Politicians really are quite unfortunate people, aren’t they? Always being misinterpreted. It’s almost as though they speak another language (some Commons debates suggest they do, anyway) and journalists wilfully translate them wrongly. Today Tony Blair has claimed that his remarks about a lefty Labour party losing to a right-wing party have been ‘misinterpreted’. This is what he told the Economist:
– There could be an election ‘in which a traditional left-wing party competes with a traditional right-wing party, with the traditional result’ and when asked if that means a Tory win, ‘Yes, that is what happens’.
– ‘I am convinced the Labour Party succeeds best when it is in the centre ground.’
– A lesson from his own experience of election-winning is ‘not alienating large parts of business, for one thing’.
Today Blair tweeted the following:
TB: “My remarks have been mis-interpreted, I fully support Ed and my party and expect a Labour victory in the election.”
— Tony Blair Office (@tonyblairoffice) December 31, 2014
Now, if Blair were a slightly verbose backbencher who had been caught on tape boasting that he were George Osborne’s ‘wingman’ or something silly and unguarded like that, it might be easier to have a bit of sympathy for his claim he’s been misinterpreted. But this is the man who mastered communication, who worked out to make sure not just that journalists understood exactly what he was saying but that the wider electorate did too. He has previously refused to talk about the current Labour leadership because he is not stupid and knows that his remarks would be picked over with great interest. It is extraordinary that such a bright and effective communicator should claim he has been misinterpreted.
As for the effect this will have on the Labour party, well, Blair’s comments on a range of subjects over the past few years have encouraged most of those still in politics to do the exact opposite of what he urges. Many supporters of intervention, for instance, wish he’d jolly well stop penning op-eds before crucial votes telling MPs to vote in favour of action against Assad, for instance, as he has a habit of poisoning the well.
Labour is still in a position where many of its MPs and supporters believe the Blair years were an aberration and the main lesson is to do things very differently, rather than imitate their former leader’s success. But he’s made his point, even if he has then claimed, somewhat remarkably, that this wasn’t his point at all. Perhaps if he is proved right at the 2015 election he’ll claim his tweet that he fully supports Miliband and expects Labour to win was also misinterpreted…
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