Since stepping down as prime minister in June 2007, Blair is said to have earned as much as £15m from a variety of business deals and a book venture. He has been paid a £4.5m advance for his Downing Street memoirs, a £2.5m salary as a part-time adviser to the American investment bank JP Morgan Chase and £2m for an adviser’s role with the Swiss firm Zurich Financial Services. He has also worked on the after-dinner lecture circuit. Last year a Spanish newspaper reported that he had earned up to £240,000 for making a 90-minute speech to 2,000 entrepreneurs in Barcelona. Blair also receives a taxpayer-funded pension of £63,468 a year, plus an annual £84,000 allowance to run a private office.
