Tony Blair to earn six-figure sum presenting to hedge fund execs

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is set to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds giving a short series of speeches to executives at a hedge fund that made tens, possibly hundreds, of millions of pounds betting on bank failures.

Paul Ruddock is a founder and the current CEO of London-based Lansdowne Partners, a hedge fund that reportedly made £100 million ($160 million) betting on the fortunes of Northern Rock, the mortgage lender nationalized by the British government in 2008 after the "run" it suffered in September 2007 and its subsequent inability to find a buyer. Mr Ruddock is also a major donor to the British Conservative Party. But neither of those facts appear to concern Mr Blair, Labour Prime Minister in Britain from May 1997 through May 2007, as it was reported on Monday that he will be speaking on four occasions to executives at Lansdowne Partners. His speeches will cover geo-political issues and the London Times states that Mr Blair, UN envoy in the Middle East and adviser to both U.S. investment bank JP Morgan and Swiss-based Zurich Financial Services, is expected to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds in the process. Reporting that officially there has been no confirmation of Mr Blair's fee for the speeches to the hedge fund executives the Press Association does quote a spokesman for the 56-year-old former Prime Minister as saying:

Mr Blair remains one of the most popular international speakers around. These talks for Lansdowne were organised by the Washington Speakers Bureau in the usual way. Mr Blair has not taken a job with Lansdowne Partners

The Guardian suggests that the fees usually commanded by Mr Blair for speeches, former U.S. President Bill Clinton reportedly being the one person earning as much if not more than the former Prime Minister on the speech-making circuit, are equivalent to £2,000 ($3,200) a minute. Although Mr Blair's role in the Middle East is unpaid, since he stepped down as Prime Minister he is believed to have received £10 million ($16 million) from books, appearances at events, and from acting as an adviser to various organizations and businesses. Yet the British taxpayer still provides him with a £63,000 annual pension. While its bets on the declining fortunes of Northern Rock and the potential decline or collapse of Barclays and HBOS - the latter organization did not collapse as such but was taken over by Lloyds TSB - have perhaps received the most publicity, Lansdowne Partners, partly owned by U.S. financial giant Morgan Stanley and managing some £9.8 billion ($16 billion) in investments, did bet too on the recovery in the banking sector that occurred last year. According to the London Times, by betting on the banking recovery, Lansdowne Partners' £3.1 billion ($5 billion) financial fund enjoyed returns of 40 percent. Questioning how popular Mr Blair's association with a hedge fund, whose principle activity is Long/short equity investment, will be within the Labour Party the Guardian adds that the man facing considerable pressure over his decision to commit his country to the 2003 invasion of Iraq will not be speaking to any of the clients of Lansdowne Partners. Hedge funds were not the recipients of many compliments at the height of the global financial crisis and it remains to be seen how the relationship with a politician possibly more unpopular now than when he was in office will work for Paul Ruddock and his fund.