Oh, he's going to Barbados

HE MAY be donating his multi-million-pound earnings from his new biography to a good cause - but it seems Tony Blair and his wife Cherie still have enough money for a new home in the Caribbean.

The couple are house-hunting in Barbados for a villa to add to their already formidable property empire, The Sunday Telegraph understands. They have viewed properties with the intention of buying a holiday home to which they could eventually retire.

The Blairs are believed to have been looking for a house on the former British colony, which has long been their favoured holiday destination, for at least three months. According to sources, hundreds of digital photographs of for-sale properties have been emailed to the couple.

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A senior representative from one of the main estate agents said: "Tony has a lot of friends on the island and has looked at property but he has not purchased anything yet to the best of our knowledge."

A leading solicitor on the island said she expected the Blairs to buy a property through a company - rather than in their own names - in an attempt to disguise the purchase for security and privacy reasons.

A new villa on the island would be the Blairs' eighth property: it was disclosed this weekend that the former prime minister and his wife have spent Pounds 975,000 on a maisonette in west London for their only daughter, Kathryn, 22, a student, bringing the family's portfolio to seven homes worth up to Pounds 15million.

The couple are said to be open minded about whether they buy an existing house in Barbados or whether they buy a plot with planning permission for a new build.

A secluded six-bedroom villa with a swimming pool would cost about $6.2million (Pounds 4 million), although Mr Blair is also believed to be keen to have a tennis court so he can play his favourite sport on his own land.

One of the locations the couple are said to favour is Apes Hill, where some 200 upmarket homes are being built on prime land about 1,000ft above sea level. Plots alone range wholesale lingerie in cost from $400,000 (Pounds 258,000) to $10 million (Pounds 6.4million) - before a brick has been laid.

In Britain, the Blairs' main homes are a Pounds 4.5million property near Hyde Park, bought for Pounds 3.7million in 2004, and a country house in Buckinghamshire, formerly owned by the actor Sir John Gielgud, now worth an estimated Pounds 6million and bought in 2008 for Pounds 5.75million. Including their latest purchase for their daughter, they have five other properties, some bought for their other children.

Mr Blair has had several conversations with Barbadians in which he has spoken of his fondness for the island and his hopes of buying a property there. "He told me he is a great admirer of our state education system and he would have liked his [four] children to have gone to school in Barbados," said one islander, who has become friendly with the former prime minister during his visits to Barbados.

Celebrities who own or have owned property on the island include Sir Cliff Richard, Oprah Winfrey, Gary Lineker and the golfer Ian Woosnam. Sir Cliff let Mr Blair stay at his six-bedroom villa on the Sugar Hill estate, situated close to the island's exclusive west coast, for three summers while the Labour politician was still prime minister.

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