{"id":8179,"date":"2011-10-06T14:11:47","date_gmt":"2011-10-06T18:11:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=8179"},"modified":"2011-10-07T09:42:50","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T13:42:50","slug":"tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99","title":{"rendered":"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Corine Gatti
\n<\/strong>of the Beliefnet Staff<\/em><\/p>\n

NORFOLK, Va. –<\/em>– A few photographers and two reporters, including myself, stood in a huddle outside the green room waiting for Quartet Representative and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.<\/p>\n

Blair, 58, greeted us quickly with his charm and huge grin before being whisked away to spend time with friends visiting from England. Then it was the media\u2019s turn.<\/p>\n

We moved through the narrow hallway\u00a0past\u00a0flowered wallpaper and a mini-kitchen\u00a0with a microwave adjacent\u00a0to the main room housing two comfy chairs and a peach-colored wall where Blair posed for his photo op.<\/p>\n

His handlers reminded us not to\u00a0ask questions before his 90-minute dialogue at Norfolk’s Chrysler Hall. Blair, dressed in a tuxedo, stood staunch and did chat about enjoying his first time in Norfolk and seemingly wanted to speak. I mean that\u2019s what he does for a living —\u00a0he engages conversation. \u00a0He’s\u00a0trying to bridge peace in the Middle East, running the Tony Blair Sports Foundation, aiding in the relief of poverty in Africa and\u00a0participating in mass speaking engagements since leaving office in 2007.<\/p>\n

Criticized for embracing U.S. policy on the War on Terror, Blair\u00a0has been\u00a0slammed by the British public and the local\u00a0press,\u00a0and left 10\u00a0Downing Street on a sour note. Yet,\u00a0he has not slowed down and neither has his\u00a0income or his ambitions. He is a well sought-out speaker. It was estimated that he is paid a whooping $250,000 dollars for his lectures, according to published reports. A spokesman for Blair told the Sunday Times<\/em> that \u201c[He] is in great demand for his insight and analysis, which is a tribute to the high esteem in which he is held.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former President Bill Clinton and his successor George W. Bush each\u00a0make an estimated $150,000 per gig.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Blair in 2009<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blair delivered the goods for a packed house of over 1,500 with many middle-aged conservatives, an event hosted by the Norfolk Forum.<\/p>\n

Many Americans are disenchanted with the economy and the future of the country. he noted. America is not in a decline and “The solution is not to lose heart, but to regain it,\u201d encouraged Blair — who shared that he wanted to become a rock star and once had his own band called \u201cBad Rumours.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blair talked about democracy in the Middle East. The Quartet, which\u00a0was birthed in 2002, includes the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.<\/p>\n

“A good test of a country is whether people are trying to get into it or get out of it,” he said. “Any time people are free to choose, they choose our way of life.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Corine Gatti of the Beliefnet Staff NORFOLK, Va. –– A few photographers and two reporters, including myself, stood in a huddle outside the green room waiting for Quartet Representative and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, 58, greeted us quickly with his charm and huge grin before being whisked away to spend time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[829,522,1697,1698,1511],"class_list":["post-8179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-american-politics","tag-middle-east","tag-norfolk","tag-speech","tag-tony-blair"],"yoast_head":"\nTony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-\u2018don\u2019t-lose-heart\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Corine Gatti of the Beliefnet Staff NORFOLK, Va. –– A few photographers and two reporters, including myself, stood in a huddle outside the green room waiting for Quartet Representative and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, 58, greeted us quickly with his charm and huge grin before being whisked away to spend time…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-\u2018don\u2019t-lose-heart\u2019\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-06T18:11:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-10-07T13:42:50+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/blair-use3-200x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Corine Gatti\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-\u2018don\u2019t-lose-heart\u2019","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019","og_description":"By Corine Gatti of the Beliefnet Staff NORFOLK, Va. –– A few photographers and two reporters, including myself, stood in a huddle outside the green room waiting for Quartet Representative and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Blair, 58, greeted us quickly with his charm and huge grin before being whisked away to spend time…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-\u2018don\u2019t-lose-heart\u2019","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-10-06T18:11:47+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-10-07T13:42:50+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/blair-use3-200x300.jpg"}],"author":"Corine Gatti","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99","name":"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/blair-use3-200x300.jpg","datePublished":"2011-10-06T18:11:47+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-07T13:42:50+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3013f619d142ceac521a13c1921d991a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/blair-use3-200x300.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/files\/2011\/10\/blair-use3-200x300.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/10\/tony-blair-tells-norfolk-and-america-%e2%80%98don%e2%80%99t-lose-heart%e2%80%99#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Tony Blair Tells Norfolk and America: \u2018Don\u2019t Lose Heart\u2019"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3013f619d142ceac521a13c1921d991a","name":"Corine Gatti","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/51f\/51fa4157b4c0c24fbc082089eb7db284x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/51f\/51fa4157b4c0c24fbc082089eb7db284x96.jpg","caption":"Corine Gatti"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/authors\/c\/corine-gatti-santillo.aspx"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/cgatti"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8179"}],"version-history":[{"count":154,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8196,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8179\/revisions\/8196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}