My father hated Tony Blair

"I've come to despise Tony Blair more than Margaret Thatcher", he wrote as war began in Iraq. His recipient, Labour veteran Tam Dalyell replied on Commons notepaper, "So do I Alan, So do I".

In 2004 at Normandy, he and many other veterans were preparing to turn their backs on Blair and Hoon.   

I came to despise Tony Blair through our human rights efforts in Ukraine and how they were "twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools"

Though a non-believer, I've been inspired by people whose faith drives their deeds. My colleague Terry, for example,  who was commended for his efforts to help disabled children, in spite of his own terminal illness. Terry wanted these children to have homes  full, of love and care, locals reported, sharing part of his letter which called on USAID for support .

In recent years, I've learned of the alignment we have with Catholic social teaching, with business which is people-centered. Cardinal Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster believes that business must be for the good of the human person. That is precisely where we began, arguing that  

Blair is a believer himself,  He even runs a Faith Foundation and he doesn't concern himself too much about where the money comes from. For example an Ukrainian oligarch'bankrolling his charity" as The Telegraph put it.

The same oligarch was described in Terry's reports on Death Camps, For Children.

"Excuses won't work, particularly in light of a handful of oligarchs in Ukraine having been allowed to loot Ukraine's economy for tens of billions of dollars. I point specifically to Akhmetov, Pinchuk, Poroshenko, and Kuchma, and this is certainly not an exhaustive list. These people can single-handedly finance 100% of all that will ever be needed to save Ukraine's orphans. None of them evidently bother to think past their bank accounts, and seem to have at least tacit blessings at this point from the new regime to keep their loot while no one wants to consider Ukraine's death camps, and the widespread poverty that produced them.."

"Our lives begin to end, the day we become silent about things that matter", said Dr Martin Luther King jr, - a great man of faith.  

It's no great surprise to find Blair sitting alongside Pinchuk on the panel for what's become known as the Philanthropic Roundtable at Davos.  They are talking about the violence which has just begun in Ukraine and how business can be applied to yield both financial and social returns. 

 

An inherent assumption about capitalism is that profit is defined only in terms of monetary gain. This assumption is virtually unquestioned in most of the world. However, it is not a valid assumption. Business enterprise, capitalism, must be measured in terms of monetary profit. That rule is not arguable. A business enterprise must make monetary profit, or it will merely cease to exist. That is an absolute requirement. But it does not follow that this must necessarily be the final bottom line and the sole aim of the enterprise. How this profit is used is another question. It is commonly assumed that profit will enrich enterprise owners and investors, which in turn gives them incentive to participate financially in the enterprise to start with.

That, however, is not the only possible outcome for use of profits. Profits can be directly applied to help resolve a broad range of social problems: poverty relief, improving childcare, seeding scientific research for nationwide economic advancement, improving communications infrastructure and accessibility, for examples – the target objectives of this particular project plan. The same financial discipline required of any conventional for-profit business can be applied to projects with the primary aim of improving socioeconomic conditions. Profitability provides money needed to be self-sustaining for the purpose of achieving social and economic objectives such as benefit of a nation’s poorest, neediest people. In which case, the enterprise is a social enterprise.'

'This is a long-term permanently sustainable program, the basis for "people-centered" economic development. Core focus is always on people and their needs, with neediest people having first priority – as contrasted with the eternal chase for financial profit and numbers where people, social benefit, and human well-being are often and routinely overlooked or ignored altogether. This is in keeping with the fundamental objectives of Marshall Plan: policy aimed at hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos. This is a bottom-up approach, starting with Ukraine's poorest and most desperate citizens, rather than a "top-down" approach that might not ever benefit them. They cannot wait, particularly children. Impedance by anyone or any group of people constitutes precisely what the original Marshall Plan was dedicated to opposing. Those who suffer most, and those in greatest need, must be helped first -- not secondarily, along the way or by the way. '

Thousands read it in 2007, when published on a prominent web journal and in 2013, it was described to Mckinsey readers on the Mixmarket platform

Blair ironically, had introduced social enterprise into government policy a decade earlier, but that means nothing here.

The author of a 'Marshall Plan' for Ukraine was a man of faith, putting the needs of the vulnerable and voiceless before his own life. I contrast, Tony Blair and his Faith Foundation are at the beck and call of anyone willing to pay the piper and in so doing, stifle and silence a man of faith and courage to bathe in the warm glow of talking about doing good.

This kind of faith, I will never be inspired by.

A few months after the Davos meeting MH17 was shot down and some of the bodies landed in the garden of Torez orphanage. 

Death Camps, for Children described a visit to this institution in 2006 and the bodies already in the garden..  

“When we arrived at the orphanage we were met by older children without coats, they were begging us to give things to them and not to the directors. It is very hard to write about the rest of this part of the trip. I cannot give a step by step account because we were all in a state of shock. We spoke to the director about our program and he told us that he knows the children need more but he said, “I cannot ask my workers to do more, they work very hard, clearing the road, shoveling snow, cleaning the floors and the children, they have not time, they must work very hard all day and then they must dig graves and bury children.” What do you say to that?