I see that my fellow peer Lord Mandelbrot is reported in The Daily Mail today, as about to head off to make his fortune in the global dictator market.
I’m Mandy – buy me: Revealed, the shameless letter that Mandelson is using to tout for business from despots and dodgy billionaires
He writes: ‘Global Counsel brings together much of what I have learnt during my career: how best to renew and re-project brands (as I did in the creation of New Labour); how to re-focus large organisations to meet new goals (as I did in successive government departments); and how to adapt and benefit from the impact of globalisation (as I did as European Trade Commissioner).’
My first attempt to locate Global Counsel on the internet produced a startling result: “Global counsel is a professional education and immigration consultancy based in mohali (chandigarh) punjab, india, with years of experience in placing the right student in the right universities.”
I couldn’t see Mandelbrot spending time trying to assist in procuring overseas students keen to keep afloat our fine seats of learning by paying high fees, so I continued my search. I then found this: “Labour peer Lord Mandelson is set to launch an international comms consultancy with backing from WPP Group, it has emerged.”
I rather lost interest in trying to find a website, but I did find this analysis from The Daily Mail much to my taste:
Some estimates say Blair has amassed a £50 million fortune since leaving Downing Street in June 2007. For Blair’s long-time friend, these are very exciting times.
Indeed, Lord Mandelson has already taken a leaf out of Blair’s book by trailing his fingers in the lucrative waters of Kazakhstan, the sinister oil-and-gas-rich regime which has been accused in U.S. government diplomatic messages of ‘pervasive corruption’, deploying ‘torture’ techniques and where criticising the president has been made illegal. But more of their links to Kazakhstan later……”
Despite Gordon Brown saying that he would devote his life to ‘good and charitable works’ as he contemplated a future without the power to fuck up Britain (and he may well still do these good works), it would appear that he, too, is on a fairly lucrative lecture circuit and, they say, he is prepared to chuck in his wife Sarah for a bit extra. I can’t see any problem with that at all. If people are daft enough to pay good money to listen to him, so be it. I have his book. I haven’t read it. I rather think it unlikely that anyone will pay me to do so as in the good old days when I ran the Media, Privacy and Libel Law Bunker at Muttley Dastardly LLP… or the ‘viper’s nest’, as I seem to recall, was your term for it.
Some good news. I had a meeting with a rather unusual Libyan chap the other morning. He arrived in an Apache helicopter which, I can tell you, startled a few tourists at the The Brasserie du Café de Paris in Monte Carlo “the most well known setting for “rendez-vous” in Monaco : its warm welcome extends a promise of enjoyable moments, the decor with its “Belle Epoque” windows recalls that of old Parisian bistros, the atmosphere is glowing and gay.”
He didn’t seem that keen on my advice that he should do a runner, sharpish, to Venezuela before MI6 plugged his location co-ordinates into a cruise missile on one of our submarines. He stood up, held his arms high above his head and shouted “I am not such a dictator that I would shut down facebook. I’ll merely imprison anyone who logs into it” . He stepped away from our table and, after signing a few autographs for passing millionaires, shouted “You are all pig dogs and, remember, were it not for electricity, we would all have to watch television in the dark”. With that out of the way, he climbed aboard the Apache helicopter and headed south at speed.
He didn’t even pay the bill. Fortunately, I still have his Amex details, which he gave me earlier so that I could settle my fee for the ‘consultation’, so I shall be able to recover my disbursements. Old habits die hard.
All the best. I’ll be in town for Ascot. Perhaps we could lunch at your local Lebanese?
Best
Shagger
There#’s a very good Lebanese on Borough High Street called Hiba if you want to impress his lordship (no, I’m not on a retainer)…
WR – I shall have to investigate should I find myself up there buying foodie stuff for my alter ego Chef Charon!
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