A charismatic narcissist

In equal measure, this book is fascinating and irritating. The ‘Hi, guys!’ style grates throughout. From this, it is tempting to conclude that Tony Blair is incorrigibly insincere. But that is not the whole story. Although Blair is no friend to truth or self-knowledge, this is an involuntary study in self-revelation. The most revealing sentence is a throwaway line, in which he tells us that we are all psychological vagrants. That is the clue to his character.

It is certainly impossible to read this book without wanting to psychoanalyse the author. So here goes. He comes across as a potent mixture of insecurity and certitude. Always prone to self-doubt, he also became aware that he could play the pipes of Pan, and bewitch man, woman or beast. A charismatic narcissist, he formed easy relationships with other exemplars of the same dramatic shallowness: Bill Clinton, the Princess of Wales, Nicolas Sarkozy. Yet he was a little better than they. There was an urge for moral seriousness. He did not know how to express it — in prose, that is still true — or realise it, but he felt a sense of duty and calling. The Christianity was not wholly bogus.

As he was too insecure to try to achieve political momentum on his own, he had a deep need for a strong elder brother. He started with Gordon Brown, who merely became Cain to his Abel, with a murder plot that finally succeeded after 13 years and which has led to Labour’s expulsion from the garden of Downing Street. Blair put up with more rudeness and obstruction from Brown than all prime ministers in the history of the office have from their subordinates, several times squared. That was contemptible weakness on his part.