Unlike Dorian Gray, I suspect Tony Blair keeps a flawless portrait in his attic. There it hangs (like the real thing, regrettably noose-free), forever youthful, forever smirking, the Messiah of the Third Way with gleaming teeth and rictus grin crucified across his jaw. Down here in the real world, Britain looks rather more weatherbeaten: stagnant wages, creaking infrastructure, a chronic housing crisis, and the nagging sense that something fundamental to national life was traded away for far less than thirty pieces of silver.
You might have noticed this week, that the man has re-emerged from exile – all 5,000 words of him. The pretext for Blair’s unwelcome incursion into UK politics? Keir Starmer’s government is apparently “playing with fire” over the future of the Labour Party, and the country itself (naturally, in that order). Publishing under the auspices of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (where else?), Blair sets out a ten-point plan for “economic prosperity and social justice” that, stripped of the author’s name and the faint whiff of sanctimony, sounds eminently sensible: energy self-sufficiency in lieu of Net Zero masochism; a solution to illegal immigration “whatever it takes”; planning reform; welfare restraint; an overhaul of the NHS; and, not forgetting Blair’s “principle challenge” – AI.
Large sections of this, of course, could pass for a Reform UK manifesto on a particularly lucid day. If only the author were not the very man who, more than any other political figure, plotted, designed, and presided over the destruction of Britain in the first place.
I could be wrong, but I suspect that for the working-class Blair’s meddling is about as welcome as the reformed smoker lecturing the regulars on the dangers of tobacco, and ‘proving his point’ by setting fire to the pub curtains. For my money, he is truly the traitors’ traitor. Judas at least had the decency to hang himself. Brutus observed the etiquette of stabbing you in the back. And say what you want about Guy Fawkes, his solution to Westminster interference was nothing if not honest. Blair, by contrast, has no such redeeming features. He shows up at the eleventh hour, Armani-haired and silver-suited, convinced that only he can save us from the consequences of his own handiwork.
The Hypocrisy
As politicians like Blair are so fond of saying, “let us be clear”. So let me be clear: Britain’s current woes did not arrive by accident or solely on the wings of global forces. They were, to a significant degree, the obvious consequence of the New Labour grand projet of social and demographic engineering.
Sir Tony claims government must stop creating obstacles for business adapting to AI. Yet under his New Labour government, Britain saw the opposite of Thatcher’s deregulation: a new law passed every three-and-a-quarter hours (a 22% increase on the previous decade), piling heavy new costs and bureaucracy onto businesses. He calls the planning system an “abomination” that needs transformative reform. The result of his government however, was a system more complex and bureaucratic after twelve years of continuous reforms that added layers of policy, regional targets, and guidance. Again it was Thatcher, not Blair, who oversaw the building of more houses.
On energy, it’s easy to scoff at Ed Miliband’s Net Zero zealotry – but it was the Blair government which signed us up to the Kyoto Protocol, pledging an aggressive 60% emissions cut by 2050 which locked in the green constraints we see today.
On education and youth unemployment, Blair wants to strengthen schools / universities and expand training. His famous 50% university target however, is still risible. It lead to a huge expansion of Mickey Mouse degrees, at the expense of practical skills and apprenticeships. The result? A persistent skills mismatch. Too many graduates in non-graduate jobs, and the very training gaps he now criticises.
Freedom from bureaucracy and private-sector partnership to “reindustrialise the north” sounds good, the kind of soundbite Andy Burnham will likely deploy in Makerfield. But was it not the Blair government that centralised power, created 92 new quangos (more than any other Prime Minister), and added layers of targets and regional bodies?
When Blair talks of reform however: reform of welfare, reform of the NHS, and particularly the need to stop illegal immigration, “whatever it takes”, I confess I almost had a fit. Was it not Blair who oversaw massive expansion of the welfare state (dependency rising from 45.9% to 53.5% of households under New Labour)? Was it not Blair who aggressively expanded PFI deals, with £13bn of investment which would end up costing the NHS over £80bn? And, Heaven forfend we tell the truth, was it not under Blair that Net migration quadrupled? Millions were brought in (“search parties” sent out according to Mandelson), not just to “rub the Right’s nose in diversity” as Andrew Neather famously said, but to “render their arguments out of date”. In other words, not just gerrymandering but the mass import of voters.
The embrace of AI is the part which concerns me the most. No doubt Blair is right – the world is only moving one way, and Britain must move with it or face being left behind. I cannot help thinking however, this merely facilitates his dream of digital ID and total control over the population.
Brass neck
You have to hand it to Blair, he doesn’t shy from giving the hit-piece writer almost unlimited material. Were he more of a technical bent himself, he would no doubt be the man simultaneously writing the computer viruses and the software; charging the public premium rates for both. It’s too bad he didn’t come up with Covid. He could have sold us the jab, the app, the digital ID passport, and a nice public-private partnership to monitor our compliance, all before breakfast.
Believing Blair is the solution to Britain’s problems is like treating arsenic poisoning with another generous spoonful of arsenic. At least Starmer gave us old lace – albeit Lord Alli paid for the frock, and his wife had to wear it. Were Blair handed back the reins, one suspects his solution to the grooming gangs scandal would be classic progressive modernism: cut your daughter’s tits off, glue a dick on, convert her to Islam, and cheerfully tell her to “get stuck in, luv!” He’d then set up another quango to investigate “far-right community tensions” and ask why the Red Wall has turned turquoise.
Time to say no
Let us grant the obvious: many of Blair’s ten points have merit. Britain does need planning reform, energy realism, welfare discipline, and a grown-up conversation about immigration and integration. Productivity has flatlined. The NHS is a national treasure that increasingly resembles a national tragedy. Housing is a disaster. These are not right-wing talking points; they are observable reality. Sensible voices from across the spectrum should not only be able to say so, they should also be willing.
The problem is the author. Blair is a karma-free chameleon. He will say whatever is necessary to regain credibility and influence. Strip away the polished delivery however, and you find the same megalomaniac who once believed he could remake Britain, Iraq, and the world order in his own image. Good faith (like good immigration) has its limits, and the lecture would land with greater precision, if the lecturer first acknowledged his leading role in Britain’s downfall.
The portrait of Tony Blair may remain flawless, but the country (much like Blair’s face) bears the scars. So thanks Tony, but no thanks.
Frank Haviland is the author of Banalysis: The Lie Destroying the West and The Frank Report Substack.
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I live a rural idyll…If there are “country smells”, all to do with livestock, it’s possible to shut them out…
If only that were possible for Blair, Socialists, and politicians in general…
This is the best evisceration of “The Blair Creature” I’ve read since his speech, thank you!
What a superb forensic and surgical dissection of the Blair phenomenon! The allusions to Dorian Gray are most appropriate and amusing.