Highspot of Marr’s Blair interview
Andrew Marr to Anthony Blair Esq:
“A lot of people would say, well it’s absolutely clear, your vision is actually of a mostly conservative politician, and your journey has been from somebody who thought he was a Labour politician to someone who realised actually he’s not.”
Blair: “I am not a conservative, I’m a progressive…” (lists various policies, like the minimum wage, devolution and equality for gay people).
Marr: “David Cameron would support these (policies) too.”
Blair: “Why should we then say we’re like him, rather than he’s trying to get on our territory?”
Blair also as good as endorsed David Miliband, which I would guess, has lost young David several thousand votes at a stroke.
H/t: Andrew Sparrow
Stop Press: Dave (not Miliband) thinks those memoirs sound quite good, and may even buy them.
Mike Killingworth said,
September 1, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Part, I think, of Blair’s problem is that in the Labour Party, if you are first-generation Labour (as I believe him to be) you have to be to the left of wherever the Party’s centre of gravity happens to be at any one time.
People may dislike Mandelson (well it’s not hard) but no one doubts that he is a Labour animal. But if your father wasn’t part of the Labour tribe you have to compensate to propitiate the tribal spirits. Thus Michael Foot, the son of a Liberal, had always to be of the left, but Tony Benn, the son of a Labour man, could start off on the right.
Blipsterfarian Logic said,
September 2, 2010 at 1:41 am
Blair just needs to be tried as a war criminal, locked away and to be never heard from again. Such an insufferable narcissist.
Philip Cross said,
September 2, 2010 at 7:35 am
Misrepresentation. Dave (not Cameron either) asserts that he might “look out for it” in an Oxfam shop at some point.
Jenny said,
September 2, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Lenin’s post is creepier:
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2010/09/tony-blair-must-die.html
Mike Killingworth said,
September 2, 2010 at 5:47 pm
As a matter of interest, has anyone who was a member of the Labour Party in 1994 (I had left) and who voted for Blair – have they subsequently publicly apologised for doing so? Perhaps a website could be set up for the purpose.
One thing that Thatcher and Blair had in common of course was their utter lack of interest in the viability of their Party of choice once they had ceased to lead it. Of course, in the 19th century politicians with similar sized egos actually split their Party: Peel, Gladstone.
charliethechulo said,
September 2, 2010 at 6:07 pm
I opposed Blair in 1994 and most certainly did not vote for him. I attended a rally prior to the ’97 election that was truly *frightening* in its intensity of pro-Blair adulation: only me and some SWP’ers failed to join a standing ovation and I felt isolated and just a little intimidated in my refusal to do so. I had a similar experience on election night at a Labour Club in 1997, telly on and results coming in, when I made a caustic remark about Blair. Funnily enough, while I still hate his anti-working class politics, I have just a little more respect for him as a person now. I think it’s since he stopped simply telling everyone what they wanted to hear.