David Blackburn

There was more to Blair than a winning smile

Following Sir Christopher Meyer’s review of George Bush’s Decision Points, here is the other half of the double act.

The closest I’ve come to meeting Tony Blair was knocking into Michael Sheen on the street. I got no closer reading Blair’s memoir, most of which is beyond parody. Cherie Booth QC is a strong armed nocturnal adventuress; Anji Hunter is a bountiful babe; and Mr Blair is a would-be Casanova with a taste for premonitions and Schindler’s List.

You barely notice New Labour’s reform programme under the torrent of erratic writing and bizarre digressions. The defence of the Iraq war is cumbersome; the sketches of his allies and adversaries too thin to warrant interest: ‘strange man’ is the best Blair can do on Brown, even from the detached safety of print.

For the most part, A Journey is a mundane confessionary – I did this; we wanted that; Peter was there etc. It won’t alter the minds of those who hate Blair, nor those who loved him once. Many of the latter group have been press-ganged into reviewing the book, trying to explain where and why they diverged from Blair.

Naturally, these innocents were all conned by a smile as broad as the Cheshire Cat’s. Allison Pearson writes that he had that sorcerer’s knack of ‘making people want to believe in him’. A malicious editor at The Times instructed Robert Harris, doyen of de-Blairification, to review the book. He wrote:

‘The colossal joke history has played on those of us who supported Blair back in 1994 was that he appeared to us at that time to be the quintessential normal guy — refreshingly sensible, modest, non-ideological, sympathetic, pragmatic.’

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