DAILY EXPRESS: Tony Blair was yesterday urged to give up his income of nearly £150,000-a-year – paid for by the taxpayer – after earning more than £12million since leaving Downing Street.
The former Prime Minister is said to have made in just over a year more than six times what he earned as an MP over 24 years.
That includes his 10 years at Number 10 when he was on an annual salary of £187,611.
Mr Blair’s lucrative money-making activities have reportedly triggered fears in diplomatic circles that he is neglecting his unpaid role as an international envoy in the Middle East.
Mr Blair receives £84,000 of public money towards the costs of running his private office, a perk given to all former Prime Ministers. On leaving Number 10 he also became eligible for an immediate ex-PM’s pension of £63,468 a year for life, which will rise in 2013 when he is 60 by up to £40,000 a year for his service as MP.
Mark Wallace of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “Tony Blair is an extremely wealthy individual.
“The least he could do for hard-pressed British taxpayers would be to waive his publicly funded payments.”
Senior Lib-Dem Norman Baker commented: “It’s a very long way from the housing estates of Sedgefield where he was MP, where many people will be struggling with food and heating bills.”
Analysts calculate that Mr Blair has made at least £12.4million in the last 16 months since quitting as Prime Minister, including an estimated £5.3million from speeches and lectures. There is said to be a two-year waiting list to book him.
Mr Blair is also thought to have made £4.6million on his yet-to-be produced memoirs, an estimated £2million as adviser to investment bank JP Morgan Chase and £500,000 as a consultant to Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services. >>> By Alison Little | October 30, 2008-10-30
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