Anger over Blair vacation

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under fire for taking a long, luxurious summer vacation. Most Britons take a modest week or two off during the summer, and about half stay in Britain. But Blair is spending the whole month of August relaxing—first in Barbados, at the home of singer Cliff Richard; then at the Olympics, in Athens; then at the palatial villa of an Italian prince in Tuscany; and finally at an island retreat with Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister. A chorus of critics denounced Blair’s holiday plans as “ostentatious” and even a “moral betrayal” because he was not paying for hotels for himself and his family, but staying with rich friends. One columnist called the trip a “monstrous freebie tour of Mediterranean millionaires’ haunts.”