I struggle to think of a former political leader as diligent as Tony Blair in the sullying of his own reputation. Mr Blair’s Iraq adventure with George W Bush was always going to cast a shadow. A minority will forever condemn him as a “war criminal”. Yet it is his single-minded, almost manic, quest for personal riches that will leave the darker stain on the historical record.
True, Gerhard Schröder, the former German chancellor, sold himself to Gazprom and now serves as a tireless cheerleader for Russia’s Vladimir Putin. France’s Nicolas Sarkozy displayed a certain fondness for “bling” even before he was turned out of the Elysée Palace. Neither come close to Mr Blair’s mission to join the global plutocracy.
Former political leaders have a right to earn a decent living, the more so when they leave office in their early 50s. Mr Blair makes much of his philanthropic foundations and hefty personal contributions to good causes. The trouble is that the boundaries between private profit and public service are hopelessly obscured – one assumes deliberately so – in the corporate labyrinth that is Tony Blair Associates.