Tony Blair has called for MPs to be paid more. He says he has amassed a \u00a310 million fortune since leaving Number 10. Others have estimated he is worth \u00a3100 million.<\/p>\n
In an interview with Vanity Fair the former prime minister launched a robust defence of his leadership, saying the public should still listen to him.<\/p>\n
Justifying calls to pay politicians more, Blair said the \u201cgene pool of political leaders\u201d had shrunk. This is \u00a0because people did not think it was worth standing for election any more.<\/p>\n
The poor dear is still suffering from all the Iraqis he killed. He said he \u201cresents the fact that they have damaged his reputation irrevocably\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say: \u2018Why should you listen to him?\u2019\u2013because of Iraq. And I keep saying, that\u2019s why you should listen to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I\u2019ve been through this in government, and since leaving office I\u2019ve been studying it the whole time.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the interview he said it was acceptable to work for dictators.<\/p>\n
He has earned millions through his firm Tony Blair Associates in consulting fees and speaking arrangements.<\/p>\n
Justifying his income Blair said the electorate was going to have to \u201cget used to\u201d high profile politicians cashing in on the private sector when they retire.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThere\u2019s no way I\u2019m going to retire and play golf. You look at someone like Henry [Kissinger]. He\u2019s 91 and he\u2019s still going strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love that.\u201d<\/p>\n
We have been warned.<\/p>\n
This piece<\/a> was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony Blair has called for MPs to be paid more. He says he has amassed a \u00a310 million fortune since leaving Number 10. Others have estimated he is worth \u00a3100 million. In an interview with Vanity Fair the former prime minister launched a robust defence of his leadership, saying the public should still listen to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107464,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,1615],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-142540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-uk-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}