Love or money? Affairs of Blair come under spotlight

THE SOURCE of Tony Blair's personal fortune comes under the spotlight in a Channel 4 documentary tonight. The Wonderful World of Tony Blair investigates how he has managed to build a reputed eight-figure personal fortune since he resigned as prime minister and set up a "secretive" international consultancy called Tony Blair Associates.

Reporter Peter Oborne will claim that at the same time as Blair is visiting Middle East leaders in his role as the envoy of the 'Quartet' (the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia) he is receiving vast sums from some of those leaders.

"If Blair represented the UK government, the EU, the IMF, the UN or the World Bank, this would not be permitted," the programme's synopsis claims.

Specifically, Oborne will claim that Blair, who is paid £2m a year by US investment bank JP Morgan, lobbied the Israeli government to open up bandwith so that phone company Wataniya Mobile could operate on the West Bank.

While Palestinians were understandably pleased that the mobile phone network monopoly of Paltel had been broken, Wataniya is 57 per cent owned by a Qatari telecoms company that is a client of JP Morgan.

Dispatches claims another JP Morgan client, British Gas, is involved in developing a huge gas field off Gaza.

Given Blair's money-making skills, it is little wonder that a Mail on Sunday inquiry into Tony Blair's relationship with a glamorous Tel Aviv divorcee was dismissed by a senior Israeli security adviser as probably more to do with money than romance.

The Mail told how Blair has apparently formed a close relationship with 51-year-old Ofra Strauss, the chairman of a food conglomerate called Strauss Group. She is controversial in Israel because the high prices it charges for dairy foods - over which it has a monopoly - have led to mass protests

Meetings between Blair and Strauss at high-end Israeli restaurants have led the local media to suggest a romantic relationship, saying the ex-PM "awakens hidden desires" on his trips to Tel Aviv. A spokesman for Strauss has called the claims "ridiculous", while a source close to Blair insists the two have never dined together alone.

But Chaim Asa, a security adviser to Israeli prime ministers, had the most likely solution. "I don't think [Blair]'s a socialist any more: he wants to be a tycoon himself. Maybe one of the reasons he likes Ms Strauss so much is that she has so much money."

The Wonderful World of Tony Blair: Dispatches, Channel 4, 8pm ·