I admired Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair. Prime Minister, you are no Tony Blair

Peter Holttum

Great - Michael Gove still thinks Mr Blair was Mr Wonderful. No wonder I have a problem voting conservative. History will show Mr Blair to have been a spin addicted disaster. To the NuLab her may have seemed like a rabid reformer, but the record shows no such achievement. Indeed he spent his career in government trying to battle against a momentum he had in fact himself created in opposition. What on earth are Conservatives to make of Michael Goves nonsense.

bill

Have to agree with the previous poster. No wonder the Tories have been out of power so long. They gave Blair a standing ovation for God's sake. I cannot find it in my heart to give them my vote.

Alexandra Taylor

All that can be said in response is, thank God for that.

"dave" cameron

poor little oikey gove - he really doesn't get it. All that oiling up to anyone and everyone has clearly gone to what passes for his head. do us all a favour and don't publish any more drivel like this.

Ben Philips

What planet, Michael? I'm with the others on this. Can't you see what a disingenous, vacuous, irresponsible twirp our former prime minister really is? He's as shallow as the froth on a capaccino. Yet you and Dave seem to worship the very ground he walks on. Haven't you noticed that it's been Gordon Brown controlling all aspects of domestic policy these last 10 years? That's why no progress has been made in the areas you mention?? Blair was merely the figure-head, designed to assuage the fears of middle England with his nice smile and faux sincerity. He himself must have known this all along which makes his role in the deception even more contemptible. Get it into your head, Michael - Mr Blair was not and is not 'the answer'. He's a travesty, a liar, a cheat and a coward and he's now been found out.

L Gresham

Anyone who can actually admire Tony Blair .... sorry, I'm speechless.

David Lindsay

As Joe Liberman was kissed on the forehead by George Bush, so Michael Gove kisses the feet of Tony Blair, who should now nominate him for Vice-President of the EU. This is the Tories' strategy: "Weren't things so much better under dear old Tony Blair?" If you don't think that things were very good at all under dear old Tony Blair, then you cannot possibly vote Tory. Gove also refers to the man he allegedly shadows as "Ed", and expresses, not just the Political Class's pathological hatred of local government generally (full of ghastly provincial people with those vulgar things called jobs), but its specific hostility to municipal involvement in education, because without that involvement there can never again be a functioning bipartite or tripartite secondary school system. So long as there are LEAs, there might once again be grammar schools instead of selection by parental income. And that would never do. Would it?

Chris Harrison

It's sad, I read the comments on the Spec and NS websites - and both reveal their readers to be far less intelligent and devoid of capacity for nuance than one might hope. Autoleft balls there, autoright balls here. Pity.

Geoff Key

Reads like the fevered ranting of a delirious revolutionary. The large or small ’C/c’ is irrelevant – what we need is a touch of conservatism. There is, still, a lot worth conserving.

Mark Musoke

Gove speaks in hyperbole however I strongly agree with Chris Harrison. Wake up people, don't be so predictable! Blair was smooth, crafty and hypocritical but he was not the first and will not be the last. It was terribly offensive to sentient beings for Cameron and his acolytes to give him a standing ovation but that is what he deserved. He is a great actor, period! He was also clearly bonkers. We say that he lacked integrity but at least he had some talent. Which is significantly more than you can say for the majority of the cabinet let alone the back benches. The sooner intelligent, educated people learn to articulate themselves to the masses as well as the "intelligentsia" the quicker this country can stop the rot and turn itself around....

Madasafish

"But where Blair was explicit, and right," Like where? Name me the Blair reforms which have successfully raised standards and productivity. Simple there are none. Education? Nope. NHS? 10% decline in productivity, MRSA deaths. Welfare reform? None. Crime? Immigration? Brown is worse than Blair: he cannot fool journalists.

ian skidmore

I think a lot of us reaalised that it was standards no structures. For you to claim it as a pit stop on the road to Dmascus is laughable. But it was ever thus. Critisicsm is usually followed by canonisation. When everyone else has exhausted the subject, the friends have the platform. He ws still a prat.

Mal Tucker

This kind of grotesque fetish that Gove and his ilk have for the worst Prime Minister of the past 100 years explains exactly why they have little or no chance of returning to power at the next election. Blair was a con artist the electorate rumbled a long time ago, and only tolerated for so long because the alternative was so unappealing. It is utterly dismal for anyone who wants a proper Tory party to seize the moment that Gove's best critique of the current PM is that he loved the preposterous popinjay who 'acted' as our leader for (can you believe it?) a whole decade.

Jason Dack

Michael Gove is like a rather camp schoolboy trying to impress one of the older boys - in this case, Blair. Gove, of course, is madly in love with the former PM. He has also reminded me why I won't be voting Conservative at the next election.