David Blackburn

Blair, magnanimous master of PR

It’s easy to be loose with a trifling £4.6m when you’re Tony Blair. Many will denounce his decision to give the advance and any royalties on his memoir to the British Legion as opportunistic – a cynical gesture characteristic of the man. As ever with Blair, there is more than a hint of a public relations exercise about this. But it is also extremely gracious, aiding people who prick his conscience. So I prefer to take his generosity at face value. As Con Coughlin puts it:  

‘Whatever you might think of Mr Blair, he always had the courage of his convictions when it came to defending our freedoms, whether it was confronting genocidal maniacs like Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, or tackling the modern curse of Islamist terrorism. Mr Blair went to war not because he was trigger happy, but because he believed it was the right thing to do. As a result hundreds of British service personnel have been killed or suffered serious injury, a burden that weighs heavily on Mr Blair’s conscience.’

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in