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Life after Downing Street

Hasan Suroor

Speculation about Tony Blair's post retirement plans has begun.

— PHOTO: AFP

MOVING OFFSTAGE: British Prime Minister Tony Blair outside 10 Downing Street in London on May 11.

WHAT WILL Tony Blair do after leaving Downing Street next month? Will he simply disappear into the sunset or continue to strut on the world stage in a different garb? And what will Britain be like under his successor Gordon Brown? Will he offer a new vision to the country or simply end up as another version of his predecessor "without the charisma," as The Economist asked.

Nobody quite knows the answers but that has not stopped endless media speculation, especially about Mr. Blair's post-retirement plans.

What he might do after being effectively forced out of No 10 is the subject of persistent gossip, and almost everyday there is something new on the grapevine.

The latest is that he has been offered a job by the former Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, his billionaire buddy from the days of the Iraq invasion when the two — along with the then Spanish Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar — represented the only Bush "fan club" in Europe. Mr. Berlusconi is said to have invited him to become the rector of an international university he is setting up in Florence to "rival" Harvard, Cambridge, and Oxford. Mr. Blair, he believes, is just the man for the job. "When I spoke with him last week on the telephone, I said: Dear Tony, would you like to be the rector of the International University I am setting up?" Mr. Berlusconi was reported as saying in The Sunday Telegraph.

Money, the newspaper said, was not a problem. "With a personal fortune estimated at £6 billion, he is prepared to pay Blair handsomely because he feels he is worth it," it noted suggesting that Mr. Blair, facing a huge mortgage on a house he bought two years ago, might just plump for it.

Really? A flamboyant and globetrotting Mr. Blair, more at home with celebrities than academics, cooped up on an isolated university campus? The image doesn't quite work. And, as one Blair-watcher pointed out: "For all his faults, to think, that he would be shameless enough to join the payroll of a man facing trial on corruption charges [Mr. Berlusconi is to go on trial on bribery charges] is stretching it a bit."

More plausible was the buzz that Mr. Blair could be the man to succeed Paul Wolfowitz as the next World Bank chief. The speculation was sparked by a throwaway comment of Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize winning economist and a former senior vice-president of the World Bank, that Mr. Blair was "one of the people that is clearly being discussed." It was further fuelled when Mr. Blair's parliamentary agent said that he was ready to considering leaving Parliament if a "big international job" came up.

Although the top job at the World Bank has been traditionally held by an American, it was speculated that given Mr. Blair's close personal relationship with President George W. Bush that little difficulty should not come in the way.

His name was also touted when the United Nations was looking for a new Secretary-General to succeed Kofi Annan — a job that finally went to South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon.

Amid all this, Mr. Blair has remained tight-lipped, and Downing Street's official line is that it doesn't comment on what the Prime Minister would do when he becomes a private citizen. One thing he is almost certain to do though, after a fashion, is to write his memoirs. If his former communications chief, Alastair Campbell, can bank on making millions of pounds by simply retailing stories of his years in Mr. Blair's office (Mr. Campbell's much-anticipated diaries are due to be published in July) why shouldn't the boss do it?

Another project he is expected to take up is a Blair foundation that will promote inter-faith dialogue and campaign for removing Third World poverty besides focussing on other social issues, a la the Clinton Foundation.

Meanwhile, there is also much speculation whether Mr. Blair will remain in active politics after leaving office. Given his alleged contempt for Parliament, not many see him hanging around as a backbencher; and at least one former Prime Minister has advised him to quit politics for good after June 27, the day he is set to resign. John Major, who famously headed straight for the Oval to watch cricket after handing over the keys of No 10 to Mr. Blair back in 1997, believes that there are no halfway houses. Once the show is over, it's over for good, and time to move on.

"I think it is extremely foolish of politicians to be so embedded in politics that when the days end there is nothing in their life but looking back to what once they did and once they were... There is no point, when you cease to be Prime Minister, staying on the backbenches," he said in an interview to The Guardian.

And what about the PM-in-waiting? How will things be under Mr. Brown? Expectations are running high thanks to the hype created by his supporters. But let's not forget that what is blithely called the Blair era has been as much a Brown era. It has been a joint "Blair-Brown" enterprise. Mr. Brown, a fellow architect of the New Labour project, was closely involved in all major decisions of the Blair Government — from the controversial private funding of public services to the invasion of Iraq. And he has given no indication there would be a significant shift in the agenda pursued under the Blair Government. Even on Iraq, seen as the biggest test of his leadership, he has said nothing substantially different from what Mr. Blair has been saying. Yes, there will be some fine-tuning and a change in tone to reflect his personality but, in the end, the change is likely to be more apparent than real. Exit Tweedledum. Enter Tweedledee?

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