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Tony Blair
Tony Blair was the UK Prime Minister from May 1997 to June 2007 and was succeeded by Gordon Brown.
Contents |
Spin, WMD 45 minute claim, Iraq war, Death of Doctor David Kelly and Dodgy Dossiers
He will mainly be remembered for his spin and taking Britain to war with Iraq, under what many people believe was a lie i.e. Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. Blair was mainly seen as a puppet of the U.S president George Bush. In the US the Iraq war was being justified on the basis of "regime change" however, under international law such a war would be illegal hence the government need to claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
His spinning, and the Iraq war, combined with tragic consequences when Britain’s leading expert supposedly committed suicide after he was reported to have stated that the Iraq weapons dossier had been "sexed up". The government under Tony Blair conducted a witch hunt which identified Doctor David Kelly as the source. The circumstances of Doctor David Kelly death have never been fully explained. At the time of his death he was under massive world wide media attention and until minutes before his death had a police escort. Why this police escort was suddenly removed, minutes before his death, has never been explained. In addition, leading medical doctors have commented that you cannot commit suicide in the way that Doctor David Kelly was reported to have. Many theories now exists such as those which claim that the security services were ordered to murder Doctor David Kelly, as he had embarrassed the government, and that this explains why both the media and police left shortly before his death. Doctor David Kelly claims, on the Iraq weapons dossier, were latter found to be correct and the dossier subsequently became known as the "dodgy dossiers".
During this time the BBC was under massive pressure from the government as they had initially broken the "dossier sexing up" story. Many now believe that the pressure exerted on the BBC during this affair subsequently lead them to tone down their criticism of the government on other key areas such as economic matters.
JP Morgan
After leaving office Tony Blair took a well paid job (reported as £2.5m/year) with JP Morgan. At the time JP Morgan had just announced massive losses on the US sub-prime mortgage market.
Bair as a BTL
The Blair speculated in property. Buying flats and houses in London and Bristol.
Blairs get rich quick scheme
As prime minister his salary was modest (although some would argue if he were paid on capability rather than title he was very well paid!). His wife worked, and also earned loads of money doing speeches about life at number 10. But just how did they manage to mass such a fortune in such a small space of time?