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Stephen Pollard

ByStephen Pollard, Stephen Pollard

Opinion

The serial killers (The Guardian)

May 13, 2008 24:00
2 min read

I have a piece in the Guardian today about political memoirs. Here's an extract: According to the rumours, Cherie Blair has received around a million pounds for her book and Prescott half a million. Nice work if you can get it, and lubricant enough to prise open the most tightly shut mouth.

But even if the Prescott family's other options for securing an income are somewhat more limited than the Blairs' - Cherie Blair is at the pinnacle of her lucrative profession, with a high-earning husband, while Prescott has no discernible skills to offer and a wife who does not work - it's not true that money is the only factor behind political memoirs. The first insider accounts of the Blair government, after all, came from Jonathan Powell, Blair's former chief of staff, and Lord Levy, his former fundraiser. Powell's advance will not have been huge, and he now has a well-paid job at Morgan Stanley bank. And Lord Levy is already a multimillionaire. Neither needs the money.