There's a problem "within Islam" that the Government needs to address, says Tony Blair. Perhaps I'm being unfair, but it's as if Neville Chamberlain had revealed in 1940 that there was a problem with some of these German nationalists and what was Mr Churchill going to do about it? This is what sticks in my [...]
From Monday's Daily Telegraph When I read Leo Abse’s biography of Tony Blair, one detail struck me in particular: an aide claimed that Mr Blair, in his official car, was forever checking the vanity mirror. It came back to me yesterday when I read that the former prime minister has confessed in an interview to [...]
It's odd to think that Tony Blair, who stood down as prime minister nearly six years ago after a decade in office, has just turned 60. That was once the age when a British politician was just coming into his prime. Palmerston died in office a few days shy of his 81st birthday. Gladstone formed [...]
Peter Wilby, my editor at the New Statesman, came up with the inspired idea: to sign up Lauren Booth to write a weekly column. This was 1998 and New Labour looked impregnable, Tony Blair invincible, and the one true Labourite, Gordon Brown (whom the magazine championed), was relegated to waiting and waiting in No 11. [...]
According to this morning’s Independent, at last night’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting Ed Miliband “hit back at criticism of Labour's direction under him from Tony Blair and his allies, accusing them of being out of date and out of touch with the public”. Why he did that isn’t entirely clear, given that Ed’s supporters are [...]
Look out – the Blairite Zombies have risen. Tessa Jowell and John Reid were just two of the reanimated corpses that graced our screens over the weekend, endorsing Tony Blair’s critique of Ed Miliband’s leadership. There has been intense speculation that Blair’s attack in last week’s New Statesman, and the follow-up from his former colleagues, [...]
For all the millions of words written about Margaret Thatcher Thatcher and her legacy this week the most interesting political intervention, I reckon, has just been made by one of her successors. Tony Blair (for it he) has used an article in the centenary issue of the New Statesman to warn Ed Miliband (although the [...]
This morning the New Statesman is celebrating its 100th anniversary, and it’s marking the big day by publishing a pretty bald critique by Tony Blair of Ed Miliband’s political strategy. Up till now, Blair has been circumspect about criticising his successor-but-one. Not today. Contrary to popular opinion – or opinion within the office of the [...]
Eulogies from Labour to Margaret Thatcher may be polite rather than heartfelt. Do not be deluded. It would scarcely be an exaggeration to say that, in her latter years, Lady Thatcher appeared to be a darling of the Left. Tony Blair secretly sought her advice over Bosnia and Nato enlargement. Gordon Brown made such a [...]
My friend and colleague Iain Martin knew I could not resist following up his blog in which he suggested Tony Blair could have beaten David Cameron in 2010 – at least well enough for Labour to be the largest party in a hung parliament and to have gone into coalition with the Lib Dems. His [...]
I pose the question in the headline simply because I am interested in what people make of the idea. And I suppose I also want see if ultra-Blaritie John Rentoul puts it into his famous Questions To Which the Answer Is No series (QTWAIN). If Labour had been sensible enough to avoid firing Tony Blair in [...]
Is there anyone left in the upper reaches of the Labour party with Tony Blair's feel for the instincts of millions of Labour voters and potential Labour voters? Say what you like about Blair (in the comments below) but he would never have got on the wrong side of a row about a scumbag who [...]
George Osborne, the Chancellor, has defended the Government’s welfare reforms from the carpet-bombing they have received from the Left and their cheerleaders in the media over the past few days. Yet there was something very familiar about his speech to supermarket workers in Sittingbourne, Kent. It was reminiscent of Tony Blair’s first speech to Parliament [...]
The idea that political leaders should apologise for historical events is now deeply ingrained. At times it seemed as though Tony Blair, when he was prime minister, would apologise for almost anything, as long as the original transgression had nothing directly to do with him. His contribution on the Irish potato famine was mocked by [...]
For the record: this is not a specific criticism of David Cameron or the Conservatives. Everything I'm about to write applies equally to Tony Blair, and to Ed Miliband, and every other party leader and PM of recent years and probably foreseeable future. But my God, every time Cameron opens his mouth to respond to [...]
Ed Miliband's commitment to reintroduce the 10p tax band, and to go for a mansion tax on properties such as Tony Blair's house(s), is attracting attention, understandably. It means more vindication for DUEMA (the Don't Underestimate Ed Miliband Association, of which I was a founding member). The tax announcement shows that the Labour leader is [...]
In three months' time Tony Blair will be 60 years old. It is quite a thought. Goodness, ten years after that he will 70. Indeed, what with rising life expectancy and the trend in Britain for younger party leaders, a former PM can now expect to be around for many decades after they leave office. [...]
There was something slightly plaintive about Tony Blair's appearance on Marr yesterday, especially at the end when Sian Williams asked him about Labour and what sort of advice he is giving to Ed Miliband and – as we learned from Jane Merrick in the IoS – David Cameron. "If Ed or David Cameron ever want [...]
I am opposed to President Obama's drone attacks in Pakistan. I was against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hell, I even opposed Tony Blair's bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, which made me deeply unpopular with my liberal friends, liberals then being the most fervent bangers of the drums of war. Yet despite all that, [...]
The BBC has been rocked by scandals in the past. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher berated the corporation for giving IRA terrorists the "oxygen of publicity". More recently, the BBC was humiliated by Tony Blair's government over its claims, during the Hutton Inquiry, that the government had "sexed-up" documents on Iraq'a alleged weapons of mass destruction. [...]