Tone's back....

Some lovely articles on Tony Blair's return to Westminster here, and here, and here.

Megalomaniac!

Never one for taking one step at a time, Blair - who appears to have failed to create peace in the Middle East, and whose ambitions to become President of Europe look unlikely to be fulfilled, now wants to spend the rest of his life (he's 55, father still alive, potentially long life ahead) 'uniting' the world's religions. For this he's launching a 'faith foundation' in New York on Friday. He wants it to do things like getting the faiths together to provide bed nets for malaria, that sort of thing. It's probably safer than asking them to provide condoms against AIDS.....

Is he looking for a sainthood? If so, who would he expect to provide it - the Pope, Islam, the Jewish community, the Dalai Lama?

That's three major ideas in less than a year. Wonder how long this interest will last...

I should not let him rattle me, should I? But he's a dangerous person to be near power.

Opposition to Blair leading Europe

Yeah! It's working! Today's article in the Guardian suggests that he is hitting some fierce opposition to the idea, including some puzzlement why a Briton should lead Europe, quite apart from his personal record on Iraq. Rock on, Stop Blair!

Stopblair.eu

Sign this petition.

It would be cheaper to employ a scientist and an economist

...than to employ Blair, who's yet again got another lucrative job, this time advising Zurich Insurance on the implications of climate change. I know he knows the politics-speak about it, but what does he really KNOW about climate change? The places where flooding is more likely to hit, what kind of weather is going to arise and where.

He'd be good, though, at teaching Zurich what stories to tell if it all goes wrong.

I was not that far wrong.....

Here a few days ago I jokingly suggested that Blair might somehow wangle himself to become President of the US.

Seems I was not far wrong - today's Observer suggests that he is starting a campaign to become first President of the EU.

I'm speechless.

The guy needs to be stopped before he destroys all that is good about the European Union, like the guaranteed social protection that people can live on (in most countries outside the UK).

What has he achieved in the UK? Lead it into an unnecessary war, dismantled further the welfare state, created full employment (?? that was already happening when he came into power), increased vastly the supervision of the population, destroyed public services with targets, more targets and further targets - throwing huge amounts of money at the services ...for counting beans.

We need to start a campaign now!

The cat that stole the cream

This smile (from the Guardian) belongs to the chap who's just got a GBP 500,000 (1 million/2 million, depending on which paper you believe most) part-time job as an adviser to JP Morgan Chase, an international investment bank, in addition to his half-time job as the EU, US, Russian and UN envoy to the Middle East. His job is 'advising them on how they approach the huge political and economic changes that globalisation brings'.

It's Blair's, of course, who's now in the money after years of lagging behind his QC wife in the salary stakes. Comments have been scathing from every side, about making a lot of money, and mixing politics and money. What will he do? Will he say - don't worry about that, I'll just give my mate George W a quick ring.

Blair was so good at dealing with the political and economic changes brought by globalisation. Childhood poverty in the UK is still the highest in Europe, the social protection system is poor, the government's fear of terrorism is high, the population is the most spied-on in Europe, the country is involved in an unnecessary war which has cost the loss of approximately 150,000 Iraqi lives. In other words, the ideal person for the job.

Now here's a terrifying thought. Imagine, that after working for a US company, he and the good Mrs Blair, with Leo, might relocate to the US in time, after a while becoming US citizens ....and then he might run for ....President?