Tony blair

The union of irreconcilables was unlikely to last: power-sharing in Northern Ireland is on the verge of collapse. Where once Blair and Ahern would descend on Stormont as a couple of charismatics, today Gordon Brown and Brian Cowan face an enormous and unenviable task. They deserve support: both governments have been courageous in their approach to Northern Ireland, and the Tories were right to offer unconditional support. In which case, why did the umbrella of unionists, including the Tories’ Northern Ireland spokesman Owen Paterson, convene at the Marquis of Salisbury’s house in secret? A mixture of the furtive and the preposterous, one expected reports of Richard Hannay emerging from behind

Another weekend, another set of embarrassing revelations for Gordon Brown.  The Mail on Sunday continues its serialisation of Peter Watt’s Inside Out; this time focusing on what Watt wryly describes as Labour’s “plans … for swapping the most electorally successful Labour Prime Minister in our history for Gordon Brown.”   Ok, so the Blairite-Brownite wars are nothing new, but this alleged Brown quote, made at the time of the cash-for-honours scandal, deserves adding to the notebook: “Later, rumours swirled in No10 of a furious bust-up between the Chancellor and the Prime Minister. ‘I’ll bring you down with sleaze,’ the Chancellor was said to have yelled.” Although, to my mind, this

Hearing Cameron joke, in PMQs, that Labour would airbrush Gordon Brown out of their election campaign, I couldn’t help but think of Labour’s 1997 manifesto.  As you can see to the left, it proudly featured Tony Blair’s face (and not much else) on its cover.  So: what chances that Labour use Brown’s face on the front of this year’s manifesto?  And, more importantly, how long before someone makes a spoof version of the 1997 cover with an image of the current Labour leader?

David Miliband lacks the gumption to play Brutus, but does Geoff Hoon? The Sunday Times has obtained correspondence between Hoon, Brown and Blair illustrating that the then Chancellor overturned Treasury assurances that the MoD would receive additional funds for helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brown wrote: “I must disallow immediately any flexibility for the Ministry of Defence to move resources between cash and non-cash.” Once again we see the (supposedly) miserly Chancellor holding Blair to ransom at any opportunity, regardless of the consequences. Whilst Brown is a spectre of a Prime Minister, he was anything but as Chancellor. Blair set the war in motion but Brown is partly responsible for Britain’s

It has taken eight years, but Tony Blair has finally leveled with the British public and admitted that the WMD thing didn’t really matter: he wanted to depose Saddam Hussein anyway. That’s what he has said in a BBC interview, presumably to pre-empt his appearance before the Chilcot inquiry. His chosen confessor: Fern Britton. His medium: BBC1 on Sunday. It has been trailed to the newspapers, including tomorrow’s Times. As it says: “He said it was the ‘threat’ that Saddam presented to the region that was uppermost in his mind. The development of weapons of mass destruction was one aspect of that threat. Mr Blair said that there had been

Another one for the Brown as Nixon folder, courtesy of Rachel Sylvester’s column today: “‘It’s about style of government,’ says one senior figure due to give evidence [to the Iraq Inquiry]. ‘Blair would have a war Cabinet, but a small caucus would meet beforehand. The civil servants were frustrated. Gordon is just as bad. He gives lots of time to Peter Mandelson and Shriti Vadera and ignores the officials. There’s a darker side to the Brown machine — he’s more suspicious. It’s cliquiness driven by paranoia rather than camaraderie, but it has the same result.'”

Another good quote for the Brown ‘n’ Blair scrapbook, courtesy of Ben Brogan’s column in the Telegraph: “Only once in the 20th century has a government that won the games survived to deliver them. A change of administration in the run-up to the Olympics might be expected to herald political trouble. Thankfully, David Cameron does not share Gordon Brown’s loathing of what he refers to as ‘Tony’s f—— Olympics’. He is committed to ensuring stability by protecting London 2012’s status as the Switzerland of politics, immune from partisan attacks.” Brogan’s wider argument is worth noting: that the Cameroons think 2012 could be the tonic the country – and their potential

Among a batch of unpopular blogposts, this is the one that will get Coffee Housers to grab their pitchforks and hunt me down. Because I think the appointments of Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy, as president of the European Council, and Britain’s Catherine Ashton, as EU “high representative” for foreign affairs, are not bad at all. First, I have to eat my words. I thought Gordon Brown would fail to shoehorn a Briton into a top EU job. Credit goes to him and Britain’s diplomats, chiefly Kim Darroch, the UK’s Permanent Representative in Brussels. Diplomacy is the art of the possible. Brown did what he should have done: he pushed Blair

Two Labour figures, two bad news stories.  The first is Tony Blair, and the news that he has given up on the role of EU President – leaving the path more or less clear for the Belgian PM, Herman Van Rompuy.  The second is Harriet Harman, and the news that she faces prosecution for allegedly “driving without due care and attention and driving while using a mobile phone.” The Blair story is significant enough on its own – but throw in Harman, and it’s doubly certain that Brown’s legislative programme will be shunted right off the news agenda.  But isn’t that a good thing for Labour, you might ask, given