Look at who else he is talking to
James Forsyth 3:29pm
There’s plenty to read between the lines in The Sunday Times interview with Tony Blair. This aside from Blair is particularly interesting:
Rather infuriatingly, it is not specified which David Blair is referring to. But whether it is Cameron or Miliband it is bound to raise the Brownites’ blood pressure that David comes first in the sentence.“One thing you could say about me,” he says with a shrug, “is that I have no problem moving on.” And then as an afterthought: “I still talk to David and to Gordon.” Gordon? “Oh yes.”
On the surface, Blair is loyal to his successor but there appear to be some comparisons being made. Blair keeps stressing how there were other things to his life than being Prime Minister, unlike a certain person we all know.
The economy is also notably absent from the list of things that Blair says he feel proud of from his tenure at Number Ten. Indeed, he notably starts the list off with the public service reforms that Brown so obstructed.“I was never going to get carried away screaming and kicking, clinging on with my fingernails. I wanted to be out, physically and mentally capable of the next chapter.”
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Comments
Disraeli's Ghost
July 6th, 2008 5:41pmHe's gone. Get over him!
Water
July 6th, 2008 5:46pmVery true, get over him.
euro
July 6th, 2008 6:18pmIt's Davis.
BlairSupporter
July 6th, 2008 7:11pmCan't get over him! Well, some of us can't. Mainly the Labour party in its naivity for getting rid of their winner in the first place.
Me too, and I'm just an observer.
HONEST!
(Google "keep tony blair")
Water
July 6th, 2008 9:20pm"Labour party in its naivity" I agree with you on that much.
Richard
July 6th, 2008 10:04pmBlair is just as much to blame as Brown for this country's present predicament. Blair just had the sense - and the luck - to get out in time.
Diablo
July 6th, 2008 10:44pmBlair never had the guts to move Brown out of the Treasury when he had the chance and so he is mainly responsible for creating a PM with limited ability and experience - and even less vision.
It's much too soon to rehabilitate Blair as some sort of wunderkind who did no wrong. He's got a lot of penance to do yet!
JohnA
July 7th, 2008 12:24amHe made no public service reforms. The NHS has gone in precisely the opposite direction from the one he prescribed, towards managerially remote, top-down, staff-orientated jobsworthiness.