Tony blair

There’s a strange fin de siècle air about Labour this weekend: a new appreciation that the forthcoming election marks either the end of their reign, or – at best – is the start of a different, diluted kind of power.  There are still a few signs of life and struggle, sure.  I mean, Gordon Brown’s interview with Jeremy Paxman last night was fairly proficient by his standards, if typically disingenuous.  But, even then, the PM is struggling to move the conversation on from Gillian Duffy.  In interview with the Telegraph today, he admits that he has “paid [a] heavy price” for his gaffe. That line forms the headline of the

My gosh, these latest Labour posters are open for all kinds of spoofery. But at least they’re positive and colouful – unlike Gordon Brown’s performance in the TV debate last night.  Which, really, highlights Labour’s fundamental problem during this campaign.  The big set-piece events have been almost relentlessly negative, whilst they’ve left what passes for a positive prospectus to posters which will barely make it past the confines of the political blogosphere.  But, never mind – Tony Blair thinks that “Labour’s got every chance of succeeding.”  So all’s well then.

Every politician will be thinking “there but for the grace of God…” today – but the Gillian Duffy incident is not just a gaffe. It is bad for Gordon Brown and Labour on very many levels. Here are ten of them.   1. The image of the Politburo pulling away in the Jag, slagging off the proles. This confirms the idea of an elite, who sneer at voters in private but try to charm them in public. And the idea that politicians (of all parties) say one thing on camera, and another when they think no one is listening. 2. The is not just a gaffe, but the PM on

One of the interesting features of this election campaign is the near-absence of ex-leaders in national election roles. Tony Blair has been stuck in the Middle East because of the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano and has, at any rate, been “Gored” by Gordon Brown, who is as keen to have his predecessor canvassing for Labour as Al Gore was to see ex-president Bill Clinton in the 2000 election. The former Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has been more active. For the Tories, Michael Howard is standing down and has not been particularly visible. When I saw him recently in Portcullis House, he looked chipper and relaxed – not like

There is a terrible desperation about the Tory approach to the Lib Dem surge. There is a clear desire to find some sort of killer story about Nick Clegg or a killer strategy to reassert David Cameron’s claim to be the candidate of change. What is odd is that Cameron seems to have forgotten what made him so attractive in 2005, which was that he was the candidate of the moderate, progressive centre ground.  The recession pushed the Conservative Party into the language of austerity – a message the British public is not yet ready to hear – and they have not recovered.  I have never understood why David Cameron

The Civil Service is readying itself for a new government. The BBC has already reported a discussion of efficiency savings among senior officials. In another part of Whitehall, work is a foot on how to set up a National Security Council should the Tories win. I have in the last few weeks been interviewing ex-ministers and senior officials as research for a RUSI paper, due out soon after the election, on how to improve the government’s security set-up. Traipsing around various departments, a number of interesting conclusions have come to light: – Conservative ideas for an NSC are not the same as the government’s NSID committee, however much ministers say

The Tories have weathered Chris Grayling’s gay gaffe. The story could only gain momentum if the papers had gone to town on it. They have not. The Times gives it a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of an inner page and even the Independent and the Guardian relegate it to the interior. The news agenda has gone into election over-drive, but I doubt this story would have had legs anyway, even before his denial. Grayling is no homophobe and whilst he voted for the Equality bill he is right that it should be applied with a soft-touch where the boundary between public and private space is blurred. The State should not dictate

Michael Gove is always worth listening to when he speaks on schools reform – offering passionate rhetoric supported by detailed policy. But this morning he excelled himself. If you want a clear sense of what the Tories have in mind for making “opportunity more equal,” then I’d recommend you track down a copy of his presentation. I’ll try to link to it, if it appears online later. One point that jumped out at me was when Gove said a Tory government would introduce a bill “within days” of entering power, aimed at “making it harder for bureaucracies to block the creation of new schools”.  He added that he’d hope to

Blair’s return will be worth a good 2-3 points to the Tory lead. Like Mandelson, he can dazzle journalists who admire his tradecraft. Like Mandelson, he is loathed by the public who see a snake oil salesman. Blair mis-sold the country a project in 1997, and delivered none of what he promised (and it was with those broken 1997 problems in mind that the News of the World backed the Conservatives last weekend). He is not very popular now. When he gave evidence to the Chilcott Inquiry, the crowds came from near and far to denounce him. One placard, which I found outside my office, said “Blair is a war

In the News of the World today, I propose a new tax on the rich: specifically, on ex-ministers who go on to earn a crust advising companies how to avoid the regulations with which they have saddled the British economy. I proposed this before the news broke about Byers and Hewitt etc, but their appalling story makes it all the more pertinent. The Nelson tax should be above the top rate, and imposed on any activity such as giving speeches to the Chinese, lobbying, consultancy, etc. – anything which trades from contacts or reputation built up while serving the taxpayer. It would not be levied on activities which the ex-minister

I just took a quick stroll around the block from Old Queen St, to check out the situation on the ground outside the Chilcot Inquiry.  The most striking thing is how few protestors there are – about ten at most, I’d say, and a fraction of the number that marched out against Blair a few weeks ago.  Brown doesn’t even make one placard’s list of – and I quote – “Lying R. Soles,” which includes Blair, Campbell, Straw and Goldsmith. It’s all rather suggestive of how Brown has managed, over the years, to separate himself from those who made the political and moral case for war.  But there lies the

… this September: Tony Blair’s memoirs, entititled The Journey.  Question is, what does this say about his hopes for a Labour victory?  Or will all the juicy Blarite-Brownite stuff be cut out?  Either way, the cover will be what you see on the left.

First the tragedy, then the farce: if there was something dark, perhaps shocking, about last weekend’s bullying allegations, then the latest Rawnsley revelations veer towards the hilarious.  They’re centred around Brown’s efforts to oust Tony Blair, and the Guardian covers them here.  I won’t pre-empt your enjoyment of them, except to highlight this passage from the report: “Rawnsley reveals that Brown rang Blair while he was staying with the Queen at Balmoral. He was furious that Alan Milburn, Blair’s close ally, had written a piece supporting the prime minister’s right to stay at No 10. Rawnsley writes: ‘The chancellor’s fury was titanically demented even by his standards. ‘You put fucking