By Martin Waller
IT HAS not taken him long. David Blunkett, still enjoying his £3 million grace-and-favour Belgravia mansion despite losing his job as Home Secretary, has signed up with an agency to offer lucrative after-dinner speaking arrangements.
Large companies are being approached by e-mail with the news that he is on offer from JLA, one of the larger firms in the field, which has also recently acquired the rights to Sir John Stevens, the retiring Met Police Commissioner. No fixed fee — “I would discuss each individual one with David,” says JLA’s Tom McLaughlin — but a comfy five-figure sum should be assured for every rubber chicken dinner. Useful for a man whose salary dropped from £130,000 to a mere £57,000 when he quit.
The agency also represents William Hague, who has made quite a success of the after-dinner circuit, and Mervyn King. No, not that one — a South African judge who is apparently a whiz on corporate governance.