'Britain in its hour of trouble needs a Tony Blair. It has a queen, a prime minister, a chancellor, a leader of the opposition, but it is deficient in Tony Blairs. Or that is what Tony Blair thinks. He last year earned £20m from this and that, and feels that now his purpose "is not to make money but to make a difference". The old phraseology still brings a tear to the eye

Blair's contribution to economic policy is that "Britain must not hang 20 bankers at the end of the street", a dutiful nod in the direction of his £2m salary from JP Morgan. He is an adviser to Kazakhstan on human rights and to the Labour party on Olympics legacy, a double whammy of hopeless causes. The Kazakh dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, apparently paid him $13m to eulogise his odious regime in a state video and applaud him for "subtlety and ingenuity … in a region fraught with difficulties".'

Read more: Tony Blair May Itch to Return, But He Faces a Cruel Reality Check