Just what IS Blair’s game?

As he shuts money making empire, the question: is he set for a comeback?

TONY Blair set the stage for a potential political comeback last night with the shock announcement that he is shutting down his secretive money-making empire.

After nine years of raking in millions of pounds from foreign despots, the former prime minister said he wanted to concentrate on charity work.

His dramatic move was interpreted as a desperate bid to salvage his reputation, which was recently damaged by the Chilcot report into the Iraq war.

Last night a friend of the millionaire former Labour leader suggested his decision was the result of being ‘fed up’ with being seen as a money-grabber rather than a do-gooder.

And for the first time, sources close to Mr Blair suggested he finally accepted he had embarked on an ‘indecent haste to make money’ and a ‘mad grab’ for cash after leaving Downing Street in 2007.

Mr Blair issued a statement pledging to wind down his complex web of companies, which has shielded his true earnings from the public gaze for nearly a decade.

He said he would now spend 80 per cent of his time doing free work for charitable causes – and publish his accounts.

His statement made no mention of his wife Cherie, 61, who runs her own consultancy which has foreign dictators among its clients. His wife also owns most of the family’s property empire worth £32million.

Estimates of 63-year-old Mr Blair’s wealth suggest he has amassed a fortune between £60million and £100million in the nine years since leaving No 10. He has rejected all such estimates, claiming last year his worth was less than £20million.

Upon stepping down as the nation’s leader, he has touted himself to dictators including one of the world’s ugliest despots, Kazakhstan’s president Nursultan Nazarbayev, for £5million a year.

He also signed lucrative consultancy deals in Kuwait, Qatar, Colombia, China and a host of other murky dictatorships.

Last night Robert Peston, ITV’s political editor, quoted a source close to Mr Blair as saying the decision was made because he was ‘fed up with all the negative media coverage of the perceived conflict of interest between his charitable and pro-bono work on the one hand, and his money-making activities.’

Mr Peston quoted another friend as saying: ‘Tony would probably now accept that there was a bit of indecent haste to make money, a bit of a mad grab.’

Mr Blair has wrapped up his finances in an impenetrable maze of a dozen or so companies named Firerush, Windrush and Tony Blair Associates, whose opaque structures meant he could quite legally conceal his income. But last night his spokesman made a firm pledge to the Mail that from now on, ‘we will publish full accounts’.

In his statement, Mr Blair announced that his work in more than 20 countries would continue, adding: ‘I want to expand

‘Indecent haste to make money’

our activities and bring everything under one roof. We will close down Tony Blair Associates and wind up the Firerush and Windrush structures.

‘I will retain a small number of personal consultancies for my income, but 80 per cent of my time will be pro-bono’.

He said the ‘substantial reserves’ of Tony Blair Associates – said to be about £10million – would be given to his charitable causes. Mr Blair is also giving up his lavish offices in Grosvenor Square.

Tory MP Philip Hollobone said: ‘It’s clear that ex-prime ministers can make a fortune once they leave office and Tony Blair has taken this to new levels.

‘So any new emphasis on charitable work as opposed to profit

work will be welcomed by many – there is only so much money someone can make.’

Mr Blair is estimated to make £1million a year from speaking engagements and £5million a year from his consultancies with banks.

He donated his £4.6million payday from his Downing Street memoirs to charity, and took on an unpaid role as Middle East peace envoy.