October 15, 2004 Blair Sells Britain, Buys a House by Paul Craig Roberts
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, have purchased a $6.4 million townhouse in Connaught Square and plan on spending another $900,000 fixing it up. The Blairs already own a $800,000 six-bedroom home in his Sedgefield constituency on which taxpayers have spent $3.6 million to turn it into a terrorist-proof fortress.
According to the British press, a down payment of $1.8 million would leave the Blairs with a $324,000 annual mortgage payment on their Connaught Square townhome. The mortgage payment would use up 100% of Blair's pre-tax income as prime minister, leaving the couple to get by on Cherie's income as a lawyer.
Blair is banking on his loyalty to President Bush to produce the future income to pay off his mortgage. The British press estimates that Blair, having provided cover for Bush's ill-fated invasion of Iraq, can look forward to earning $3.6 million on the American lecture circuit once he leaves office, along with a $1.8 million book advance and lucrative directorships, Halliburton, no doubt, included.
Many have been puzzled why Blair, with Britain's sizable Muslim population, threw in with the American neoconservatives' agenda to attack weaponless, secular Iraq. Modern Britain has as many Muslims as Presbyterians, Methodists, and Jews combined. The answer, it appears, is money. By hiring out Britain's army to the Republicans, Blair struck it rich. ...
<http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=3788>
Carl
