The Unstoppable Tony Blair

Originally published 22 February 2017.

Twenty years on from his memorable speech about the recently deceased Princess Diana, Tony Blair has mounted his latest and boldest comeback. The youthful vigour and smooth unblemished skin of the largely untested statesman of the 90s has gone. The memory of his unerring, arguably historical eloquence remains undimmed and still adds an odd piquancy to the tragic parable of his subsequent self-inflicted stumbles.

Blair was forty-seven years old when the People’s Princess passed away. When addressing the public in his newly appointed role as the nation’s foremost Speaker For The Dead, he appeared to lack the deep gravitas many of his predecessors exuded as a matter of course. Unable to do anything about his youthful appearance Blair connected with the viewing public by offering them a vision of a new kind of political leader who had, much like the British people themselves, cast off any silly, outmoded notions of maintaining a stiff upper lip at any cost.

During his address to the waiting cameras Blair’s light, everyman voice was, despite the odd uncontrollable emotional quiver, mostly steady. His careful, non-prosaic speech was conspicuously non-intellectual. He appeared to subjugate his own ego completely to the moment at hand, while revealing himself to be the sort of harmless, non-threatening man any Tory or aspirational Labour voter would be glad their daughter brought home from university. Mission accomplished! In one glorious, gravity defying bound Tony Blair became, for a notable period, the People’s Prime Minister.

Success after success followed Blair around like a cloying, sycophantic shadow that had no need to ever fear the rising dawn of inevitable disappointment: The Good Friday agreement & peace in Northern Ireland, Devolution for Scotland & Wales, Freedom of Information Act, huge investment in NHS (+25% increase in real terms), The Minimum Wage, lowest unemployment for 50 years, The Kosovo Intervention. Blair was openly admired across party lines, hugely respected abroad, and in global opinion polls was often cited as the most admired politician on earth.

And then Iraq… and public disgrace. The abject failure of the Brown years. The gradual devolvement of the Labour party from a natural party of government into an anti-establishment, anti-government, wholly unelectable minority movement, the entirely meaningless appointment as Bush’s Middle East Envoy, the blatant political and business whoring for clients who were obviously unworthy of the former first minister, the damning, reputation-shredding destroying, drip, drip criticism of the Chilcot Inquiry. By all accounts, Tony Blair was a rotting, embarrassing political corpse who stank out the premises of every former lackey and flailing former protégé he visited who simply lacked the grace to admit he was dead.

And now, after miraculously escaping the noisy, but ultimately harmless blanks of the Chilcot’s expensively stockpiled sharpshooters, Tony Blair, the real Tony Blair, is back. True, there was a hint of vulnerability about the old stager. A lingering smidgeon of doubt within his own eyes about his ability to still cast some of his remaining stardust over the hundreds of Doubting Thomases seated before him. The anxiety was written large all over Cherie Blair’s face as she sat nervously in the auditorium and willed her man to do well, to achieve, at the very least, a respectable lift off.  It’s fair to say, her man did. No one threw any specially brewed rotten eggs at him. No humble citizens rushed the stage and tried to arrest him for his many crimes. Perhaps the audience was swayed into silence by the sheer chutzpah of it all. This modern twentieth Lazarus had raise himself up from the dead before their eyes without their permission and he was set on doing as he saw fit whether they liked it not. One by one every single member of the cowed audience realised that although Tony Blair may have aged, he hadn’t changed one bit.

Tony Blair has proven he is capable of taking a big gamble, but he is not reckless. His backroom staff have crunched the numbers and told him there’s gold in that 48% opposition to the Brexit vote. The 48% contains enough dissatisfied Labour votes, enough weary Liberal Democrat votes, for him to gain some meaningful traction;  all those lost, leaderless voters who are desperate for a credible voice to lead their cause. Step forward Tony Blair the undisputed, undefeated three-time reigning electoral champion. How long can you hold something as old and increasingly irrelevant as Iraq against a flawed, but obviously great man, when you need help to stop your beloved country being torn apart?

Britain or Iraq, you decide – that’s the choice Tony is betting on.

And, lastly, the big elephant in the room. By going so hard for the leadership of the Remain camp Blair has put himself in direct opposition to the current president of the US, Donald Trump. This cannot be by accident:  Blair and his advisors have surely come to the conclusion that actually opposing a sitting US President instead of posing on his lap while performing remedial fellatio will see him embraced once more by all the lefty- luvvies who used to adore him. A sprinkling of sassy real time  Love Actually feistiness from Tony and who knows what is possible.