Blair's $5m
- 14 Jan 08, 10:27 AM
There are times when you see a price and you know that it’s wrong.
One of those was the $1m quoted by many newspapers last week and over the weekend for what JP Morgan, the huge US bank, is paying Tony Blair for his advisory services.
It felt far too low.
I am not making a judgement about the value of what our former prime minister will actually do for Morgan.
The proof of that will be in the pudding.
But I spend my life speaking to people with money to spend on Blairs and other forms of what is pretentiously known as human capital – and in that world $1m buys a few days of legal or public relations advice, but not continuous access to a politician with a global brand (oh yes) who can pick up the phone to anyone.
Whatever your political bent or view of the Blair years, it would be a national humiliation if the sticker on his forehead said $1000k.
His franchise is worth more.
For a million dollars to be the number on his ticket, Wall Street and the City would be in total meltdown and we would be in the grip of a worldwide recession (we may get there yet).
It couldn’t be the right price – especially since Blair takes advice from a bunch of astute business people and he isn’t famous for knowingly underselling himself.
So when the Daily Telegraph reported that he is being paid £2m a year, I thought that was more like it.
But it still didn’t feel right.
My intuitive view was that you couldn’t have a Blair for less than $5mhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/
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