiresome impediment of getting re-elected.
Modern leaders have to spend far too much time 'communicating', says the man who used to be joined at the hip to his spin doctor, instead of concentrating on 'the big questions'.
'This is a shocking thing to say,' he said, 'but in modern politics, if you are spending 30 per cent to 40 per cent of your time on your real core priorities, I think you're lucky. I can think of political leaders and systems who are lucky if they get 5 per cent.'
No such irritations would afflict Blair and his 'cadre' of multi-millionaire ex-leaders.
Freed from the burden of democratic accountability, they would be able to focus with laser-like intensity on the world's ills – assuming you could afford their services, of course.
Take the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Lesser statesman have been grappling with this problem for decades, but Blair says the solution is 'perfectly obvious' to him. Two states living side-by-side, separated by a frontier based on the 1967 border, with plenty of trade links to foster 'shared economic prosperity'.
'How hard would it be to reach a peace agreement?' asks the 61-year-old savant. 'The answer is not very hard at all.'
This scheme is so stark raving bonkers it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, the egomaniacal Blair has been jetting round the world and offering his advice to political leaders for almost ten years and his track record is far from impressive
If you think Blair's plans for a globetrotting power elite sound a bit undemocratic, you'd be right. But the man who led his party to three electoral victories has lost faith in democracy.
Last December, he wrote an article for the New York Times in which he posed the question: 'Is democracy dead?'
He concluded that it was on life support, if not completely defunct. It was 'slow, bureaucratic and weak', 'failing its citizens' and 'failing to deliver'. Elected politicians spend far too much time chasing the popular vote, according to Blair, which amounted to 'governing by Twitter'.
The solution is to outsource the tough decisions to experienced elder statesmen like him – just make the cheque out to 'Tony Blair and Partners'.
This scheme is so stark raving bonkers it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, the egomaniacal Blair has been jetting round the world and offering his advice to political leaders for almost ten years and his track record is far from impressive.
As a Special Envoy for 'The Quartet' – a club consisting of the US, Russia, the United Nations and the EU – Blair has been trying to bring peace to the Middle East since 2007.
“It's not just his appalling track record as an international problem-solver that makes his attempts so wrong-headed ”
In that time, two wars have broken out between Israel and Gaza; violent revolutions have engulfed Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; civil war has erupted in Syria and Iraq; the Islamic State has wreaked terror across the region; and Saudi Arabia has declared war on Yemen.
So hopeless has Blair's leadership of The Quartet been, he looks almost certain to be sacked in the next few months – which may be the reason he's launched this crackpot initiative.
As a 'strategic adviser' to billionaire oligarchs in the former Soviet Union, Blair has enjoyed more success. For one thing, he's amassed a personal fortune estimated at £100million.
However, his wise counsel to the region's leaders hasn't always paid off.
Shortly after he signed on as a paid adviser to the autocratic leader of Kazakhstan in 2011, the regime shot dead 14 protesters and injured 64 in the oil town of Zhanaozen.
Is this what Blair had in mind when he told the American magazine that leaders of small states were 'excellent executors'?
The jet-setting do-gooder has had no more luck with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a charity he set up in 2008 to combat 'religious extremism'.
He sees himself as one of a new elite 'club' of former political leaders who can be parachuted in at a moment's notice to help floundering governments solve big problem
He sees himself as one of a new elite 'club' of former political leaders who can be parachuted in at a moment's notice to help floundering governments solve big problems
Since then, Islamic terrorism has grown to become the number one threat to global security, culminating with the emergence of IS. It's unfair, obviously, to lay the scourge of Islamism at the feet of Blair – although the wars he took us into in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't help – but it's hard to point to a single success of his interfaith initiative.
The ex-Labour panjandrum resembles King Midas in one respect – kerching! – but when it comes to geopolitics he lacks the Midas touch. Whatever conflict he touches seems to get worse.
But it's not just his appalling track record as an international problem-solver that makes his attempts so wrong-headed.
It's his casual dismissal of democracy as 'weak' and his lordly disdain for the nuts and bolts of the democratic process.
In the same American interview he singles out the regime of Lee Kuan Yew, the man who founded Singapore and served as the country's unelected Prime Minister for 31 years before handing over to his son, as the very model of good governance.
'Some felt the measures they took were pretty tough,' said Blair. 'But Singapore is a functioning state of a very high order because of the decisions they took.'
Listening to his ramblings, it's hard not to conclude he thinks he would have been a much more effective Prime Minister of Great Britain if hadn't had to stand for re-election – just like Singapore's benevolent dictator.
Having failed to realise his dream of unchecked power while in office, he's trying to achieve it through the back door. Which makes his endorsement of Ed Miliband last week look rather sinister.
If you thought the prospect of Miliband in No10 was chilling – consider the implications of voting Miliband – and getting Blair.
If, God forbid, Red Ed succeeds, the office of Tony Blair may well relocate from swish West End to Downing Street.
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3035326/5-4-3-2-1-suggests-Thunderbirds-club-ex-leaders-moment-Tony-Blair-revealed-true-plan-global-domination.html#ixzz3X5FbMqCc
Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
“The latest wheeze, you see, of our perma-tanned, globe-trotting, property-collecting ex-PM is to create the political equivalent of International Rescue”
Yes! At 'a global level'! According to this grey-haired Scott Tracy, the reason he and his pals like Bill Clinton would make better leaders than serving politicians is because they don't have to deal with pesky little problems such as explaining themselves to the media, which Blair dismisses as a 'wall of noise'. Or, indeed, the tiresome impediment of getting re-elected.
Modern leaders have to spend far too much time 'communicating', says the man who used to be joined at the hip to his spin doctor, instead of concentrating on 'the big questions'.
'This is a shocking thing to say,' he said, 'but in modern politics, if you are spending 30 per cent to 40 per cent of your time on your real core priorities, I think you're lucky. I can think of political leaders and systems who are lucky if they get 5 per cent.'
No such irritations would afflict Blair and his 'cadre' of multi-millionaire ex-leaders.
Freed from the burden of democratic accountability, they would be able to focus with laser-like intensity on the world's ills – assuming you could afford their services, of course.
Take the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Lesser statesman have been grappling with this problem for decades, but Blair says the solution is 'perfectly obvious' to him. Two states living side-by-side, separated by a frontier based on the 1967 border, with plenty of trade links to foster 'shared economic prosperity'.
'How hard would it be to reach a peace agreement?' asks the 61-year-old savant. 'The answer is not very hard at all.'
This scheme is so stark raving bonkers it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, the egomaniacal Blair has been jetting round the world and offering his advice to political leaders for almost ten years and his track record is far from impressive
If you think Blair's plans for a globetrotting power elite sound a bit undemocratic, you'd be right. But the man who led his party to three electoral victories has lost faith in democracy.
Last December, he wrote an article for the New York Times in which he posed the question: 'Is democracy dead?'
He concluded that it was on life support, if not completely defunct. It was 'slow, bureaucratic and weak', 'failing its citizens' and 'failing to deliver'. Elected politicians spend far too much time chasing the popular vote, according to Blair, which amounted to 'governing by Twitter'.
The solution is to outsource the tough decisions to experienced elder statesmen like him – just make the cheque out to 'Tony Blair and Partners'.
This scheme is so stark raving bonkers it's difficult to know where to start. For one thing, the egomaniacal Blair has been jetting round the world and offering his advice to political leaders for almost ten years and his track record is far from impressive.
As a Special Envoy for 'The Quartet' – a club consisting of the US, Russia, the United Nations and the EU – Blair has been trying to bring peace to the Middle East since 2007.
“It's not just his appalling track record as an international problem-solver that makes his attempts so wrong-headed ”
In that time, two wars have broken out between Israel and Gaza; violent revolutions have engulfed Egypt, Tunisia and Libya; civil war has erupted in Syria and Iraq; the Islamic State has wreaked terror across the region; and Saudi Arabia has declared war on Yemen.
So hopeless has Blair's leadership of The Quartet been, he looks almost certain to be sacked in the next few months – which may be the reason he's launched this crackpot initiative.
As a 'strategic adviser' to billionaire oligarchs in the former Soviet Union, Blair has enjoyed more success. For one thing, he's amassed a personal fortune estimated at £100million.
However, his wise counsel to the region's leaders hasn't always paid off.
Shortly after he signed on as a paid adviser to the autocratic leader of Kazakhstan in 2011, the regime shot dead 14 protesters and injured 64 in the oil town of Zhanaozen.
Is this what Blair had in mind when he told the American magazine that leaders of small states were 'excellent executors'?
The jet-setting do-gooder has had no more luck with the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a charity he set up in 2008 to combat 'religious extremism'.
He sees himself as one of a new elite 'club' of former political leaders who can be parachuted in at a moment's notice to help floundering governments solve big problem
He sees himself as one of a new elite 'club' of former political leaders who can be parachuted in at a moment's notice to help floundering governments solve big problems
Since then, Islamic terrorism has grown to become the number one threat to global security, culminating with the emergence of IS. It's unfair, obviously, to lay the scourge of Islamism at the feet of Blair – although the wars he took us into in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't help – but it's hard to point to a single success of his interfaith initiative.
The ex-Labour panjandrum resembles King Midas in one respect – kerching! – but when it comes to geopolitics he lacks the Midas touch. Whatever conflict he touches seems to get worse.
But it's not just his appalling track record as an international problem-solver that makes his attempts so wrong-headed.
It's his casual dismissal of democracy as 'weak' and his lordly disdain for the nuts and bolts of the democratic process.
In the same American interview he singles out the regime of Lee Kuan Yew, the man who founded Singapore and served as the country's unelected Prime Minister for 31 years before handing over to his son, as the very model of good governance.
'Some felt the measures they took were pretty tough,' said Blair. 'But Singapore is a functioning state of a very high order because of the decisions they took.'
Listening to his ramblings, it's hard not to conclude he thinks he would have been a much more effective Prime Minister of Great Britain if hadn't had to stand for re-election – just like Singapore's benevolent dictator.
Having failed to realise his dream of unchecked power while in office, he's trying to achieve it through the back door. Which makes his endorsement of Ed Miliband last week look rather sinister.
If you thought the prospect of Miliband in No10 was chilling – consider the implications of voting Miliband – and getting Blair.
If, God forbid, Red Ed succeeds, the office of Tony Blair may well relocate from swish West End to Downing Street.
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3035326/5-4-3-2-1-suggests-Thunderbirds-club-ex-leaders-moment-Tony-Blair-revealed-true-plan-global-domination.html#ixzz3X5FbMqCc
Follow us: @mailonline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook
