London, Dec. 21 : Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has hit out at claims that he has done little but make ­himself rich since leaving Downing Street, stating that he could have made five times as much money if he had wanted.

Blair is estimated to have made 14-million-pounds in the past 24 months.

“When leaders step down they all do a certain amount of paid speaking and that is fair enough. If all I wanted to do was make speeches, let me tell you, I could make five times the number,” the Daily Express quoted Blair, as saying.

He added: “I got out of politics early enough to have a second act in life. Why shouldn’t a politician be able to do that? ­Others do. Nobody says Bill Gates is bad for moving from business to ­philanthropy. Why shouldn’t a politician do a business model when they change their life?

“My motto is: don’t retire, don’t expire,” he said.

Blair also said that he is far more popular abroad than in Britain.

“People (abroad) accept the work that you are doing as it is. They don’t see anything wrong with being successful financially and also doing good work,” he said.

Blair earns two million-pounds-a-year as an advisor to US investment bank JP Morgan. He also has a lucrative contract to write his memoirs and earns hundreds of thousands of pounds from the lecture and speech circuit. (ANI)