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Tony Blair’s Cunning Stunt
August 16th, 2010 | 
Author: 
If any politician was going to pull off the greatest stunt of a generation, it really had to be Tony Blair. And, by committing all the proceeds from his memoirs (as well as the £4 million advance) to the Royal British Legion’s Battle Back challenge centre, a project that will provide state-of-the-art rehabilitation services for seriously injured troops returning from the frontline, he has done exactly that.
The book can now be read guilt free, knowing that the proceeds will not be lining Blair’s pockets but helping soldiers returning from the frontline. It’s got all the talkability that Mandelson’s book lacked, it’s released in a season when most politicians are on holiday and the only serious competition it has for the front pages are Kelly Brook celebrating naked month by dyeing herself orange and parading in a series of ever-skimpier frocks and Joe McElderry coming out of the closet in the hope that it’ll shift a few more units of his debut album.
Tony Blair may have had support in the past, but this proves he’s learned how to keep his name in the public eye, and his reputation safe, all by himself – if the book tanks, he won’t suffer and he’ll be seen to have tried. He’s protected himself in a hermetically sealed aura of ‘nice guy’ once again and it’ll be interesting to see what happens next with his memoirs – and how the people who have wanted to see him accused of war crimes will react.
Posted in Mark My Words, Stuntwatch | 
Tags: £4 million, greatest stunt, iraq, joe mcelderry, kelly brook, mandelson, naked, nice guy, PR, royal british legion, stunt, tony blair, war, war crimes
I’ll buy it when he adds a chapter about being on trial in The Hague.
I’d rather not buy his book of atonement but will simply give the money straight to the Royal British Legion.
I hope his guilt is making him feel a tad uncomfortable.
This is a plot to drive Gordon Brown crazy – how will Brown be able to upstage Blair on this one!
No.
It is not generous, it is cynical.
It is not a cunning stunt, it is spin.
It may have taken a while, but we know the nature of Blair.
Nice one RH but I’d only buy it when he is doing a rewrite from behind bars. And only then when the thickness of the tome matched the wobbly table leg. Second thought s feck him, I’ll give my charity cash to one of my chossing not his (H4H).
I hate that man, his obnoxious gobsheyite wife and revolting family and the horse they rode in on. I’ve been consistent in that since 1996. So don’t blame me for the current mess cos I didn’t vote for him or his wunch of bankers party. Saw him for the flim flam man he is waaayyy before.
Tony Blair is a cheat, a thief, a pirate and a liar (let’s not forget that his expenses claims got shredded before anyone could see them)……..a man who knows no shame. A ‘user’ of people. A sociopath on a grand scale. He has made the country a worse place to live in. He has played his part in tearing apart the moral fabric of this country with his absurd and twisted notions of fairness and ‘human rights’ (and remember, his wife’s Matrix Chambers do very nicely in using Human Rights legislation to enrich themselves).
Unfortunately, he also shows signs of a well developed ‘God’ complex which means that he really cannot see that his ideas often don’t work. If he thinks it can be done – it must be so……..
Pathetic….
There are so many things wrong with Tony’s book and cynical PR ploy, to name a few:
- Isn’t he being paid to sort out the Middle East – where does this fit in?
- Is he gift aiding this – paying the appropriate tax?
- Isn’t this a ploy to ‘have a go’ at Mandlseon?
- Hasn’t he been shamed into this by Brown?
- His decision making and misleading the Country into an illegal war is why charities like the Royal British Legion need so much money – It is so two faced it makes me furious.
- Tony Blair ‘i’m a straight kinda guy’ is deluded like his successor – I will not be surprised, when the Pope dies, if he throws his hat into the ring for that.
If only he was half as brilliant as he thought he was perhaps this Country would not be going to the dogs.
Prehaps he could take ‘A Journey’ to Iraq and apologise to the people out there, find the WMD’s and prove us wrong – now i’d read a book about that.
Can’t stand all the people who want Blair on trial but who sat on their arses not giving a flying damn while half a million Iraqi children died under UN sanctions between 1991 and 2003 – a direct consequence of not invading Iraq earlier. Self-righteous hypocrisy. If they’d really cared about Iraqi innocents dying by the hundred thousand they’d have been protesting long before the invasion. Just shows all they really cared about was hating George Bush, and Blair for working with him. Nothing to do with innocent Iraqis at all.
Like your idea Geek – otherwise I’m sure he’ll profit from it somehow. I’d like to believe that that Blair has seen the error of his ways & would genuinely like to make amends – unfortunately, leopards don’t change their spots & I think this is being done to win honours during the forthcoming papal visit & (of course) has nothing whatever to do with the fact that even before publication his book is being remaindered at Amazon at half price – plus the tags for his book giving a pretty clear picture of the public perception of Blair.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-Tony-Blair/dp/009192555X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1282040824&sr=1-1
Chazza46
Er, if we’d invaded Iraq earlier it would’ve been illegal.
That is all.
Please remember that this is Tony Bliar who is quoted as saying he will give “all the proceeds”. Going on past deceits, will we eventually see that it is just the proceeds from, say, UK sales? Will there be a catch – my money says there will be. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when he told his (even more) money grabbing missus his plan though!
Two reasons: It’s tax deductible and an imminent coroner’s inquest regarding the death of Dr. Kelly.
I never voted for Blair, nor the other lot of posers that rode into the higher echelons of the Labour Party on his coattails; they turned the Labour Party into a newer version of the Young Conservatives.
I shall never forgive him for what he has done to both party and country.
If he were to give away all his riches it would never be enough blood money to make amends for all the evil this man visited upon us.
It’s just another publicity stunt as far as I’m concerned.
He’s not stunning, but I agree with the rest of your title!
Saddam Hussein is well gone, but the world would have been a better place if Bliar had been languishing in one of Hussein’s prisons in 1997 (possibly with the witch of the north in an adjoining cell). As for this cynical piece of self-publicity, I wonder what the publishers have paid him to engineer this push for more book sales!?
(C)unning
(St)unt
Bracketted = interchangeable.
WHO ARE YOU, MARK BORKOWSKI, TO QUESTION THE MORALS AND INTEGRITY OF ONE OF THE FINEST PEOPLE GOD PUT ON PLANET EARTH!?!
If the delightful Miss Brook wants to spent the month showing the world her womanly charms, then I, for one, am right behind her… (at very close range).
Remember how in medieval times the Catholic church would work on guilty consciences with threats of hellfire until it gained hefty donations of land? At least here the church is content for the money to go to causes other than its own wealth.
That would make it the most expensive stunt in media, I mean, political history
Blair is a quite hideous little shit married to a woman who looks as if someone had put their hand up her arse and turned her inside out. Blair never declared war on Iraq which I think is against the Geneva convention. We’ve had blood diamonds now we’ve got blood book and Blair has blood indellibly stained on his hands
Nothing can save your wretched soul now, Blair
Remember the bargain we made?
It won’t wash the blood off his hands, will it?
Remembering Blair (sometimes known a “B liar”, for some reason) I’m sure that the reality that follows from what he has said (or paid people to say) will be very different from the hype.
Proof again he is genuinely a good man doing what he thinks is right. Too many idiots in Britain who can’t see that and haven’t done a shred of the public service Mr Blair has given.
Blood Money!
An immaculate description of Blair, spoonerised into “cunning stunt”
You naughty boy!
Rosa
He’s giving nothing away its a tax scam he will claim the money ‘lost’ by claiming tax relief of his other earnings.
He has made the country a worse place to live in. Anyways, nice post!
Last night on Look East there was a report about a family’s sewerage problem. Also last night on the national news there was a report about the market bomb in Baghdad tha killed and injured scores of people. The sewarage problem was dealt with in more depth and certainly took up a lot more airtime than the coverage of the bombing. We have to ask ourselves the question – have we not got our priorities a little messed up? Is the whinging about a minor sewerage leak more important than the death and destruction caused in Iraq as a direct consequence of Tony Blair’s actions whilst in government. If bombs where going off in our markets, we would have a lot to say about it! Would there still be this naive and misguided support for the actions of Blair, if relatives of Tony Blair’s supporters were being killed and maimed on a daily basis in our markets? I don’t think so. But, hey, it is happening in a far off land and as long as we can whinge about a minor plumbing problem then it is alright. It is such a shame that a great British institution such as the British Legion has stooped so low as to accept money from Blair. As for Waterstone’s hosting the book signing………….
First time I came across your website. Like the title of the article, shame your commenters are mostly a bunch of whining shits.
Chazza46 is right, it’s the same brigade who shed crocodile tears for Iraqis, but wouldn’t have gone into Kosovo or Sierra Leone (let alone Darfur or Rwanda) because of international law. You can hear their dinner party justifications for the counterfactual now “millions of Kosovans and Croats may have died, but at least we didn’t upset anyone at the UN by illegally bombing serbia…”.
Ultimately, which matters more – people’s lives or international law? And if international law isn’t preventing mass slaughter isn’t it time it was changed? Yes – the invasion itself was bungled, yes Rumsfeld was a tool trying to prove a point, but it doesn’t mean that the entire operation was of itself, evil, and certainly doesn’t vindicate the bile spewed in Blair’s direction by violent pacifists like much of your readership.
Man up and stand for office if you’re so self- evidently right! Blair did.
Jon,
I object to being called a ‘whining shit’ by a NuLabour apologist. Blair did not have the mandate from the UN, international community or millions of people he was meant to be representing!
He sat around making decisions in his own interests (when he’ll retire, involving himself in Libya, oil etc)all to benefit himself and his ‘worried we won’t have enough money’.
Blair has left Britain a worse and more dangerous place to live – that is fact.
Presumably you have man up’d and stood for office if you are so intent in being so argumentative, childish and rude – in which case you have some balls and tell us who you are instead of slagging off people you don’t know.
You are a complete Pratt – Blair was dreadful, the decisions he made will be with us for generations and morons with chips on their shoulders like you, who double guess incorrectly what other people are thinking in order to justify him and those decisions are much of the problem.
As I said nothing more that a tax fiddle…
“But once he makes the donation, the former PM is perfectly entitled to claim back a large proportion of this original tax bill in the form of tax relief”
More..
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1303948/Tony-Blairs-gift-soldiers-charity-millions-save-tax.html
One of the most astonishing things about Blair is the fact that some people are still prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, or even defend him. His skills as a conman are truly out of this world.
For crying out loud, the man sent British forces off to invade another country on false pretences. I am struggling to think of anything worse that a Prime Minister could do.
@underwhelmed
war and legality is an oxymoron, a modern chimera invented by the legal profession as a self-serving revenue device. there is only war. while sophisticated nations may agree laws for how they prosecute war once it starts, the ‘legality’ of the act itself is irrelevant. neither court, precedent nor legal nicety has ever stopped a war. ever. only fear of the consequences and unjustifiable political or military risk can prevent it. and not always then.
you either win, lose or once in a while, draw. whoever you are, you simply make damn sure you do the first by all the acceptable means your society or culture allows – and some that aren’t; pray you don’t suffer the second; and accept the third when you and your enemy have fought each other to parlay.
that is all.
Is a spoonerism?
Are you sure that you’re headline reads correctly:
“Tony Blair’s Cunning Stunt”?
Surely you got the C and the S mixed up and missed out the indefinite article?
Yes but he’s not ALL bad.
He was once as good a front man as Mick Jagger and his famous actor father-in-law has starred with Robin Askwith.
I wouldn’t give Bliar the time of day let alone by his bloody book.
stunning cunt-print that
Mark said: “It’s got all the talkability that Mandelson’s book lacked, it’s released in a season when most politicians are on holiday and the only serious competition it has for the front pages are Kelly Brook celebrating naked month by dyeing herself orange and parading in a series of ever-skimpier frocks.”
In that case, let’s see more of Kelly’s tits instead. At least Miss Brook is easy on the eye and doesn’t make me want to throw up each time I see her.
And cunning stunt is one phrase I would definitely associate with Blair.
When I saw the headline “Cunning Stunt” I thought it was a play on words to describe his awful, greedy, vain,large-mouthed frog of a spouse!