Tony Blair, our former PM, is going to give a small number of private talks to Lansdowne Partners, which is a London-based fund that made millions by cashing in the collapse of Britain's banks in the credit crunch. Mr Blair will give a series of speeches which will focus on future trends in global politics to executives from the firm, whose co-founder is ironically a major donor to the Conservative Party.
Mr Blair, who is obviously keeping busy trying to make peace in the Middle East, amongst other things, has left the arrangements for the talks, to a US agency that handles Mr Blair's lucrative speaking engagements, they are charging more than £100,000 for a single speech.
Paul Ruddock, a co-founder of Lansdowne, has donated more than £250,000 to the Conservatives in recent years. Back in 2008, the firm made a killing by betting that the prices of shares in banks including HBOS and Barclays would fall. It has been estimated that the firm made more than £12 million by short-selling British bank shares.
The firm also short-selling shares in Northern Rock for four years until its collapse in 2007. Mr Blair will provide its executives with "a macro view on geopolitics". A spokesman for Mr Blair has confirmed that he will speak to Lansdowne, but that he is not taking on any formal job with the firm.
Since ceasing to be PM in 2007, Mr Blair has been estimated to have pocketed a cool £14 million since leaving Downing Street. The bulk of his time is apparently spent on unpaid political and charity work. He has a £2 million-a-year advisory job with a US investment bank, fat contract to write his memoirs, and earns hundreds of thousands of pounds for paid speeches.
In 2009, it was reported that he earned almost £400,000 for two 30-minute speeches during a 36-hour visit to the Philippines. When not busy piling up the money, Mr Blair is also involved with running several charitable foundations, gives advise to a number of African governments on reform, and occasionally acts as an international envoy on the Palestinian economy.
As it says in the old song, its all "about the compnay that you keep and then the pig got up and slolwy walked away..."
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