Tony Blair's Memoirs

[fabsoopergroovy]

Genuine philanthropy or not?

Not

He is donating the estimated £4.5m to charidee

That's nice

But really it is his ego repair that is trumping everything and makes it worthwhile doing it for free

Guilt money. That cash would be better spent turning the North Atlantic Garbage Patch into an immovable island on which Blair could be left to fend for himself. Forever.

He is utterly revolting and his wife is utterly vulgar and grasping. Definitely not genuine philanthropy.

SpeedyG - excellent idea, as long as Cherie is banished there too.

He makes my skin crawl.

His blood money won't bring back the dead.

But he can't win, can he?

If he'd kept the money a thread would have been started about how he'd made 4.5million from the book and there'd be hundreds of posts on here saying he should have given it to a servicemens charity.

I didn't agree with his decision but genuinely think that he did. And I don't forget how many lives he saved in Kosovo either.

I think it was HM Forces that saved lives in Kosovo, not Mr Blair - he was in No 10 whilst those doing the actual fighting and bombing were elsewhere.

I think the donation of the money is blood money and to assuage his guilt; and I am one of those who thinks that Iraq was not a mistake at the start. I do blame Blair for not standing up to Brown for funding for HM Forces, and for the down grading of the Defence post in Cabinet to a part time past time.

I really do think that this is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm genuinely intrigued to find out why people think it wasn't done with good intentions. Haven't we all tried to make amends for wrongs committed in the past?

NOTHING will bring back the dead, but this donation will make a hell of a difference to many peoples lives.

Personally, I can't get beyond Blair being a compulsive liar, the whole awful feud with Brown (I loath Brown too, but it did the country no favours), Blair praying with Bush jnr and Blair's awful, scheming, grasping, God-bothering, holier-than-anyone-but-the-pope wife who thought that consulting Caplin about affairs of state was a good idea.

I hope that Blair IS damned whatever he does. I doubt that he feels any guilt (after all he thinks that he is on the side of the righteous does he not?) over the number of lives lost while he sunned himself on yet another shlebs yatch or villa. He is doing this so that everyone thinks he is a good egg after all. Sadly, he may well continue to fool people that he is.

It's a bribe to people to try and encourage themto think better of him (IMHO) ... He's got such a huge ego he hates to think that people don't rate him up there with Churchill, etc. (in your dreams Blair).

Plus I read today that by doing this, he'll actually be gaining a massive tax break (under the rules that his government brought in) and saving himself over £2M in tax ...

Did he get an advance, if so has he kept it?

I think its the advance (£4.5m) that he's giving away plus profits ...

www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23867525-tony-blair-gives-pound-5m-to-war-wounded.do

Scaryteacher, your post contradicts your point.

Either Blair saved lives in Kosovo by ordering the troops in or the troops themselves are responsible.

If you believe he 'just sat in No 10' and the troops are responsible despite it being his decision then you must accept it's the same senario with Iraq.
He cannot be responsible for his decision to go into Iraq but not for his decision to go into Kosovo. You can't have it both ways.

Arch, no, he can't win because he is such an execrable little critter who made the most hideous lies decisions whilst leading the country. What I cannot fathom is since so many of us non-Parliamentarians knew the Iraq War was wrong back in 2002, why did the people with all the info still go ahead and attack? For reasons that had nothing to do with Sept 11th, of course. And he took us for fools and lied to us all. That is what makes him such a cretin.

He may well be a cretin, be a liar and totally loathesome, but that doesn't change the fact that the British Legion are now millions of pounds better off (with more to come), whatever the motives behind it!

Some say..damned if he does, damned if he doesn't. I say..Why does he have to write a commerical book at all? If he wants the public to know his version of his life why can't he write it and publish it for free on the internet?

At least he's proving to be a proper Catholic. All that guilt. Plus paying his way in to heaven.

Bless.

I think he had no choice but to donate the money.

Philanthropy, not.

Just more Bliar spin

The major atrocities in Kosovo started after the bombing started by NATO. Not before.

Geoff Hoon said genocide could be committed by the Serbs. Before the bombing started.

Kosovo isn't over either.

Blair and the US just wanted to set a precedent for the west/rich nations partitioning existing sovereign states after a bit of a setback in Vietnam.

Hang him, he's an international criminal, a state terrorist.

This is exactly why I disagreed with someone who suggested that Bertie Ahern (former Irish Taoiseach who played a huge part in our economic melt down) should have donated his auotbiography money to charity.
If people dislike you they will just use it as a further stick to beat you with and claim it is an admission of guilt. They will say you should have just donated the money privately and say it is PR posturing. If the person give the money anonymously they will also assume you have just kept the money and are enjoying the spoils so still complain that you are greedy etc.
May as well just keep it and enjoy it, you're going to get a pasting either way.

MQ for what it's worth I'd have far more respect for TB's donation if he'd done it in private. Though of course if it really were private I wouldn't know about it, at least, not for many years afterwards. But the fact that he chose to make it into a PR opportunity says unequivocally that despite giving the money away he's still the same old cardboard cut-out Blair: nothing meaningful exists beyond the image.

'Odious' is a good word for him, Harpy.