Tony Blair's Journey towards £5 Million profits for autobiography sales

05 March 2010

Tony Blair's memoirs are to be published by Random House in September 2010. Proceeds from the book are estimated to net him a sizeable income. The launch is timed perfectly for the Christmas market, and not doubt will cause a mighty distraction for The Labour Party's autumn Conference.

 
The announcement by Random House Publishing coincides with Gordon Browns appearance today at the Iraq Inquiry, and within the same week that Andrew Rawnsley has launched his book, 'the end of the party' in relation to the Labour Party motley crew, in the period since 2001 (did you spot Andrew Rawnsley opportunistically holding a copy during a feature for Newsnight yesterday). 

Memoir writing is not unusual for ex-British Prime Ministers, and come with varying degrees of financial success. Tony Blair's friends however, believe that he is strongly motivated by a need to set the record straight about what life is like in Number 10 Downing Street, and although it is not thought that he will be deliberately trying to discredit Gordon Brown, Random House say that he will be candid about the relationship.

Inevitably, Tony Blair will be interested in his legacy, which was tarnished after the Iraq war and the dodgy dossier stories, and remains unredeemed so far following his appearance at the Iraq Inquiry and the subsequent negative publicity.  Blair's reputation has taken a nose dive and he continues to receive ongoing critism as continued evidence of the war's distressing side effects emerge; John Simpson's recent report on the sharp rise in children born with horrendous abnormalities and cardiac defects in Fallujah since the American bombing raids in 2004, as a case in point. Tony Blair has never wavered from his belief in the Iraq War, and believes a similar strategy may be needed in future in Iran, and so it should be interesting to see if he is able to give a clear and unambiguous moral and ethical defence for the Iraq invasion without a UN mandate, aside of the purely legal imperative that appeared to be ignored.

As much as it is doubtful if Tony Blair does have the ability to be entirely sincere; he is a politician after all. It will be difficult not to be tempted to buy the book, despite reservations of whether it is the best way to spend £25.