Blair's gravy train

[rory_20_uk]

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...Blair will receive a severance package from the state worth some £300,000 a year.

Thanks to some astute lobbying by other ex-PMs, Blair will get a car, a police driver and round-the-clock special branch protection.

He will also receive an immediate prime-ministerial pension of almost £64,000 a year as well as a further £84,000 to run his office - on top of what he makes as an MP...

The article is mainly going on what Blair can do from now onwards. I think that he's entitled to do what he wants.

BUT I don't see why the state is to spend vast sums of money on him from now until his death.

Get MPs to curtail their own slurry at the trough? Fat chance. It would take the Queen to make a stand and sort this mess out.

So do others think that this is an acceptable way of spending state money?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

No, and it's a shame out Queen made herself a Lame Duck in the fifties.

This is not a Republic and the Prime Minister should be nothing more than the Queen's First Minister, nothing special. I'll go with the Police protection but the rest is a joke. He's already rich.

[Productivity]

While I don't particularly care in this case as it's not my tax money, in general I hold to the view that if you pay peanuts in general for allowances to politicians, you will get monkeys in those positions. You end up with politicians that are too afraid to pay themselves sums that will attract people who are effective, consequently a lot of people who might otherwise have been interested go through to the private sector because of a wage gap.

Given the responsibility, stresses etc. that politicians are put under, I don't think a generous remuneration package is unfair, if you want to seriosuly attract people who will produce results.

When I look at the West Australian government and struggle to think of five ministers who I would think of as effective, then look at the opposition and struggle to think of one, there's something wrong. Then you look and realise they could receive five times as much in the private sector and think maybe good people refuse to work for peanuts.

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Well given the ten years of basically bad handling of government clearly more money doesn't work. You attract the greedy instead of the conciencious.

[Grey_Fox]

You also get the people who have the skills to get five times more cash.

[KukriKhan]

That does seem a rather lavish severence package for an ex-Brit PM. Didn't someone recently post a black-and-white photo of a former PM catching a London bus, all alone, just another regular guy, the day after he left office?

So, that "return to the farm after service" idea is gone nowadays?

[Banquo's Ghost]

That does seem a rather lavish severence package for an ex-Brit PM. Didn't someone recently post a black-and-white photo of a former PM catching a London bus, all alone, just another regular guy, the day after he left office?

I think that would have been John Major. He seems quite happy to watch cricket and relax, though I believe he does some lecturing. He didn't even take up a seat in the House of Lords.

Blair is a darling over your side of the pond, which is why he will command serious speaking fees, and still believes he has some importance. That's why the suggestion that he becomes a Middle East peace envoy or heads up a multi-faith reconciliation trust appeals to him. And he still has no self-awareness, otherwise he would spot that he has blown any chance of either of those options being anything less than laughable.

So, that "return to the farm after service" idea is gone nowadays?

The idea of public service being its own reward has long since died (the reason for the mid-range civil service pension the PM gets derives from the once likely possibility of the chap starving to death. As the article notes, Winston Churchill was practically bankrupt and homeless after his premiership).

There's too much money in memoirs and the like for any other course, and Blair has been raking in the "perks" for a good while now for him to let these new opportunities pass.

[lancelot]

This is an outrage!

Another one of the hidden benefits of 'democracy'...MPs who can set their own wages and bonuses...must come in handy that little perk...

I could tolerate the driver and protection for the next say- 10 years, then after that cut him off but the severence package is a sham.

And then pension thing is a joke. My parents (reasonably wealthy) have been paying into a pension for years, only to be told it is now practically worthless. Bet Tony wont suffer the same fate...

Seems that the phrase 'first among equals' has been sadly forgotten.

This kinda thing makes me appauled to be a Briton, with legitimised robbery like this going on its no wonder people try to fiddle their tax contributions and such...

This gets me so angry I can barely see straight!