AP News, August 16th, 2007
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair plans to write a book, a Blair representative told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The representative, who would not speak on the record because a deal has not yet been made, said that the book, probably a memoir, hasn't been started and is at least a few years from publication. There have been no negotiations or serious discussions with publishers, the representative said.
Blair has retained Washington attorney Robert Barnett, who has worked on multimillion-dollar deals with former President Clinton, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and others, the representative said.
A Blair spokesman, Matthew Doyle, declined comment.
Blair, 54, stepped down in June after more than 10 years in office, during which he brokered peace in Northern Ireland and followed the United States to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, leading to strong criticism in Britain and elsewhere. He was succeeded by Gordon Brown, who competed with Blair to lead the Labour Party in 1994 and then served as Treasury chief the past decade.
Books by British leaders have had mixed success overseas, often depending on the minister's fame. Margaret Thatcher wrote a best-selling memoir and Winston Churchill's numerous memoirs and works of history brought him a Nobel prize for literature.
But a memoir by Blair's lesser-known predecessor, John Major, attracted little attention. Major has also written a book on cricket, "More Than a Game," that came out in Britain in the spring and was praised by the Guardian for its "stirring account of the way cricket spread across the globe."
Blair has been the subject of many books, including a current best seller, "The Blair Diaries," by Alistair Campbell, his press secretary for several years. Blair himself is author of a policy book, "New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country," a collection of speeches and articles that came out in 1997.
