Source:
GuardianTony Blair has decided to write his memoirs and has hired the US lawyer who negotiated a multimillion dollar deal for Bill Clinton to secure him a publishing fortune. Sources close to the former prime minister confirmed that Robert Barnett, who arranged a $12m deal for Mr Clinton's hefty My Life, would be contacting publishers on his behalf.
Rupert Murdoch's publishing giant, HarperCollins, will be among the favourites to secure the memoirs, particularly as Mr Blair is using an American lawyer. So too will Random House, which took Alastair Campbell's The Blair Years to the top of the UK bestseller list, despite the former spin-doctor admitting that he had excised material he thought would be damaging to Gordon Brown.
Mr Blair bowed to the almost-inevitable by letting it be known that he would be putting down his thoughts in writing, or possibly getting someone to do it for him. He is notoriously computer-phobic, so may resist troubling the keyboard himself. A friend, however, said last night that the book was "years off publication".
Mr Barnett, a partner at the Washington DC law firm Williams and Connolly, has also taken charge of bidding for Hillary Clinton's memoirs - worth $8m - and those of Alan Greenspan, the former head of the US federal reserve. His other clients have included Barack Obama, Lynne Cheney, Queen Noor of Jordan, Benazir Bhutto, Art Buchwald and Leah Rabin.
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