To turn out to be a Knight of the Garter, Tony Blair should kneel earlier than the Queen in a ceremonial behavior and swear a ‘loyal oath’ whereas a bit of blue velvet embroidered with gold is fixed to his left leg, just under the knee.
The ceremony at Windsor Fort, scheduled for the second Monday in June, will probably be adopted by a procession through which members of the noble order put on ornate robes coated in golden tassels and bearing a glowing St George’s Cross, plus giant black hats topped with a plume of large white ostrich feathers.
It’s a part of a royal custom courting again to the 14th century, which includes a lot of Beefeaters, trumpeters and horse-drawn carriages.
But Her Majesty will not be the primary head of state to whom ‘Sir’ Tony has genuflected in surreal circumstances.
Again in 2012, our former Prime Minister made a unprecedented look in an hour-long documentary referred to as In The Stirrups Of Time, which was produced by the federal government of Kazakhstan to have a good time its president’s twentieth 12 months in workplace.
Again in 2012, our former Prime Minister made a unprecedented look in an hour-long documentary referred to as In The Stirrups Of Time, which was produced by the federal government of Kazakhstan to have a good time its president’s twentieth 12 months in workplace
The movie resembled Soviet-era propaganda. It opens with photographs of horses galloping throughout the steppe, overlaid with harp and piano music, plus limitless footage of the nation’s Superb Chief strolling by way of cornfields, saluting troopers, hugging peasants, touching the fingers of crowds of supporters and standing at dawn subsequent to Kazakh landmarks.
After two minutes, it cuts to an ornate room through which Tony Blair is sitting subsequent to a hearth carrying a swimsuit, tie and his multimillionaire’s year-round suntan.
He rattles on in regards to the wonders of Kazakhstan, an ‘virtually distinctive’ nation filled with ‘actually good individuals’ who’re ‘succesful, very decided and really pleased with their nation’.
Later within the movie, after extra Kim Jong Un-style PR photographs of the president, Blair crops up once more to endorse Kazakhstan’s authorities, boasting: ‘Quite just like the management in a rustic like Singapore, they really determined they had been going to take the nation, transfer it ahead . . . they usually did it!’
Pictured: Violence in western Kazakhstan this week after protests had been sparked by rising gasoline costs
In a 3rd look, he earnestly waxes lyrical in regards to the ‘extraordinary financial potential’ that had allegedly turned the nation into ‘an essential participant on this planet’ with the flexibility to turn out to be ‘an actual bastion of stability and progress’.
To the informal viewer, this clunky train in PR — which has cropped up in an obscure nook of YouTube — may as of late appear vaguely comedian.
But the movie Mr Blair selected to star in was really one thing way more sinister: a cynical train by its president within the very ugliest model of political propaganda.
Why? As a result of the president of Kazakhstan whose time in workplace it sought to have a good time was Nursultan Nazarbayev, a despotic former communist who dominated the nation with an iron fist from 1990 till 2019, when he put in a pal as ‘puppet’ chief.
Nazarbayev’s regime was famed (and feared) for murdering and imprisoning opponents, shutting down opposition information shops and siphoning billions of his giant and resource-rich nation’s property to a dodgy community of cronies and members of the family.
Nazarbayev’s regime was famed (and feared) for murdering and imprisoning opponents, shutting down opposition information shops and siphoning billions of his giant and resource-rich nation’s property to a dodgy community of cronies and members of the family
Like all good despots, he concurrently loved a lifetime of virtually unimaginable luxurious.
On one event — coincidentally simply after In The Stirrups Of Time was launched — Nazarbayev selected to pay rapper Kanye West greater than £2 million to carry out at his grandson’s marriage ceremony.
On the time, the common annual earnings of a Kazakh citizen was about £5,000.
The U.S. State Division has accused him of ‘pervasive corruption, torture, restrictions on freedom of speech, arbitrary arrest and discrimination and violence towards girls’.
And his malign affect continues to at the present time, for, earlier than retiring, the infamous autocrat put in loyalists and family in all the important thing workplaces of presidency. He’s now chairman of the nation’s safety council.
On Thursday, as Russian troops had been introduced in to quell protests towards Nazarbayev’s continued maintain over Kazakhstan, the inside ministry boasted that dozens of opposition activists had been ‘liquidated’ and greater than 2,000 had been arrested.
After a statue of the outdated despot was torn down, a minimum of 30 pro-democracy campaigners had been killed by police and 1,000 had been injured. In accordance with unconfirmed studies, the victims included a 12-year-old baby.
On Thursday, as Russian troops had been introduced in to quell protests towards Nazarbayev’s continued maintain over Kazakhstan, the inside ministry boasted that dozens of opposition activists had been ‘liquidated’ and greater than 2,000 had been arrested. Pictured: Blair and Nazarbayev outdoors Downing Road
All of which raises an apparent query: why did a statesman of Tony Blair’s standing agree to present the looks of serving to to launder the fame of this vile dictator? What possessed a former Labour Prime Minister to entrance a propaganda movie for a famously murderous and corrupt regime?
The most probably reply is sort of easy: cash.
From 2011 till 2015, our former PM labored as a advisor to the infamous despot, providing ‘chief to chief’ recommendation and serving to to current his autocracy as a ‘outstanding success story’ to the world.
In return, Mr Blair’s corporations had been paid tens of hundreds of thousands of kilos. And this tawdry association was simply one among a number of such offers struck by Blair with quite a lot of international locations and corporations throughout a frantic nine-year interval after he left Downing Road in 2007.
Throughout that point, he gained a unprecedented notoriety for, within the phrases of 1 commentator, enriching himself in corners of the world that ‘appeared to have an aversion to democracy’.
It was not till 2016 that he gave up probably the most contentious business work.
From 2011 till 2015, our former PM labored as a advisor to the infamous despot, providing ‘chief to chief’ recommendation and serving to to current his autocracy as a ‘outstanding success story’ to the world
To be honest, Blair has since made some admirable contributions to public affairs, significantly throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. However baggage from that period nonetheless tarnishes his fame.
Controversial former purchasers of what critics dubbed ‘Blair Inc’ could be discovered in all places from Kuwait — the place he earned £27 million over 4 years from advising its ruling monarchy on ‘good governance’ — to Azerbaijan, whose despotic chief Ilham Aliyev was famously likened by American diplomats to Sonny Corleone, the monstrous mobster within the Godfather movies.
He additionally earned a shilling in such bastions of democracy as Mongolia, the United Arab Emirates and communist Vietnam, and in varied different shady corners of Africa, Asia and the Center East.
In one among a number of morally questionable offers, the long-standing climate-change campaigner even agreed for his agency to be paid £41,000 a month to foyer for PetroSaudi Worldwide, a fossil gasoline firm based by members of the Arab theocracy’s head-chopping Royal Household.
The association additionally gave him a 2 per cent lower of any business deal he brokered.
Controversial former purchasers of what critics dubbed ‘Blair Inc’ could be discovered in all places from Kuwait — the place he earned £27 million over 4 years from advising its ruling monarchy on ‘good governance’ — to Azerbaijan, whose despotic chief Ilham Aliyev was famously likened by American diplomats to Sonny Corleone, the monstrous mobster within the Godfather movies. Pictured: Blair and the Emir of Kuwait
The dimensions and nature of this globetrotting sprint for money was unprecedented amongst former British Prime Ministers.
Whereas a few of Blair’s predecessors had definitely signed up for the occasional talking gig and company consultancy to spice up their coffers (along with taking an annual allowance which as of late is as much as £115,000 a 12 months), nobody else had beforehand sought to build up such spectacular wealth as Blair.
Winston Churchill, to quote maybe probably the most well-known postwar instance, remained in Parliament as an extraordinary backbencher (on a backbencher’s wage) till a 12 months earlier than his dying.
This may assist to elucidate the Queen’s tardiness in inviting Mr Blair to affix the Order of the Garter. She has made him anticipate the honour for 13 years after leaving Downing Road.
His predecessor John Main needed to anticipate eight years, whereas Woman Thatcher obtained the decision in just some months.
No matter Her Majesty’s causes for this can be, Blair’s obsessive pursuit of wealth, typically from questionable sources, ought to certainly now be thought to be Exhibit A within the case towards his knighthood later this 12 months.
This may assist to elucidate the Queen’s tardiness in inviting Mr Blair to affix the Order of the Garter. She has made him anticipate the honour for 13 years after leaving Downing Road
Whereas the net petition that had been signed this week by 1,000,000 individuals — who imagine the honour needs to be rescinded — cites ‘struggle crimes’ associated to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, it’s controversial that Blair’s most malign legacy is definitely the profession he selected to pursue after leaving Downing Road.
In fact, Blair additionally did the company speeches typical of a former prime minister. For some time he was the world’s highest-paid public speaker, charging as much as £300,000 a time.
He was additionally retained as an adviser to Zurich Monetary Providers and JP Morgan at a mixed annual charge estimated at £3 million.
However in the principle, his earnings got here from giving recommendation to these reasonably murky presidents, sheikhs, dictators and politically related corporations.
The extremely questionable nature of a few of these business operations turned crystal clear to me in 2016, after I was handed a file of papers despatched by Blair’s lobbying agency, Tony Blair Associates, to the Kazakh authorities over the earlier seven years.
The extremely questionable nature of a few of these business operations turned crystal clear to me in 2016, after I was handed a file of papers despatched by Blair’s lobbying agency, Tony Blair Associates, to the Kazakh authorities over the earlier seven years
It included 30 emails and a number of other enterprise pitches detailing how Blair, who had initially solid a relationship with the despotic Nazarbayev whereas in workplace, demanded a charge of £5.3 million a 12 months for his agency to work with the dodgy administration.
In return for the money, he provided ‘personal strategic recommendation’, promised to make a minimum of 4 yearly visits to the nation’s capital Astana (now renamed Nur-Sultan after the previous president) to satisfy ‘resolution makers’.
‘He’ll share his personal expertise, help problem-solving and talk about strategies and proposals,’ learn one enterprise pitch. Past that, Mr Blair will probably be obtainable through telephone and mail . . . and will probably be joyful to satisfy with main representatives of Kazakhstan in London.’
It described the £5.3 million annual charge for this help as ‘a novel worth proposition’.
Among the extra particular work Blair did for the despot was additionally detailed within the file. One leaked doc contained a letter to Nazarbayev himself, providing PR recommendation within the aftermath of a 2011 incident through which his regime had killed 14 protesters within the industrial metropolis of Zhanaozen.
Among the extra particular work Blair did for the despot was additionally detailed within the file. One leaked doc contained a letter to Nazarbayev himself, providing PR recommendation within the aftermath of a 2011 incident through which his regime had killed 14 protesters within the industrial metropolis of Zhanaozen
It suggested him to present a speech to a Western viewers arguing that ‘these occasions, tragic although they had been, shouldn’t obscure the big progress that Kazakhstan has made’.
A second leaked doc revealed that Blair had, the next 12 months, drafted a letter on behalf of Nazarbayev to Baroness Ashton, a New Labour crony turned EU commissioner, looking for assist in making certain {that a} profitable ‘partnership and co-operation’ deal between Kazakhstan and the EU obtained by way of the European Parliament.
Regardless of upset brought on by the so-called Zhanaozen bloodbath, the ‘partnership’ deal was handed.
Can this work be defended?
Blair’s workplace insists it could possibly, telling the Mail that his mission in Kazakhstan was designed to help a ‘change and reform’ programme that aimed to make the nation extra democratic.
They argue that on the time, the Nazarbayev regime had been ‘staunch Western allies . . . and had been reforming, which is what we had been working upon. However we at all times made clear there needs to be eventual political reform’.
The spokesman additionally stresses that charges surrounding the undertaking had been paid to Blair’s firm, reasonably than to him straight.
A second leaked doc revealed that Blair had, the next 12 months, drafted a letter on behalf of Nazarbayev to Baroness Ashton, a New Labour crony turned EU commissioner, looking for assist in making certain {that a} profitable ‘partnership and co-operation’ deal between Kazakhstan and the EU obtained by way of the European Parliament
Nonetheless, the previous PM took in depth steps to maintain particulars of his business actions secret. All through the eight years of its existence, Tony Blair Associates stood on the head of a byzantine company construction that was intentionally created by monetary advisers from the auditing firm KPMG to render the previous PM’s enterprise actions virtually solely impenetrable.
Though cash handed between totally different organisations within the community, the weird, opaque construction made it not possible for anybody to determine how a lot money was contained in them — or the place it ended up.
It additionally rendered it not possible for outsiders to determine who precisely was paying for Blair’s providers. Tax knowledgeable Richard Murphy as soon as described the enterprise as ‘near the secrecy [Blair] would have achieved if he was outdoors the UK in a tax haven’.
The opacity of this edifice meant that, as public criticisms mounted, Blair felt comfy in claiming that the extent of his wealth had been vastly exaggerated.
Again in 2014, he used a speech in London to allege that his internet value was lower than £20 million.
Nonetheless, the previous PM took in depth steps to maintain particulars of his business actions secret. All through the eight years of its existence, Tony Blair Associates stood on the head of a byzantine company construction that was intentionally created by monetary advisers from the auditing firm KPMG to render the previous PM’s enterprise actions virtually solely impenetrable
‘I learn that I’m imagined to be value £100 million,’ he declared. ‘Cherie is sort of asking the place it’s! I am not value a half of that, a 3rd of that, 1 / 4 of that, a fifth of that . . . I may go on!’
On the time, nevertheless, his property holdings alone had been value greater than £30 million. But to at the present time, his workplace insists that the extent of his wealth has been vastly exaggerated, telling the Mail: ‘Experiences claiming Mr Blair is value £50 million, £60 million, and many others, are vastly inflated. He has given away greater than he’s value, together with donating the proceeds from his autobiography to charity.’
However again in 2014, even outdated associates had been starting to publicly criticise a few of Mr Blair’s profession decisions.
That summer time, the historic novelist Robert Harris, a former confidante, gave an interview branding Blair ‘a person with a messiah complicated who’s obsessive about making a living’.
Nobody is aware of precisely how a lot Tony Blair Associates poured into its boss’s personal coffers. However it’s possible that, by 2016, the previous Prime Minister, who by then was in his early 60s (he’s now 68) had made additional cash than he may ever hope to spend.
Explaining the transfer, a pal advised ITV’s political editor Robert Peston that Blair was fed up with being seen as a ‘money-grabber’ reasonably than a do-gooder and would most likely now settle for that he had launched into a ‘mad seize . . . indecent haste to earn money’ after leaving political workplace
In September that 12 months, he duly introduced that he can be shutting down the agency and its secretive related corporations, to be able to think about charity work. In future years, he promised, he would even begin publishing their accounts.
Explaining the transfer, a pal advised ITV’s political editor Robert Peston that Blair was fed up with being seen as a ‘money-grabber’ reasonably than a do-gooder and would most likely now settle for that he had launched into a ‘mad seize . . . indecent haste to earn money’ after leaving political workplace.
However he by no means fairly lower his hyperlinks with among the world’s most doubtful regimes.
In 2018, it emerged that his Institute for World Change, the grandly titled non-profit organisation by way of which he now advises overseas governments, had quietly signed a £9 million deal to work with the federal government of Saudi Arabia.
A spokesman pressured that Blair was not personally cashing in on the deal, saying the money was used to ‘help our work within the Center East fostering Arab-Israeli ties, in addition to our work on governance in Africa and selling non secular co-existence’.
A spokesman pressured that Blair was not personally cashing in on the deal, saying the money was used to ‘help our work within the Center East fostering Arab-Israeli ties, in addition to our work on governance in Africa and selling non secular co-existence’
It was additional promised that the work being executed can be set out in his Institute’s forthcoming annual report.
However the doc, when it was ultimately printed, devoted simply 38 phrases to the topic of Saudi Arabia.
They learn: ‘We work to help the change programme on Saudi Arabia. Tony Blair believes that the nation’s modernisation programme is the one most essential improvement within the Center East by way of governance and will probably be very important for peace.’
Shortly afterwards, the Blair-endorsed Saudi ‘modernisation programme’ hit a bump within the street, due to the brutal state-sponsored homicide of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
It was, some may say, simply one other predictable atrocity dedicated by a free-spending shopper of Her Majesty the Queen’s newest Knight of the Garter.