Gordon Brown auctions off Blair’s gift clutter
Over his 10 years in office, former Prime Minister Tony Blair received quite a few gifts from his travels abroad. Due to ministerial rules, he was not allowed to take any gifts that he did not pay for himself. The result is a ton of clutter left behind for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown has decided to auction it off for charity.
From the article:
Also due to be auctioned are dozens of tokens of respect from foreign leaders, including a £4,000 Segway electric scooter presented by the King of Jordan, a nativity scene presented by Yasser Arafat, and £195 bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild from President Chirac of France.
Let this be a lesson to us all. If you have a bunch of gifts from world leaders taking up space in your place, you may want to auction them off to charity as well.
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Posted by Matt on Dec 6, 2007 |
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8 comments posted
Posted by Jez - 12/06/2007
Would drinking those bottle of wine have been ‘taking’ them I wonder…
Posted by Nancy - 12/06/2007
Jez, I totally agree. I would have been sure to drink them all before I left.
If only my clutter was all from world leaders. I’ve got a JCPenney scarf & gloves (still with the tags on) received from a co-worker in the company’s Secret Santa gift swap… bids anyone?
Posted by Marie - 12/06/2007
I don’t know about world leaders, but I’ve auctioning off my gift bags from various events online, getting a total rush out of uncluttering!
Posted by Colin - 12/06/2007
Leave it to the thrifty Scot to clear out the space and raise a few quid at the same time.
Posted by mamacita - 12/06/2007
Okay, so don’t those other governments know the regulations regarding gifts to the Prime Minister of England? And why would anyone give him a Segway? Why did Arafat give him a nativity?? Geez, I thought the scarf and gloves from Penney’s were random. Maybe the UN needs to draw names next year.
Posted by Pascal Venier - 12/06/2007
This Frenchman living in the UK would if necessary be prepared to volunteer, “close his eyes and this of England”, and solve the problem by drinking this bottle of Château Mouton Rothschild.
Posted by Andamom - 12/07/2007
Granted, one may not have the trinkets and baubles in Tony Blair’s collection — but if you have a tremendous amount of stuff (or say you need to get rid of the belongings of a recently deceased or incapacitated family member), there are options. Have an estate sale! An appraiser can help you figure out what things are worth and if you lucky enough to have things of value, a firm that handles estate sales can do it for you. Or, you can call an auction house.
Of course, if you have less expensive clutter, you can still donate it to charity or have a yard sale.
Posted by claire - 12/07/2008
Sadly, when my mother died, and left an accumulation of 50 years of stuff gathered from living all over the world, the estate sales agent turned out to be a crook. The sale took 3 days, there was so much stuff, Wedgewood china, silver, linens, Asian art, beautiful stuff, not junk. I ended up losing more than $2000! she claimed it was all expenses and fees and wages for her helpers.
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