The Chingford skinhead mugs Michael Gove

Lord Tebbit has written a letter to this week's Spectator in response to an article from Michael Gove.  The full text is printed below...

"Sir: Michael Gove (Politics, 23 February) gives a eulogy to Tony Blair, 'I admired Tony Blair. I knew Tony Blair'.

I had hoped that David Cameron's claim to be 'the heir to Blair' was just a silly mistake springing from inexperience. It is more worrying to find that Blair worship is now the doctrine of modern compassionate Conservatism. No wonder 40 per cent of electors are unwilling to vote; nor that, when asked which party could best meet any challenge facing Britain, those saying 'neither' regularly exceed those naming either party.

Blair's admirers in the shadow Cabinet might reflect on his record: the bungled war on Iraq, the dispatch of men and women to fight without the equipment they need, the sensational increases in tax without measurable improvement in services, the debauchment of the civil service, the identity card fiasco, the criminal justice fiasco, his surrender of British sovereignty to Brussels, his remorseless attacks on the conventional family, despoliation of education, use of the benefit system to deepen the poverty trap, lesser incentives to work or save, his fuelling of the culture of drugs, alcohol, yobbery and violent crime which has left the Home Secretary fearful of walking the streets of London at night.

It was Blair who introduced uncontrolled, unmeasured immigration of people determined not to integrate, but to establish, first ghettoes, and now demands for separate legal jurisdiction. In biblical terms, Blairism is the poisonous tree which can give forth only poisonous fruit and must be rooted out. In 2005 Blair had the votes of only 21.6 per cent of the electorate. With the poisonous tree of Blairism planted in the shadow Cabinet, where can the other 78.4 per cent turn?"

Comments

[George Hinton]

Oh i do miss ole Tebbit.
Clear, incisive and always in-tune.

[Editor]

Norman Tebbit has completely missed the point of Michael Gove's article. He wasn't so much praising Tony Blair as contrasting the former PM's obvious political skills with the current PM's obvious inabilities.

[Andrew Lilico]

Hmmm, Editor...But the message of the original article is pretty well summed up in the title. Gove is saying that Blair was a genuine reformer who had learned from his mistakes by the end and come to understand the importance of structures, whilst Brown is a ditherer who is still trapped in an outdated ideology.

Now Gove may well be making a point in a clever political way - putting himself on the side of Blairism-after-repentance - but Tebbit is surely not misrepresenting Gove in saying that Gove expresses admiration for Blair.

Many of us admire Blair in a number of ways - and I disagree with a number of Tebbit's criticisms of him (e.g. over Iraq). But Tebbit is surely right to feel entitled to point out Blair's many weaknesses in contrast to Gove's highlighting of his strengths, don't you think?

[James Burdett]

The only response I can muster to this is a Charlie Brown-esque 'Oh, Good grief'

[Editor]

I think he's perfectly entitled to highlight Blair's weaknesses, Andrew, but he could and should have been more generous to a fellow Conservative. Michael Gove is doing a grand job at education.

[Tony Makara]

I can't disagree with a thing Lord Tebbit writes. The only way Blair can be 'admired' is as a skilled political operator, even then only in getting elected rather than policy. The whole 'heir to..' culture is a bunch of malarchy. Why would any self respecting person want to be a facsimile of someone else? It is a definite character flaw to show deference to another in politics, every politician should be original and strive to be the best.

[christina speight]

"Michael Gove is doing a grand job at education: Is he? I hasn't noticed, just as I can't detect any coherent theme in the party's stance at all. Bits here are OK - - bits there are OK - - Bits there need sharpening -- Where's the linking theme though ? It's missing.

The point about Tebbit is that he has fire in his belly - He knows WHY he's a Tory . And one central point is that no real Tory could stomach the most duplicitous, manipulative politician of my lifetime - Blair

[Malcolm Dunn]

It was certainly a mistake when Cameron described himself as the new heir to Blair,Osborne later received much bad publicity when he described the Tories as the 'true heirs to Blair' in a speech which described Brown as a block to reform.
One would have thought that as intelligent a man as Gove would have learned from their mistakes. 'Blair is not the new black',Michael.
He was mendacious, corrupt and in short a thoroughly bad man. No Conservative should seek to emulate him at all.
Having said that a spat between Gove and Tebbit serves no one but the Labour Party.

[ChrisD]

"The only response I can muster to this is a Charlie Brown-esque 'Oh, Good grief'"
My thoughts exactly.

Tebbit hits out at Tories and names Brown as Thatcher's natural heir

Gordon Brown ran domestic policy and held the purse strings throughout the Blair era, Blair sent our soldiers to war but it was Brown who starved the MOD of the cash needed to equip them properly during the last 10 years.

[Gnosis]

Thank the Lord for Lord Tebbit..a true Conservative with a capital C..i for one am so very pleased to know that we still have some GREAT political minds in the Lords who can see through the smoke and mirrors that the likes of Mr Blair and his ilk use in todays media.

[Brian Kelly]

There is very little of Tony Blair to admire and a very great deal to deplore. His legacy is poisonous. He is a plausible, shallow, opportunistic chancer. Even unto the last - he stayed in power just long enough to agree the new EU legislation - hence improving his chances to be the first permanent EU president. The fact that he can be compared favourably to Brown tells us all we need to know about Brown - although Brown is a serious politician and he MEANS to get re-elected

[Andrew Lilico]

>Michael Gove is doing a grand job at education.<

I agree 100%. But I'd have thought our frontbenchers would have been sufficiently badly burnt by the whole "heir to Blair" thing that they'd be leaving it alone at the moment.

On a slightly lighter note, I was amused to observe Cameron, during questioning by Portillo the other evening when Portillo was trying to imply that Cameron is the true heir to Thatcher (she, like Cameron, was - according to Portillo - a moderniser), saying ruefully that he was trying to avoid calling himself the "heir to" anyone at the moment!

[Votedave]

As much as I respect Norman Tebbitt, he isn't doing us any favours with this sort of talk I'm afraid. He was happy to be more supportive of the leadership direction at the last two general elections, which clearly doesn't work.
He's getting more and more like Simon Heffer. Put a sock in it, sir.

[Elaib]

I always thought that the good Lord has the interests of the country not the Conservative Party at heart. This letter proves it.

Gove may be clever, and nuanced and all sorts of other things. The electorate however warm to the straightforward and clear.

[pabw]

I've often wondered if Cameron asks Tebbit to make these ridiculous interventions as a means of showing how far Cameron has taken the party. Cameron loves to to be able to publicly ignore the likes of Heffer and Tebbit.

[Yogi]

I agree with Lord Tebbitt. The last time it was Gideon who said that we are the heirs to Blair. That was triggered the summer meltdown, and it got worse with Tony Lit.

The problem with our front bench is that they still have not got to grips with the changing attitude of the electorate towards Blair (he was the most un-popular PM during his last years) or for that matter NuLab.

This is again another point missed by that vain Portillo.

NuLab destroyed the British economy - because of China inflation was kept under control, while the government created non-jobs in the bureacracy. They destroyed the rural economy and the constitution and now with the European Constitution, our parliament is less influential than a US state legislature.

Cameron and Co having done the modernisation bit must now concentrate on policy an dprinciples and less of focus group based touchy feely nonsense.

Thank you very much my Noble Lord.

[Andrew Lilico]

I think most of the commenters here overestimate antipathy towards Blair. Just because you all hate him doesn't mean that the public does. Quite the reverse - the public loved him and gave him three large majorities, and if he were still Labour leader I think we'd not be fancying our chances at the next election.

The problem with the Shadow Cabinet's "heir to Blair" strategy was (and, oddly, "is", to judge from Gove's article) not that it would not be in some ways popular, but that it would be *wrong*/un-Conservative. Even though it *would* be popular with non-Conservatives and floating voters to be the "heirs to Blair", we don't want to do that because it wouldn't be what we, as a party, believe in.

[John Leonard]

Having read Michael Gove's article on this one I agree with Lord Tebbit. I have been critical before of Lord Tebbit's interventions but not this time. Michael Gove seems to have lost sight of the main point.

Whether Blair was a true 'reformer' (which I doubt) or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether the changes made took the country in the right direction and as Lord Tebbit points out clearly Blair took us in the wrong direction far too often.

Michael Gove should remember that. It's all very well to praise Blair for his ability to get things done but we really must be thankful that Brown isn't the same. Imagine the mess we would be in if he was!

What next I wonder? An article supporting Blair's presidency of the EU. GOD FORBID!

[Alastair Stewart]

Exactly so, your Lordship. As a nation we have been afflicted with amnesia and bamboozled by flim flam to the extent that we cannot discern an alternative to the current situation.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Tony Blair was a man (in his 'time') with enormous charisma, who could smile and make people think that he really cared, (mind you, I think HE thought he really did 'care'). However, when he whizzed on to the next 'thing', the first enthusiasm had lost its gloss for him. Tony Blair was a FlimFlam man, combined with the attributes of a salesman! The sad thing, perhaps, is that when he did, apparently have good ideas, they were completely stymied by his successor - the Sherman tank.

But I agree with Brian Kelly @ 16.52 - his legacy is poisonous.

And I also agree strongly with Andrew Lilico @ 16.55 about consigning the confustigated phrase to Room 21 or whatever number it is).

And with Votedave @ 16.57 that Norman Tebbit is doing no favours to the Tory Party by resurrecting this stupid phrase.

It really doesn't matter what abstruse meaning is supposed to be implied by re-hashing the phrase in an article, its much more straightforward than that, David Cameron needs to realise that the golden image - of Blair - is fading fast, and what people remember now is much connected to the chaos that we find ourselves in now - in this country.

[Editor]

Further to Andrew@17:44: "60% of voters said they believed Blair would be remembered as a force for change, and 44% said he had been good for Britain."

That's from a Guardian poll taken at the end of his premiership.

[Tony Makara]

"NuLab destroyed the British economy"

Yogi, very true. Labour's madcap policy of credit driving demand has only not resulted in runaway inflation so far because of imports and an overvalued pound. Nontheless we have seen inflation in the housing market. The myth of Labour's miracle economy must be exposed for what it is, a slight-of-hand, and a vile dishonest confidence trick played out on the people of our country.

[Dominic Harvey]

All of those inveighing against Norman Tebbit for criticising current Party policy are completely missing the point. I for one am GLAD that not everyone associated with the party is an obsequious brown-nosed sycophant, concerned merely with their own political prospects. In a world of spin and deception it is so refreshing just to hear someone speak with common sense.

If Norman Tebbit (or a younger equivalent)were leader of the party, we'd be a lot better off both as a principled political entity and as a potential government.

[John Leonard]

Andrew Lilico:

Quite the reverse - the public loved him and gave him three large majorities.

Your statement is misleading and factually incorrect. The Blair Goverment recorded the two lowest percentages of the total electoral vote of any government in the last fifty years (21,6% in 2005 and approx 24% in 2001). Their 1997 victory (approx 31.4%) was the 5th lowest with only the Wilson Goverment 1974 vote totals separating it from those dire results in 2001 and 2005.

Even John Major did significantly better in 1992 (approx 34.65%)

Thats hardly the basis for recommending Blair as a popular leader.

[Opinicus]

Andrew Lilico

Can't not agree with John Leonard. As Lord Tebbit points out Blair was popular with the smallest percentage of the electorate of any PM for 50 years.

As you are an economist and au fait with statistics, I have got to assume that remark was a major Gove rimming at considerable risk to your personal reputation on this site.

It profiteth not a man if he gain the whole world and lose his soul, but for Gove!

[Mr Angry]

Tebbit is right and Gove and all those within the Shadow Cabinet who see anything good about Blair are not only wrong but are destroying the very soul of a once great political party and national political system.I am dismayed to see that you are one of them Editor, I thought you had more sense and political conviction.

[Opinicus]

>Michael Gove is doing a grand job at education<

Gove is *the* stumbling block preventing us having vouchers and a really popular pro-choice education policy. With 100000 children due not to get into their first choice school next week that's 200000 votes he's just hosed down the toilet.

[David Parker]

The point about Blair is that he was ( and still is) a superb 'snake oil salesman' and showman. Public political memory is notoriously short and fickle, but there is no doubt that Blair (like Thatcher) will be remembered, but probably for all the wrong reasons.

Lord Tebbitt may be ridiculed by some as the 'archytypal Tory', however, he does represent, not merely the old 'grass roots' Conservative philosophy, but also a now almost extinct code of political ethics and responsibility. This is totally alien to the new breed of professional career politicians, of all parties.

Cameron certainly needs new faces, new policies and new ideas. As a PR man (with no other significant qualifications), he can probably just about hold his own in these respects against the current competition, and might, upon current showing, even achieve a narrow majority, or the balance of power in a hung parliament.

What, however, is totally lacking from the present Conservative parliamentary party, is the determination to court possible unpopularity by exposing and opposing the democratic sham and corruption which has infected the British professional political
elites (of all major parties) and their minions. This might well be a high risk policy and one which could only be attempted by a high calibre politician, however, the opportunity is there, and might be as significant as anything achieved by Thatcher.
Obviously, this would involve a significant departure from current conventional political behaviour and is therefore more likely to come from a totally new initiative from outside the Cameroonians, but is there anyone "Tebbitt-like" waiting in the wings out there?

[kow tow]

Blair will be chiefly remembered for the greatest post war foreign policy folly of invading Iraq.

Gove was on completely the wrong side of that debate and this lost a lot of cridibility.

That is why Tebbit's critique is so powerful and why those criticisms will chime with people inside and putside of the Conservative party.

[Dominic Harvey]

David Parker @ 11 mins ago says:
"is there anyone "Tebbitt-like" waiting in the wings out there?"

I do sincerely hope so.

[Simon Denis]

I was privileged to hear Lord Tebbit speak at the RGS last night on the topic of education. He was brilliant. His speech, which was delivered with the now trade mark care and temperance, was entirely composed of points which weighed heavily with the audience. Better still, in a few well chosen words, he punctured the anti-selective nonsense being peddled by his opponents in the debate - for debate it was. The most poignant moment was when he was asked why the tories had not brought the grammar schools back under Mrs Thatcher. "If I had been Education secretary in 1990," he said, "things would have been different." Indeed they would - different and much, much better. Gove has swallowed the defeatist triangulationism of Portillo and co. Instead of arguing plainly and passionately for a schools system which works - by catering for the talents with which it has to deal - he tries to sidle up to the electorate with half measures. It was exactly the same guilty, shifty tone which got the tories discredited in 05 over immigration. Policy and principle must be bold. Otherwise they play into the hands of their opponents. We should be arguing straightforwardly for selection, not trying to excuse it into being. So no, ladies and gentlemen, Gove is NOT doing well at education. He is selling the pass, along with that fatuous number cruncher, Willets. In these repulsive manoeuvres they are indeed the heirs to Blair, who was nothing but a slick, self-serving, political pimp. He procured the country for the pleasure of the socialists before buggering off to pastures new in Europe and the US. His reputation is not so much tarnished as black. He is, without doubt, the most loathsome, cold hearted creep ever to have held high office in this country. The people know this. Only the broken, power bedazzled conservative front bench remains in ignorance of how widely and how justly Blair is condemned. To ape his cynical dodges just as the public is realising how much these have cost them would be the height of folly.

In fairness to Cameron, he has drawn back from the far edge of his "modernising" days. All he has left is caution - but as I never tire of pointing out, "There is a tide in the affairs of men..." Faint hearted, cautious and careerist politicians never take it. Poor Portillo almost admitted as much in his programme about Mrs T. The public, the national interest and democracy itself demand a genuine, radical alternative to Labour. It is up to the tory party to provide it.

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"I think he's perfectly entitled to highlight Blair's weaknesses, Andrew, but he could and should have been more generous to a fellow Conservative. Michael Gove is doing a grand job at education".

Education will not be winning the Tories the next election - many of us are sick and tired of "Education! Education! Education! And the rest of Blair's policies that completely failed to reform, but cost us a fortune We no longer believe politicians and certainly not regarding their pontifications on education.
The missing 40% of voters could be turned into a Tory majority as pointed out by Lord Tebbit. The name Blair will eventually and historically be accorded the title of the most damaging, destructive, self serving PM that England has ever had. He wasn't a Lord Haw Haw, but his name will stink just the same.
*Blair was a great reformer". The only reforming he did was for those Tories that want to be his heir. Domestically, Blair was one hell of a failure. He was right about the threat of Islamists, but that was about all.
Who was it that stood up in Parliament and called for a standing ovation for Blair?
Lord Tebbit was quite right about the missing 40% of voters.

[Sean Fear]

On this one, I think Tebbit is right. I read Gove's article, and the Blair he praises is not one I recognise.

[TFA Tory]

Lord Tebbit is Hon Patron of BETTER OFF OUT. He is true a Conservative and patriot. We need more like him in the Commons but he would not be allowed on the Candidates List by Shireen Ritchie and the Wimmin2Win cabal who dominate the Candidates Committee.

[Andy]

I do wish Tebbit would learn to be quiet. Whether he is right or wrong in what he says is hardly the point!

[Dontmakemelaugh]

"I do wish Tebbit would learn to be quiet. Whether he is right or wrong in what he says is hardly the point!

Posted by: Andy | February 28, 2008 at 01:21

So what is the point of the "Conservative Party" Are we really expected to vote for Cameron and Osborne the self styled, "Heirs to Blair". I don't b----y well think so. Voting Tory is hardly the point,

[London Tory]

Forget the politics for a moment.

The one thing we have to learn from Blair is the importance of emotional intelligence in politics. Ok, it was slightly stagy at times in Blair's case, and maybe even with Dave, but in 2008 it is vitally important.

I quote no less a figure than Jackie Ashley, Mrs Andrew Marr, and doyen of the left wing PC brigade. Speaking of her erstwhile hero Gordon Brown, she recently said;

"I have now lost count of the number of my friends who have said sorry, but I just don't like him".

And they won't vote for him either.

Blair had it, Cameron had it, and Tebbo should remember for those of us who were around in the 80s- Margaret Thatcher had it too (in spades).

David Cameron is the true heir to Thatcher, not Blair.

[Andrew Lilico]

AL> Quite the reverse - the public loved him and gave him three large majorities.

John@18:43>Your statement is misleading and factually incorrect. The Blair Goverment recorded the two lowest percentages of the total electoral vote of any government in the last fifty years<

The fact that some Conservatives feel that Blair's getting a 180 seat majority and having enormous opinion poll leads from the instant he became leader almost continuously until the moment he stood down thirteen years later does not indicate that "the public loved him and gave him three large majorities" is an indication how of self-indulgent and deluded many in the party have been these past fifteen years.

Blair was popular. He was pretty much the most popular British prime minister ever. Going on about low turnout only weakens your case, not strengthens it, for the low turnout in certain of Blair's elections was largely driven by Labour voters not bothering to vote in safe Labout seats. He was so overwhelmingly popular that many Labour voters we (rightly) so utterly confident he would win that they didn't feel they needed to vote themselves.

Mercifully our Shadow Cabinet understands that Blair was popular, even if certain of the rest of us don't.

[RobD]

I see no hint in Tebbit's letter that he has actually read Gove's article. It seems clear to me that the point of Gove's article was to highlight the weakness of Brown rather than talk up the 'Blairness' of Cameron. Tebbit's intervention has unhelpfully twisted this into a Tory issue rather than showing the utter weakness of our current PM. Most of the praise for Blair was praise of his abilities as a politian, not of his policies which Tebbit has tried to twist it into.

[Gospel of Enoch]

Blair made promises and then let his supporters down. Camerloon promised EPP withdrawal in "months not years". Not a cigarette paper of difference between them.

[Mike Thomas (215cu)]

Like it or not, Blair was the best Prime Minister the Conservatives never had.

Like it or not as a political tour de force, not many Tories with the exception of Howard and Cameron got the better of him.

And in ten years, the country has changed and we have to accept the Post-Blairite world. We have to remember in that ten years, we have been condemned to the same share of the vote which as a percentage was even less than Blair.

I've read the Gove article and I see it as a massive piece of mischief to cause disquiet in the Blairite sections of Labour. Nothing more.

[Sean Fear]

"Like it or not, Blair was the best Prime Minister the Conservatives never had"

I'd be ashamed to be a Conservative, if he had been our leader.

[Malcolm Dunn]

I would have abandoned the Conservative Party pretty early in his first term had he been our leader. If being like Blair is all that we can aspire to God help Britain.
I suggest you have a look at Guido today Mike to see what current thinking in the Tory party about ethics is. Blair was more responsible than any other individual for the general contempt for party politics in this country.

[Mike Thomas (215cu)]

Malcolm,

I've been reading Guido for the last couple of years. The problem though I find is mention the word 'Blair' and Tories everywhere convulse.

Labour only achieved power after they had to swallow the post Thatcher settlement.

The same is true for the Tories, failure to do so will result in failure to achieve office. It is really that simple.

[Andrew Lilico]

Mike Thomas@16:14

I was with you there for a moment, but now I have to disagree vigorously. The last thing the Conservatives need is to believe that there is any kind of "Blair settlement" which we must accept if we are ever to govern. Blair's domestic policies have been an almost unmitigated failure - and I think are now widely accepted as such, even by neutrals.

[John Moss]

We see things through a political prism. The electorate do not. From their perspective, Blair did one thing we need to build on.

He opened the door to genuine reform in heath, education and welfare. Not much, I admit, but Gove makes the point that at the end of his tenure, when it was too late and he was a lame duck so couldn't actually achieve much, he went out of his way to promote ideas which, had we promoted them in Government would have been howled down as right-wing madness from the Labour benches ot the BBC.

We need to keep pushing at that part-open door and really carry through the logic of what Blair only hinted at. Not least because the electorate got the hints and kept voting for the bas%$£&!

Gove deserves credit for sticking with education vouchers against the uber-modernisers. If we'd just actually mention it occassionally, the electorate might see we have a hint of radicalism left and even Norman wouldn't object to that!

[John Leonard]

Andrew Lilico:

The fact that some Conservatives feel that Blair's getting a 180 seat majority and having enormous opinion poll leads from the instant he became leader almost continuously until the moment he stood down thirteen years later does not indicate that "the public loved him and gave him three large majorities" is an indication how of self-indulgent and deluded many in the party have been these past fifteen years.

I smell spin of Campbellesque proportions here.

The self indulgence and delusion apply to those that think headline figures in opinion polls and the anomalies of our electoral system prove the popularity of an individual Prime Minister.

Assumptions about those who have not expressed an opinion (those who didn't vote) supporting Blair are arrogant in the extreme. Unless you can back your assertions up with proof that it was Blair voters who stayed at home, it's not worth consideration as a valid argument.

Given that there was a slight chance at the last election of Labour losing it's overall majority, with Brown riding to the rescue of Blair's campaign, given your explanation, how was it that the Labour vote fell by a further 1,000,000 (hint - Iraq was a very popular decision)?

What is clear is that the Conservative vote is down 5.25 million and Labour is down 2 million since 1992. The Libdem figure fell by 1.2 million between 1992 and 2001 but recovered to similar levels as 1992 in 2005 (probably directly at the cost of Labour).

The fact is there were 7 million voters less who voted in 2005 than did so in 1992 and at the same time the electorate actually increased by a million. So effectively there were an additional 8 million voters not voting in 2005.

Of that 8 million only 500,000 can be accounted for by the smaller parties. Are all the 7.5 million remaining lost voters complacent Blair supporters?

There are no doubt many reasons why the vote has fallen but I suggest that the most prevalent is likely general disillusionment with politics.

That disillusionment can be put primarily down to two factors. Firstly, the complacent contempt which Blair's government showed for the public and secondly the inability of the opposition to get its act together and represent the wishes of those 7.5 million voters.

Now to examine your other justifications in more detail.

Firstly lets look at the polls. Let's take ICM's standard monthly poll. Normally they sample the opinions of some 1,000 people.

They then exclude all those who refuse to answer, who don't know and who have a likelihood to vote of less than 70%, few of whom I would suggest 'loved' Tony Blair.

As a result the actual sample is reduced to somewhere between 500 and 600. Less than the number of MP's in Parliament.

If you think that a sample of 0.001% of the country is representative of anything more than a simplistic snapshot of which party has the most support at any one time or that it is used more for anything more than journalistic propaganda reasons then I must question your judgement.

In addition, if you then consider that Labour have not had a 50% rating (i.e. a majority of those expressing an opinion) in the polls since April 2002 then it is clear that on the whole some 60-70% of those polled did not 'love' Blair so much as to be bothered to declare that love. Which ironically goes some considerable way to support the evidence of actual electoral turnout that Lord tebbit refers to.

In any case the headline figures are used to indicate the Party support not the Leaders and the two are completely different things (believe it or not we do not yet have a presidential political system).

For example, I also checked Blair's personal polling figures back to Jan 2005 (37 polls) and he only received a positive rating twice (a mere +2% and +7% positive rating). In every poll more than 40% of those polled were unimpressed by him and up to 72% at one point or another. The average personal popularity figure for Blair during that last period was minus 22% or in other words 61% were unimpressed. I would have gone back further but the information was not available on UK Polling report.

Now for your comments on the size of his majority (I'm normally averse to comparing the size of any political appendages but I will make an exception here).

As you well know if you have read the numerous threads which have debated the complex issues relating to this. The size of the parliamentary majority is only partially relational to the level of electoral popularity.

So much so that in Feb 1974 Labour won a majority in Parliament with marginally less of the popular vote than the Conservatives.

Do not represent the idiosyncracies of our electoral system as proving Blair was 'loved'. It just doesn't stack up.

The reality is that Labour were as successful as they were simply because of the shambles that the official opposition were in.

To suggest that the public loved Blair (and still do) is ludicrous. It was more like a sordid little fling that lasted far too long and ended badly!

However, that said I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the electorate are very grateful to Tony Blair for eventually going and that may have marginally improved his popularity!

[Chad Noble]

"would have abandoned the Conservative Party pretty early in his first term had he been our leader"

Lol. Yeah right. But you don't seem to have any problem with the self-styled 'Heir to Blair'...

Well said Lord Tebbit. I've never liked the war-mongering Gove.

[Simon R]

I think that as a party we simply need to move on from Blair. It was our response to Blair that damaged us more than Blair himself. We were obsessed with showing the public the vision of a sanctimonious, smarmy, duplicitous, second-rate actor that we all saw, and as a consequence, we fell over ourselves trying to demonise him rather than undermine his Government's reputation for competence. From demon-eyes, through to saving the pound, through to Michael Howard calling Blair a liar, the public has always greeted our Blair-ranting with bovine indifference.

However, if denouncing Blair in such fiery terms was a mistake, so in my opinion is the current trend (exemplified by Michael Gove) of eulogising the man simply because he was a successful politician and he wasn't as bad as Brown. It's the pendulum swung far too far the other way.

We need to accept that Blair was a successful politician and election winner, but remember (as Tebbit so rightly points out) that he led a bad Government, and take comfort in the fact that like all politicians, his career ended in failure, and without a significant political legacy to show for his decade in power. We should certainly thwart his plans to become President of Europe (if they exist) with all haste, but do it because there should not be a President of Europe, not because it's Blair. Let's just do what we now have the luxury of doing -ignore him.

[Frank McGarry]

Gove and the rest of the shadow cabinet are saying what they believe they need to say to get elected. Only after they are elected will we find out what they really believe.

Tebbit on the other hand says exactly what he believes. This disqualifies him from any possible association with the present party leadership.

He believes in Britain; he believes in democracy and he believes in Conservatism.
That's why he believes we would be better off out of the EU.

Long may he continue as a voice of reason in our over-spun political world.

[Northern Conservative]

Good old Norman Tebbit!

We do need him and more like him in the Conservative Party.

Such a shame that Cameron and his disciples don't appear to appreciate how well Lord Tebbit reflects the silent majority.