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One of the more memorable vignettes from Alastair Beaton's television play The Trial of Tony Blair, which imagined the future that lay ahead for the ex-Prime Minister, is set in an office with a fine view of central London.
The office is vast, but nearly empty. There are telephones, but they are silent. Two members of staff are at their desks by the windows, keen to work, but with nothing to do.
The former Prime Minister is pacing the empty floor, also with nothing to do.
Margaret Thatcher has talked in the past about what a wrench it is to go from doing one of the most stimulating jobs in the world to having time on your hands.
She complained that it was as if your life had been smashed to pieces. But her plight was more acute than Tony Blair's, because his was a planned departure rather than a political coup, and it has not taken long for him to make himself busy again.
The former Prime Minister has been in and out of the Middle East in his capacity as peace broker for the "Quartet" - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.
Last week he met United States President George W. Bush at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. The day before, he had met the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, and before that, Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert.
Before Christmas, he presided over a donors' conference to try to persuade the world's rich nations to increase aid to the Palestinians, and won promises worth more than £3.7 billion ($9.25 billion).
The Palestinians and the radical Arab regimes still mistrust a man they regard as Bush's poodle, but no one can deny that he has put in the hours.
He has also started organising two charitable foundations, done a deal with a publisher, and crossed the globe as the hottest property on the international lecture circuit. As his old friend and former agent John Burton put it: "He hasn't had time to get bored."
He hasn't been getting poor either. To his other commitments, Mr Blair has now added a part-time job as a senior adviser with the Wall St bank JPMorgan Chase.
Its chairman and chief executive, Jamie Dimon, said: "We operate our business all over the world and Tony Blair will bring our leaders and clients a unique and invaluable global perspective that is especially critical in turbulent times like these."
The bank did not specify how much Mr Blair is to be paid for his "unique" advice, but speculation in the US business press put the figure at around US$1 million ($1.27 million) a year, a graphic illustration of how Prime Ministers can get seriously rich only after they have left office.
John Major began a lucrative association with the Carlyle Group, a Washington-based fund management company, within a year of his election defeat, first as a member of its European advisory board, and then as its European chairman. That alone is likely to have been worth substantially more than his Prime Minister's salary.
He took up his first British directorship, with the car components and bus group Mayflower, a year later. He had several other directorships and signed a seven-figure deal for his memoirs.
Margaret Thatcher also wrote memoirs, which outsold most books on politics, for which she was paid at least £1.5 million, and she received more than £250,000 a year as a consultant to the Philip Morris tobacco company - with half the money going to her directly, the other half to the Thatcher Foundation. She also made lucrative tours of the US lecture circuit.
This week, Mr Blair will give three lectures in North America, and over those three days he will earn nearly as much as he did in three years in Downing St. Tomorrow, he will address a crowd of 5000 near Los Angeles as a guest of the American Jewish University. Some guests will have paid £1200 for the chance to hear and meet him.
The tickets to his next speech, at a luxury resort oasis near Palm Springs, will be slightly cheaper, about £500 a head. Then he will be in Toronto, addressing 2000 people at a TD Bank Financial Group-sponsored event.
It is believed his fees for this short tour could add up to £500,000, pushing earnings for his first year on the lecture circuit over £1 million, including £240,000 he is said to have been paid for a 20-minute speech in China.
He has also brokered a £4.6 million deal with Random House for his memoirs - though most of that money will not be paid until he has produced a manuscript, which could take a long time. From the day he left office, he was also entitled to a pension for life, currently valued at £63,468 a year.
Compare these figures with the £187,611-a-year salary, which until July was all that he could contribute to the Blair household income to supplement the earnings of his wife Cherie, and it is clear how leaving office has improved the Blairs' finances. Six months ago, they must have struggled just to pay the interest on the £3.5 million mortgage on their house in Connaught Square, and £500,000 for the two flats Cherie bought in Bristol. Now the couple have been to look at Winslow Hall, a £3 million, 8.9ha estate near Chequers.
In March, Mr Blair will move all his operations to a new headquarters on the site of the old US embassy in Grosvenor Square, where he has a 10-year lease costing £550,000 a year. He has another office in Jerusalem, in his capacity as Middle East peace envoy, with a staff that includes four British diplomats, plus security and a fleet of silver SUVs and three Mercedes, provided by the UN. Britain has contributed £400,000 towards its running costs, but Mr Blair is unpaid for his work.
About a quarter of the former Prime Minister's time is spent on his two planned charitable foundations.
One, to be based in London, will seek to promote inter-faith understanding between Christians, Jews and Muslims. The other, run from Myrobella, the former Blair home in his old Sedgefield constituency, will aim to attract 365 adults into coaching football, athletics, indoor rowing and tennis in the Northeast.
The scale of the Blair operation means several former Downing St staff have not needed to look far for new jobs since July. Ruth Turner, who was questioned by police over allegations of cash for honours, is working on the inter-faith think-tank. Four other former aides are working for Mr Blair, and another is doing the organisation work in the Middle East.
There are things Mr Blair has not done, for which he deserves credit. The JPMorgan Chase offer was not his first approach from big business; he has turned all the other offers down.
He has not taken a seat in the House of Lords, saying it was not his style. He has not gone to Washington to accept the Congressional Medal awarded him by Mr Bush. And he has not told us how he thinks Gordon Brown is coping. That sacrifice is probably the hardest.
- INDEPENDENT
