Blair Mulls Canceling London Book Signing After Dublin Protests
Blair Mulls Canceling London Book Signing
Niall Carson/AFP/Getty Images
Blair, Britain’s longest-serving Labour prime minister, is publicizing his 736-page book “A Journey,” published by Random House last week.
Blair, Britain’s longest-serving Labour prime minister, is publicizing his 736-page book “A Journey,” published by Random House last week. Photographer: Niall Carson/AFP/Getty Images
Former U.K Prime Minister Tony Blair canceled a book-signing session in London to promote his memoir, citing concerns about security after he was pelted with eggs at a similar event in Dublin.
Blair, Britain’s longest-serving Labour premier, is publicizing his 736-page book “A Journey,” published by Random House last week. Blair was pelted with shoes, eggs and plastic bottles in Dublin two days ago by people protesting against the Iraq war. He wasn’t hurt.
Blair had been scheduled to sign copies of his book at a Waterstone’s Booksellers Ltd. store in central London on Sept. 8. In a statement on his website today, he said he would provide the shop with signed copies instead.
“I very much enjoyed meeting my readers in Dublin and was looking forward to doing the same in London,” Blair said. “However, I have decided not to go ahead with the signing as I don’t want the public to be inconvenienced by the inevitable hassle caused by protesters. I do not wish to impose an extra strain on police resources, simply for a book signing.”
In the book, Blair endorsed Conservative David Cameron’s economic policy and slammed Gordon Brown, his partner in power for a decade, for political incompetence.
Blair also claimed credit in the memoir for management of the economy, saying the 1997 move to give the Bank of England independence by granting it the power to set monetary policy was his idea, not Brown’s. The two men oversaw Britain’s longest period of uninterrupted growth.
The former premier, 57, defended his 2003 decision to invade Iraq, while describing how he wept as he talked to a soldier’s widow. He also recounted sabotaging a ban on fox hunting, one of the most controversial laws of his premiership.
To contact the reporters on this story: Robert Hutton in London at rhutton1@bloomberg.net; Kitty Donaldson in London at kdonaldson1@bloomberg.net.
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