Sorry is the hardest word. Or at least it is for Tony Blair. The former prime minister seems prepared to pay any price not to apologise for leading his country into two wars that have come to be seen at best unnecessary, and at worst illegal.

In what must be the most expensive act of contrition by any modern leader, The Guardian reports that Blair is giving the 4.6 million pound advance for his forthcoming memoirs to the British Legion to take care of injured war veterans. He may even give more if A Journey – published next week, and already the target of internet spoofery – turns a profit. Yet still he won’t say the “s” word, or anything remotely resembling it. And this from a man who once made a fetish of begging forgiveness for the sins of the British colonialism from the Irish, Africans and Indians…

The Times, The Independent and Daily Mail see his gesture as little more than a salve for a guilty conscience, and relatives of the 510 British soldiers killed on his foreign adventures – the London press is not counting Iraqis, Afghans nor Pakistanis – were even more harsh. “Blood money,” was their unequivocal verdict. Harsh words, but nothing on the roasting the Daily Telegraph columnist Judith Woods gave him, noting that such is his ego that even while trying to make amends, Blair is “unable to draw so much as a single breath without the oxygen of publicity".

Several still more cynical observers wondered whether Blair would actually save himself 1.75 million in tax by giving away the advance.

Not to be outdone, his nemesis Gordon Brown quickly let it be known from his garden shed in Scotland that he will also be donating the proceeds of his new book on the financial crisis to charity. Which begs the question, does Brown also have something he would like to confess?

No such qualms for the third member of New Labour’s founding trinity, Peter Mandelson. Having rushed his diaries into print to upstage Blair’s and pocket a 400,000-pound advance, he is keeping his mouth and his wallet shut. A wise move, since his financial dealings have twice before proved his undoing.

 

Gerry Feehily returns on August 25.