Blair continues to voice his concerns about Ed Miliband's leadership

By Matthew Barrett
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Tony Blair appeared on BBC One's Politics Show today, and made more Coalition-friendly comments, continuing a recent trend. 

He was asked about Labour leader Ed Miliband, and appeared uncomfortable answering the question, saying "Well, you know there’s only a certain amount you can say really without saying too much". When pressed about whether (Ed) Miliband is "a torch bearer for New Labour", Blair answered:

"...he’s going to decide, you know, how he defines himself and what his position is, you know I can say and I have said where I think Labour – that Labour would win as a modern progressive force fighting from the centre. But I hope and believe that that’s what he’ll do."

Blair emphasised the need for the Labour Party to modernise:

"I mean I’m just – I’m just sitting here saying from where I’m sitting looking at, you know, Labour Parties, progressive parties around the world, those that succeed do so by constantly modernising, those that don’t modernise usually get beaten."

Blair also took a shot at the unions, saying:

"But you’ve got to understand today how fast the world is changing. And what you’ve always got to be careful of – particularly with public sector unions, is you don’t become 'small c' conservatives. You know the world is – we’re going to resist the change, we’re going to keep the status quo. So the only question for countries like ours is,  how fast can you engage with this process of change in the world?"

Alan Milburn lambasts the Government for diluting the NHS reforms as Cameron uses support from Blair and Blairites "as a protective shield"

By Jonathan Isaby
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This morning's Daily Telegraph features an extraordinary intervention from Alan Milburn, the Blairite former Health Secretary who stepped down from Parliament at last year's general election.

The man who is currently the serving as the Coalition's social mobility tsar attacks the Government from the Right for diluting the reforms to the health service, calling them "the biggest car crash in NHS history".

Accusing Cameron and Clegg of elevating "short-term politics above long-term policy", he writes:

"Everyone knows the NHS cannot stand still in the face of demographic change and medical advance. Reform is a constant necessity. The U-turn slows the pace of reform and dramatically dilutes its impact... It is hard to see how the push for £20 billion of efficiency savings will be realised without radical reconfiguration of how local services are delivered.

"So how will the NHS books be balanced? By the usual device which policy-makers have deployed every decade or so in the NHS. A very large cheque. It is precisely the situation Cameron and George Osborne were trying to avoid: sorry, George, but the cash you were saving in your pre-election Budget for tax cuts will now have to be spent on a bail-out for the health service."

Blair interview: New Labour then! New Labour now! New Labour forever!

By Paul Goodman

The Sun has an interview with "The Master", as some Conservative Cabinet modernisers apparently refer to him.  It notes that the paperback edition of his autobiography "The Journey" is out now with a new introduction, and this perhaps explains why Blair's out and about in the paper this morning.

But at any rate, he isn't very helpful to Ed Miliband, for three reasons.  First, he's not assisting the Labour leader by giving interviews all, unless they're ravingly supportive of him.  Second, he backs the Government's schools and hospitals reforms.

A headline to remember

By Paul Goodman

And the link to the story can be found here.

Hat-tip: Peter Hoskin.

Labour is claiming that Balls's plot is "the past". Wrong. For Miliband, it's the present

by Paul Goodman

Journalists must sometimes admit defeat.  The sun was rising when I got up this morning to edit ConservativeHome's newslinks.  But even had I started earlier during the darkness, I'd be unable to offer a proper account of this morning's Daily Telegraph splash.

I add in my defence that no-one else will either.  The paper has unearthed over 30 secret documents detailing Ed Balls and Gordon Brown's plot to unseat Tony Blair as Prime Minister.  This trove of conspiracy is the paper's biggest coup since the expenses scandal: no-one will yet have exhausted it.

I put Balls's name first because the documents are his.  The Guardian is running with the enquiry into the leak that the Cabinet Secretary has already called.  The Shadow Chancellor seems to be claiming that he left the documents in Whitehall after leaving Government.

Labour is saying that the documents are "history".  This is plumb wrong, and leads to the big point worth making: the Telegraph's scoop is about the present, not the past.  Labour is haunted by the Blair/Brown war about succession as much as our own party was, post-1997, by the Thatcher/Major-era conflicts over Europe.

It took four Conservative leaders to regain Downing Street.  It would be foolish to make forecasts about Labour's own fate.  But Miliband will today be haunted by the thought that while Thatcher and Major were gone from Tory governance post-1997, Balls is Labour's Shadow Chancellor. 

It would be dishonest to pretend that Brown's chief acolyte isn't a big political hitter: he is.  But many of those big hits have been landed on his own Party - or at least the half of it that backed Blair (and Miliband's brother)  Part of the art of political reinvention is "conceding and moving on".  But Balls has not moved on, and isn't moving on.  Until or unless he does, Labour's time past is part of its time present.

Major and Thatcher invited to Royal Wedding but no place for Brown or Blair

Tim Montgomerie

Many Conservatives will no doubt be amused by The Sunday Telegraph's exclusive this morning. Although both Margaret Thatcher and John Major have been invited to next week's Royal Wedding no invitation has been issued to their Labour successors as Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

A St James’s Palace spokesman issued an explanation to Patrick Hennessy, the newspaper's political editor:

“Sir John Major is the only former prime minister going. Baroness Thatcher was invited, as were all Knights of the Garter, but is unable to attend. It is not a state occasion so there is no reason why they [Mr Blair and Mr Brown] would be invited.”

I'm not sure that that's an adequate explanation. Given that William Hague, Theresa May, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt have all been invited this is hardly a wedding for family and friends. Not inviting Brown and Blair will be interpreted as an anti-Labour decision by a royal family that should be a source of unity for the whole country.

Although invited Baroness Thatcher will not be attending for health reasons. This is a reminder of the former Prime Minister's continuing frailty. Let us remember the great lady in our thoughts and prayers.

Conor Burns leads opposition to statue of Tony Blair being erected alongside Thatcher and Churchill

Tim Montgomerie

According to the Mail on Sunday, Conservative MP Conor Burns is leading the opposition to a plan by a Labour MP to erect a statue in the Members' Lobby of the House of Commons, alongside Winston Churchill and Lady Thatcher:

"It is preposterous to say that Mr Blair deserves the same recognition as Lady Thatcher. Margaret Thatcher led a Government that rescued Britain from near economic collapse inflicted by socialism, faced down the clothcap colonels of the unions and bestrode the world stage as a colossus who put the “Great” back into Great Britain. Tony Blair allowed that legacy to be squandered and bequeathed a Britain more bankrupt than in 1979. With the fires of his foreign adventures yet to be extinguished, it would be a better debate as to whether he should be placed inside the plinth rather than on top of it."

Labour MP Thomas Docherty is undeterred, however:

"Apart from being the first ever Labour leader to win three consecutive Elections, he played a crucial role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, devolved power to  Scotland and Wales and kicked most of the hereditary peers out of the Lords."

An opinion poll in September of last year found 21% of Britons agreeing that Tony Blair was the best PM of the post-war period. 35% thought the same of Margaret Thatcher.

A key to Gordon Brown

By Paul Goodman

• Brown looks set to stay in the Commons.  He'll apparently contribute to the debate on the AV referendum bill when the Commons resumes business on Monday.  Rather than holding back to await an uncontentious slot - an adjournment debate, say, on international development, during which he'd be heard with respect - he's plunging eagerly into a controversial measure.  Furthermore, as Jonathan noted earlier this week, he'll be voting against a proposal which he recently supported - thereby inviting interventions, hostility, perhaps ridicule, possibly barracking (though this is unlikely).  If he's willing to risk this once, he's presumably willing to do so again.  He shows no sign of wanting to stand down as an MP.  Indeed, there was even speculation that he intends to stand for the Shadow Cabinet with the express intention of becoming Shadow International Development Secretary.  Brown's presence on Labour's front bench would be a headache for Labour's new leader.  He shows every sign of wanting - like Margaret Thatcher, but in a different way - to "go on and on and on".
• Tony Blair left the Commons for the last time when he resigned as Prime Minister.

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• Blair has written an informal memoir heavily critical of Brown.  He claims that his former Chancellor tried to blackmail him over "cash for honours".  He blames Brown for losing the last election by leaving the true New Labour path; supports the Coalition on the VAT rise and the deficit; goes further to back the Conservatives on public sector reform, and describes Brown as "a strange guy" with "zero" emotional intelligence.
• There is no sign of Brown writing a full memoir, let alone a gossipy account like Blair's.  Instead, he is working on a heavy tome about the banking crisis.

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• Blair's made a lot of money since leaving the Commons.  Fraser Nelson wrote an illusionless account earlier this week of Blair's cash-spinning activities.  He acknowledged the latter's charitable donations, unpaid envoy work in the Middle East, and faith and sports foundations (though it's unclear what the faith foundation actually does).  According to Nelson -

"There is no website for Tony Blair Associates, which offers ‘strategic advice’ for undisclosed fees. Richard Murphy, a tax specialist who has tried to get to the heart of it all, says the Blair companies are arranged in a way to minimise transparency. ‘The complex web of companies is not just designed to hide the money but also where it comes from,’ he says. ‘Blair doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s doing.’

Furthermore, Blair didn't go to the House of Lords, where his interests would have to be declared.

• Brown seems determined not to make money.  His response to the memoirs was to issue a statement, the day after their release, setting out his "priorities for the future".  He announced three new appointments: as convenor of the Global Campaign for Education working with Queen Rania of Jordan, working on a new programme to bring the internet to Africa and joining the board of Tim Berners Lee's World Wide Web Foundation.The statement pointedly said: "Each of these positions are pro bono and Mr Brown will not accept any remuneration.

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I could go on.  But I won't.  The point is made.

For the rest of his life, Brown will seek to define himself against the man who, in his view, stole Labour's leadership from him - as the serious, purposeful, heavyweight son of the manse who loves his Party; not a flyweight imposter who has, in all effect, left it behind.  He is, in his own way, as monomaniacal as Captain Ahab: "He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Highlights of Andrew Marr's interview with Tony Blair

By Jonathan Isaby

BBC2 has just aired Andrew Marr's full one-hour interview with Tony Blair to coincide with the publication of his memoirs.

Here are the highlights of the interview, as excised from a BBC transcription of the programme:

On the alleged deal with Brown in 1994 over the Labour leadership
BLAIR: Ah, well, it was more really a, a, an understanding. One, one of, one of us could go forward. Um, in the end, I think we both felt probably I had the better claim. That I could reach parts of -- particularly middle England. Ah (coughs), possibly Gordon couldn't. Um, and, you know, I always anticipated that Gordon would be my successor... It [the deal] was explicit in the sense that I was always, you know, saying, ''Look, I, I don't...'' -- and I, I meant this incidentally -- ''I don't want to, to do this forever. You know, you 'are' the obvious person to succeed me. I mean, who can tell what the future holds. But let's work together in the meantime.

Could he not have done more as Prime Minister, given his huge majorities?
BLAIR: I think we 'did' do an immense amount. And I think, in time, people will, will, will see that a little more clearly. What we were trying to do, was to modernise the concept of the Public Service as (in) the welfare state, which in a, in a way, the Attlee Government introduced, but in a very monolithic and, you know, in today's terms, now, an old fashioned way. And in respect of Mrs Thatcher, we were trying to keep that liberalism and dynamism, that I think was an important part of, of Britain's economic progress. But add to it a greater sense of us as a country, where we were investing in the public realm, where we were treating people equadly [sic] -- equally -- where we were trying to enhance opportunity for those that, that, that didn't have it. And so, you know, I think i-, -- I mean each Government lives in its own time, and, and, and has to deal with its own challenges. But I think, when we were running Britain, when I, I was Prime Minister, I think the country was strong, um (background noise), and felt a fairer and better place than it had been.
But that's my -- you know, that's, that's what I think. Many may disagree.

On his handling of the economy
BLAIR: First of all I most certainly did not um subcontract economic policy [to Brown]. The-the macro-economic policy was very much on, um, the lines that I...not merely was...was-was happy with but-but, um, was-was insisting upon. Um, and no, I think what happened with the UK is what happened with a lot of other countries. Um, we actually ended up with a...a-a cycle that was not as benign as we thought. However, it was still a strong economy and we had ten years of pretty much uninterrupted pr-- er...prosperity. Now we were affected...look, everybody was affected when the global financial crisis occurred. I think what I would say is, and I say this in the book, is that I think, and this is where I began this conversation about the fundamental savings review which I wanted to implement after 2005, I think that was the time we sh-- we should probably have...have taken a tougher fiscal position than we did.

Would he have left office earlier than he did?
BLAIR: I was very happy to go after two terms provided that the programme I thought that was intrinsic and essential to New Labour success and to carrying on for the Labour Party being a party of government, capable of governing on a significantly continual basis, provided that programme was kept to.
MARR: So you told him specifically that you would hand over before a third election if he backed you?
BLAIR:  Yeah, if it was clear that we were working on the same agenda together, and - and the problem was, in the end, we - we weren't really.
MARR: And when did that become clear to you?
BLAIR: It was - it was really pretty much mid 2004, er when we were working on new stages of public service reform, the academy programme, foundation hospitals taken to the next level, new changes in the Health Service, identity cards, um new law and order programme.  Then we had the welfare proposals, the pension proposals...but I'm afraid, from my point of view, it was never who occupied the position, but what we did with it and if we were going to continue that reform programme I was absolutely er up for his succeeding me and taking over... In the end, if I had thought I literally couldn't get the reform programme through I would have gone rather than stayed. 

On dealing with donors and the unions
BLAIR: I had far more trouble, if I may say...say this to you, with union leaders demanding something back than I ever did with high value donors.

Could Brown have won the 2010 election?
BLAIR: I always took the view that if we departed a millimetre from new Labour, ah, we were going to be in trouble. And I actually think, although Gordon -- obviously in some ways, his, his personality's less attuned to the kind of 21st century politics and campaigning. On the other hand, I think you can exaggerate all this.
Um, I actually think, as a political leader today, if the public thinks your heart's in the right place, and you're committed and determined, and he was all of those things, then, then I think he, he -- yes, he 'could' have won.

What went wrong for Labour under Brown?
BLAIR:I, I think what went wrong was we departed from, from the new Labour program. in my view, what we needed to do in 2007, was we needed to renew n-new Labour with vigour, take it to the next stage, be the Party that reformed welfare, public services, carried on deepening those reforms. Um, and, you know, I think we, we, we somewhat backed away on them. And that was, that was the, the, the reason frankly.

On how Brown handled the economic crisis as Prime Minister
BLAIR: The problem, um, after then [stabilising the banks], not just in our country but in others, is that people kind of bought this idea that what we required was a traditional Keynesian stimulus package, that the State was back in fashion. Um, and actually I think it's a lot more complicated than that.
MARR: So we were actually spending too much at that point in your view.
BLAIR: Well I think...I mean I would, um, I think I've taken a somewhat different way out of the economic crisis and I think that in the end, you-you-your...um the br-- the right way to deal with this is to recognise that though the State has to come in to stabilise the economy, it's not the State or government that is going to bring us back to high levels of growth. And even with the financial sector I am a big advocate of global supervision, tracking these new financial instruments. I'm not a fan of regulation that is too heavy, that's gonna flatten our financial system. I think that would be a big mistake, and we'll...we'll end up in a situation where the banks having been as it were too adventurous, then become too risk adverse.

On the 45-minute claim and the Iraq invasion
BLAIR: And I’ve always apologised for the fact that the intelligence was wrong.  What I can't apologise for however, is the decision we took which we took, incidentally based on intelligence, at the time... This has been gone over many, many times.  The intelligence picture was clear, we acted on it.  And all I’m saying to you about the Iraq Survey Group report is it isn’t correct to say that, that report finds, well maybe he might of at one point. No what they actually find is that he retained the tech-, technical know how, he retained the scientists able to develop this... the laboratories that he concealed from the UN inspectors that were there ready for use.  In other words I don't accept, even today that there isn't a strong case that he was in breach of the United Nations resolutions, he was.

On Iran
BLAIR: I am saying that I think it is wholly unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons capability.
MARR: But what can we do about it?
BLAIR: And, um, and um I think we've got to be prepared to confront them, er
MARR: Militarily?
BLAIR: If necessarily militarily
MARR: Militarily?
BLAIR: If necessary militarily.  I - I think there is no alternative to that um if they continue to develop nuclear weapons and they need to get that message loud and clear.

Blairmania: more Blair quotes - on the Coalition, the deficit, George Bush, John Prescott, Ed Balls...and his own supernatural powers

By Paul Goodman

It's Blairmania out there this morning.

As I wrote earlier, his memoirs, "A Journey" are being probed and pored over - or rather, gutted like a mackerel by hordes of hacks.

The ever-toiling Andy Sparrow is running a live blog at the Guardian.  In the meanwhile, Ed Howker has pulled some interesting quotes together at The Spectator's Coffee House.  A big hat-tip to both of them for most the quotes and discoveries below -

• In many areas, the Conservatives should over-ride the Liberal Democrats: "In many areas of domestic policy, the Tories will be at their best when they are allowed to get on with it – as with reforms in education. They will be at their worst when policy represents an uneasy compromise between the Old Labour instincts of the Lib Dems and the hard decisions the Tories will instinctively want to take."

• That Blair deficit quote in full: "If governments don't tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers, who fear that big deficits mean big taxes, both of which reduce confidence, investment and purchasing power...We should have taken a New Labour way out of the economic crisis: kept direct taxes competitive, had a gradual rise in VAT and other indirect taxes to close the deficit, and used the crisis to push further and faster on reform."

• On David Miliband: He now has "clear leadership qualities". But Blair also says: "Two years later he would be a different calibre of politician, with clear leadership qualities." (He says Miliband asked his advice about a leadership challenge in May 2007. "I think you might win, not obviously, but very possibly," Blair replied.)

• On George Bush: "In a bizarre sense...A true idealist" and "a man of genuine integrity".

• On John Prescott: "At Cabinet, he would occassionally sit like a grumbling volcano ready to erupt at any moment. The proximate cause of the eruption would more often than not be one of the women intervening. Patricia Hewitt was certain to get him moving ... John would make some slightly off-colour remark if he was in a sour mood. I would then bring her back in again, just for the sheer entertainment of watching him finally explode ... He genuinely made me laugh. It was a bit like 'How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?' In The Sound of Music, though the similarlity ends there...

• On Ed Balls: "He has guts and he can take decisions.  But he suffers from the bane of all left-leaning intellectuals.  As I have remarked elsewhere, these guys never "get" aspiration."

• On Dougie Alexander: "Not a free range thinker".

• On John Smith - during which Blair seems to suggest that he has supernatural powers: "Of course, I had no knowledge that John would die prematurely.  Except that, in a strange way, I began to think he might...I said to (Cherie): "If John dies, I will be leader, not Gordon.  And somehow, I think this will happen.  I just think it will." Is that premonition?  Not in a strict sense; but is was strange all the same."

• A note on the book's title: It was apparently to be billed not as "A journey" but "The journey".  This would have put, say, Moses' venture to the Promised Land in a modest perspective.  Which, presumably, is why it was changed.