It’s only you Brits who don’t appreciate me, insists Tony Blair

[charlie]

Think again, Tony...

Tony Blair has hit back defiantly at his British critics, insisting that he is appreciated overseas much more than at home. He also defended his money-making activities.
...

Interviewed for today’s News Review, the former prime minister said: “You get to a position where the criticism you get, you just have to live with. It’s the way it is. When you are someone like me, you create a lot of controversy one way or another. You just decide to do what you are going to do and let that speak for itself.”

He blamed his negative image in Britain on the press, saying: “They don’t approach me in an objective way. Their first question is how to belittle what I’m doing, knock it down, write something bad about it. It’s not right. It’s not journalism. They don’t get me and they’ve got a score to settle with me. But they are not going to settle it.”

He added: “It’s not true that nobody likes me! Reading the papers in Britain, you’d end up thinking I’d lost three elections rather than won them. There is a completely different atmosphere around me outside the country. People accept the work that you are doing, as it is. They don’t see anything wrong with being successful financially and also doing good work.”
...

He is expected to go before the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war in the new year, when critics hope he will face charges of manipulating intelligence. Ken Macdonald, QC, the former director of public prosecutions, accused him last week of “deceit” and “subterfuge”, but Blair said the critics were “doing it more for effect than anything else”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6962872.ece

[ananda]

1. What a whiner.

And an asshole.

[hobbit709]

2. Tony, your perceived importance is inversely proportional to your real importance.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. If you have a strong stomach, read the full length interview

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6962649.ece

Better still, he can finally make a tidy sum himself. When he became an MP he took a big financial hit for the sake of his political ambitions, seeing his income cut in half. Thanks to his disastrously timed house purchases, he left office in debt. He’s wasting no time making up for lost earnings. JP Morgan pays him around £2m a year directly, more than 10 times his former prime ministerial salary. He gets another £2m or so directly from Zurich Financial Services, the Swiss insurer.

The coffers of his new private consultancy, Tony Blair Associates, are swelled by a total of £2m a year from the government of Kuwait and from Mubadala, an Abu Dhabi state-backed investment fund and green technology incubator. He advises both. There are deals in the offing in Saudi Arabia, too. Much of his work is spent using contacts to open doors. Senior Tesco officials approached him to help them open stores in the Middle East, but the deal fell through.

Blair is trousering another £4.6m for his memoirs, which will be out next year, once the last of the ink has flowed from his trusty fountain pen. In addition to the £140,000 plus expenses that he gets for speeches, it was widely reported that he was paid a £600,000 signing-up fee when he joined the Washington Speakers Bureau. Finally, he is entitled to a taxpayer-funded pension of £63,468 a year, which he has deferred, and receives an annual £84,000 allowance to run a private office. Small wonder, since leaving office, he has amassed an estimated £15m.
...
Ask Blair a simple question, such as: who owns the Bombardier jet he used to hop across the Middle East and then fly to Rwanda and back at an estimated cost of £200,000 and he gets terribly shy. “I don’t know. It’s not mine. That’s, er. You don’t . . . the only . . . Er . . .”

He has good reason to be coy. It turns out the plane is President Kagame’s. Travelling the world on a jet used by the government of one of the poorest countries on Earth smacks of self-aggrandisement and self- enrichment and is about as far from a mission to save the world as it gets.

[charlie]

4. Cripes

The slippery fucker. This week he's defiant. Last week, he had a pity party for himself. It's probably been decades since he's been truthful about anything of consequence, so why doesn't he at long last just be the asshole he is? His tiresome neediness is turning into his worst sin.

[AllentownJake]

5. Didn't the same DLC shill that we have had to put up with for 20 years

Essentially create this fucktard.

[LeftishBrit]

6. Poor Tony.

And if he chooses to live elsewhere, bloody good riddance!

Still better if he gets dragged before the ICC.

[anaxarchos]

7. No Pony for Tony... eom.

[malaise]

8. Tony is hated everywhere

Someone should tell him.