Middle East Peace Envoy Keeps Watch On Things From £150M Plus Yacht.

[anotheoldgit]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/08/26/article-0-1B77AC52000005DC-126_634x422.jpg

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2402354/As-West-debated-air-strikes-Syria-peace-envoy-Blair-On-yacht-Mediterranean.html

[emmie]

perhaps he is hankering to buy one to add to his ever burgeoning property portfolio.

[Octavius]

I imagine 'having meetings with various people' is part of the job so it doesn't really matter much where those meetings are does it? Catherine Ashton does pretty much the same, she had a meeting with Mr Morsi in an Egyptian prison.

I'm not a fan by any means, but both appear to be more visibly active and vocal than the rest of the ME Quartet.

[Gromit]

His role as peace envoy is primarily working on Israel / Palestinian conflict.

And to do that job, he does not need to be in Israel or the West Bank 365 days a year.

[Gromit]

// His brief includes Palestinian governance, economics and security rather than the wider conflict between Israel and Palestinians - at least initially. //

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6244358.stm

Syria is not part of his mandate.

[Quizmonster]

Is there some suggestion that Mr Blair gate-crashed any of these vessels or aircraft? If not, presumably he was invited aboard each and every one of them by their owners. Were they not free to do so?
As the Daily Wail itself acknowledges, he is Special Envoy for the Middle East on behalf of the Quartet – the United Nations, European Union, United Sates and Russia. These nations - including us as members of the EU - and organisations were not forced into appointing him, were they? Plus, as Gromit points out, Syria is not a particular part of his remit.
I think it much more to the point that Cameron failed to return from holiday as early as he should have done...again...just as happened during the 2011 riots.
This is, as so often with the wretched rag, a non-story.

[mikey4444]

I agree Quizmonster...just another ham-fisted attempt at smearing Blair from a famously biased newspaper, one that supported Mosley in the 1930's.

[Kramer21]

"Mr Blair’s busy schedule at the back end of last week involved visiting several ‘super-yachts’ worth in excess of £100million – apparently three of them in the space of three days"

What on earth does the price of the yachts or the frequency in which he visits them in have to do with anything? What about the embassies and palaces he has to visit which the dailymail has failed to spot or has kept quiet about seeing that it's pretty obvious and not news.
What's next, how much his shirts cost? Which aftershaves he uses? The dailyfail really scrapes the bottom of the barrels with some of their "News" features.

[naomi24]

I don't see what the value of the yacht has to do with it either. Nice boat though.

[youngmafbog]

How do you arrange security in one of those things?

One torpedo and it's good bye Blair; and there must be a queue of people wanting to take aim!

[youngmafbog]

And I have never understood how a warmonger becomes a Peace Envoy?

[Gromit]

If Blair is in the Med, that puts him 2000 miles nearer to the action than William Hague, the Foreign Secretary.

[mikey4444]

Well said Gromit !

[emmie]

but he isn't in government, Hague is.

[ChillDoubt]

One might have expected him to be frantically arranging to meet the likes of Assad, rebel leaders and other ME hierarchy, doing his utmost to ensure dialogue.

As it is, he appears to be having a nice little jolly under the pretence of being 'on scene', when he is in reality doing the square root of f*ck all.

[Gromit]

As pointed put earlier, Syria is not really part of his remit. syria was not really a problem when his job was invented.

It is just acccident that he is holidaying in the Med. he probably arranged his stay months if not years ago. He certainly isn't in the area at this crucial time on purpose.

His whole tenure as peace envoy to Israel and the Palestinians has been characterised by your phrase "square root of f*ck all".

[ChillDoubt]

Syria not really in his remit? The title gives it away: Middle East Peace Envoy. It's all-encompassing of that region, surely?
That Syria wasn't a problem when he was appointed is irrelevant. The vagaries and instabilities of the ME are such that any of them can become embroiled at any time, as has happened.
As he has advocated that the West should become involved in Syria anyway, one might have thought that he would have cut short his holiday at such a crucial juncture.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/06/19/blair-syria-intervention-arm-rebels-_n_3464070.html

Given his job title, one would hope he'd be seen doing a lot more right now for his estimated £20 million a year.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/9806139/Tony-Blairs-record-in-the-Middle-East-is-a-sorry-one-its-time-he-quit.html

[Svejk]

I don't know why people complain about Tone. After all he did promise "things can only get better".and they certainly did. ( Did you think he meant for us, lol ) Another twist of the knife. To my eternal shame I stayed up all night, that cursed night in 1997, cheering for the sleazeball. Extinguished the last spark of faith I had in humanity. Yes, bit of a muesli muncher myself then. Its hard to believe there's any left.

[Quizmonster]

Egypt is part of the Middle East and currently riven by disturbance which may well become a civil war, but I have never heard even the remotest suggestion that Mr Blair should be in there pitching for peace. Much the same is true of Bahrain, Lebanon and Yemen...never mind Iraq!
The plain fact is that he is - as far as the Quartet is concerned - based in Jerusalem and involved virtually exclusively in Israeli/Palestinian matters.
If the words 'Middle East' in his title really "gives it away" as regards his remit, why is he not constantly in the Gulf (Bahrain/Iraq) and the Red Sea (Yemen) as well?