What will Blair do next?
James Forsyth 11:52amThe reports this morning that Tony Blair might step down as an MP as soon as he quits as PM raise the question of what will Blair do next. (The denial from Downing Street, which is about timing not substance, doesn’t suggest that Blair is planning to become a Ted Heath-style fixture in the Commons.)
We’re already pretty certain that there’ll be some kind of Blair foundation, although the address blairfoundation.com has already been taken by a US evangelical with missionary zeal (insert your own joke here.) But what cause will Blair’s foundation adopt?
Gore’s already doing climate change and Clinton Aids. This means that Blair will probably take up Africaâ”he’s heading there later this month part of his grand farewell tourâ”which is one of the more positive aspects of his legacy thanks to Sierra Leone, Gleneagles and trade.
The other issue that he’s rumoured to be interested in is inter-faith dialogue which would give Blair a chance to develop on his theme that all the great religions are essentially coming from the same place; an insight he derives from his reading of the Koran. The oddest thing about Blair and the Koran is that it was, apparently, Chelsea Clinton who turned him on to reading it by telling him that she never went anywhere without her copy.
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Gerald Warner
May 3rd, 2007 3:46pm Report this comment"Inter-faith dialogue" would be the ideal metier for Blair. Ecumenism is the only known discipline that is even more dishonest than the Blair Project. The syncretic, theologically illiterate notion that all religions are the same is exactly the sort of pap one could imagine the Great Charlatan promoting. There have long been terrifying rumours of his threat to join the Catholic Church: after Vatican II, this would be as near a mortal blow as the divine promise of permanent endurance permits.
Blair was advertised, in his early days in power, as the first openly Christian premier for years and this was emphasised by a gruesome religious service at the first Labour conference of his reign. Since then, his regime has perpetrated a relentless drive against not just Christianity, but the basic decencies of the Judaeo-Christian ethic.
It is illuminating that his religious mentor is Chelsea Clinton. On eschatological problems, he would probably be well advised to rely on Peaches Geldof.
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