Ed Miliband and the "New Centre"

Labour leader politely tells Tony Blair to stuff it

In an interview with the BBC, Labour leader Ed Miliband has dismissed concerns voiced by former Prime Minister Tony Blair that settling on the left will doom the Labour Party to a future of electoral defeat. Blair has urged the Labour Party to move closer to the political centre.

Miliband disagress on what the centre is.

"Tony Blair is entitled to his view, I've had conversations in private which have been good conversations with Tony Blair but let me just say this - it all depends on where you think the centre ground is," Miliband said. "I'm absolutely a leader placing my party firmly in the centre ground but there's a new centre ground in our politics."

"The new centre ground, for example, that means you speak out on these issues of press responsibility, a new centre ground that says that responsibility in the banking system - which we didn't talk about enough when we were in government - is relevant, a new centre ground that says people are worried about concentrations of private power in this country when it leads to abuses," Miliband declared. "And that's the new centre ground."

As with so many things, the Labour leader is flat-out wrong. He's wrong in his preoccupation with countering "private power". Abuse of public is the far-greater threat.

Certainly, private power can lead to abuses. But there are already mechanisms within society to handle these abuses: criminal law.

But there are entirely too few societal mechanisms equipped to deal with abuses of public power. The greatest threat of abuse of public power in Britain has always been the Labour Party.

For evdience of this, one needs look no further than the saga of the Militant Tendency, a group that managed to seize tremendous influence within the Labour Party in the 1970s and 80s. A hardline Marxist group, the Militant Tendency demanded the "nationalization of the commanding heights of the British economy". They even managed to ram a policy resolution through the 1972 Labour Party convention.

It wasn't until former Labour Leader Neil Kinnock recognized the threat the Militant Tendency posed to British civil society that they were expunged from the Labour Party. If not for Kinnock's wisdom, the threat may have never been dealt with.

Some doubt that the modern Labour Party possesses Kinnock's wisdom. Much more recently, Jim Fitzpatrick, MP for Poplar and Limehouse, and former Minister of the Environment, has warned that the Labour party has been infiltrated by radical Islamic groups that aim to re-establish Britain as a Muslim theocratic state governed by Shariah law.

Using state power -- also described as public power -- to force Britons to live under the tenets of Shariah law would be the ultimate abuse. Fitzpatrick seems to be convinced that the Labour Party isn't taking this threat seriously.

While Miliband may be more interested in milking the News of the World scandal for all he can get, and pretending that his party's experimentation with "tripartite" economic regulation, which routed Britain's ability to regulate the amount of debt assumed by British finanical instutitons, wasn't partially to blame for the economic meltdown, it's important to remember that it's the Labour Party's flirtations with tyranny that have been most destructive to the British polity.

Ed Miliband would prefer that Britons be concerned with what unethical journalists or reckless financiers are doing than what elements within his own party would do with the public power they so desperately covet. As long as they can describe themselves as "the left", Miliband may be truly blinded to their corrosive influence.

Gordon Brown Seeking Posh New Job

Former UK PM interested in role as top international financier

When Gordon Brown was defeated as Prime Minister, then promptly replaced as leader of the Labour Party, many naturally wondered what would come next.

Now we seem to know. A year after moving out of No 10 Downing Street, Brown is poised to take on an advisory role at the World Economic Forum. Speculation holds that he intends to spin this into leadership of the International Monetary Fund.

At the WEM, Brown would be responsible for overseeing 72 Econcomic Councils. As former Prime Minister of Britain, he is uniquely prepared for such a responsibility.

But he should by no means considered a shoo-in for the job.

After all, some had pegged Tony Blair to be a favourite to assume the office of President of the European Union. Instead, backlash against Blair's involvement in the Iraq War held Blair back.

Brown could face some obstacles of his own. One of them is related to the Iraq War. The other is due to Gordon's handling of Britain's finances as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Brown has frequently been publicly savaged for his failure to manage the British public debt.

In fact, as it turned out Brown's government excelled at concealing its mounting public debt. Essentially, Brown's government, under Brown's fiscal leadership, ran up billions of Pounds Sterling in deferred debt by financing projects as Private Finance Initiatives.

This allowed the Labour government to spend today, committing each British government for the next 30 years to make fixed payments on these projects.

In essence, the Blair/Brown government uploaded billions of Pounds Sterling in debt to future generations of Britons. It enabled the Blair/Brown government to inflate its short-run political popularity at the long-run expense of the British citizenry.

They did what they wanted to do, and left the hard decisions to future British governments.

It isn't as if Labour only organized one or two projects under the PFI structure. It isn't as if they only organized five or six. They ran 630 projects under this structure. That's the cost of 630 projects spread out over a 30-year period.

It gets even worse when one considers the scope of the cost spread out over that period: 110 billion Pounds Sterling. In Canadian dollars, the PFI debt load added by Brown was $172 billion.

It's difficult to believe that a leader as casual about assuming debt on the behalf of future generations could become the managing director of the IMF. But Brown may have yet one more advantage at his disposal.

In the United States, the Barack Obama administration has shared Brown's irresponsible approach to public debt. Moreover, the Obama administration has some diplomatic bridges to mend with Britain, and may choose to mend them by helping Brown ascend the IMF mountain.

By all rights, Gordon Brown probably shouldn't become the director of the International Monetary Fund. But for good or ill -- very likely for ill -- he just may.

David Miliband Retreats to the Backbenches

Aims to give younger brother space as Labour leader

For David Miliband, being defeated for the Labour leadership -- the leadership he was considered the odds-on favourite to win -- to his younger brother must have been a truly humbling experience.

The general consensus within his party seems to be that he has embraced that humility in withdrawing from frontline politics, and resigning himself to a more humble role as a backbench opposition MP.

"The party needs a fresh start from its new leader, and I think that is more likely to be achieved if I make a fresh start," the elder Miliband announced. "Having thought it through, and discussed it with family and friends I am absolutely confident it is the right decision for Ed, for the party, and for me and my family."

"This is now Ed’s party to lead and he must be able to do so as free as possible from distraction," he continued. "This is because of the simple fact that Ed is my brother, who has just defeated me for the party leadership."

David seemed to believe -- at least so far as his statements have been concerned -- that resigning to the backbench was the best way to promote an image of unity amongst Labour.

"I genuinely fear perpetual, distracting and destructive attempts to find division where none exists, and splits where they don’t exist, all to the detriment of the party," he concluded.

"Two adults who happen to be brothers who have different views about the party. It's important to have magnanimity in defeat... It didn't become the bloodbath a lot of people predicted. I'm not dead, I'm still here," he explained. "It's important I don't get in the way of that if Ed wants to make plans to reform, that's his own choice. He must have an open field to lead as he sees fit."

For his own part, the younger Miliband -- and new Labour party leader, Ed Miliband -- seemed accepting of his brother's decision, if not slightly disappointed.

After all, the younger Miliband had previously announced he planned to offer his older brother the role of Shadow Chancellor. That role will now fall to Yvette Cooper.

"He is my brother and I am very clear that, as leader of this party, my door is always open for him to serve in the future, either in opposition or back in government," the younger Miliband announced. "I am obviously delighted to be leader of this party but I am obviously disappointed for him. That is the paradox."

Of course, there is another aspect to the elder Miliband's departure that no one in the party seems eager to talk about: the attempt to erase any trace of Tony Blair and New Labour from the party moving forward.

The elder Miliband isn't the only New Labour stalwart to move to the backbenches. Nick Brown, Labour's chief whip since Blair led the party to government in 1997, was asked for his resignation. He complied.

Certainly no one in the Labour Party -- especially not the younger Miliband himself -- would admit that the ender Miliband was directly asked (or even subtlely encouraged) to step aside. Yet it certainly doesn't seem unfair to ask the question.

The extent to which Ed Miliband could address such a query may also be in question. He's been dressing up his thoughts on the matter in the language of brotherly love.

"The biggest obstacle for me standing in this contest was the relationship with David, because I thought long and hard about it," the younger Miliband said. "But in the end I concluded that if I had something to say which was distinctive, if I felt I would be the best leader of this party, for me not to stand in those circumstances would actually be an abdication of my responsibility, my responsibility to this party, my responsibility to this country and that is why I stood."

"My love for David is very deep, and his for me is too," he concluded. "It has been a difficult time, obviously, but it will withstand this."

That should be enough to keep any uncomfortable questions at bay -- except from the most daring of questioners.

Tony Blair's Deferred War on the Working Class

Labour knew they were spending, borrowing too much

As Labour leadership candidates Andy Burnham and Ed Balls battle over whether or not the Labour party would have embarked on a program of cuts similar to that of the current Tory/Liberal Democrat government, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former head of the British Civil Service, has dropped a bombshell on the debate:

The Labour party was spending too much, and knew it was spending too much. And it knew in 2005.

Lord Turnbull suggests that it was political pressure that convinced Tony Blair and his government to continue spending at a manifestly undisciplined rate, even after it became evident that there was a problem.

"It kind of crept up on us in 2005, 2006, 2007, and we were still expanding public spending at 4.5 per cent a year," he explained. "You might have thought that we should have been giving priority to getting borrowing under better control, putting money aside in the good years - and it didn't happen."

Lord Turnbull's comments reveal Keynesian economics for precisely what they became under Tony Blair: an excuse to spend, even at the expense of the government's ability to battle a recession by expending savings accumulated during strong economic periods.

Lord Turnbull explained it very simply: "Public spending got too big relative to the productive resources of the economy."

"The politics was that we had put an end to boom and bust," he said. But it didn't work that way. The government overspent even during the time of boom, and now succeeding governments have to fix the problem.

All of this complicates matters intensely for the current crop of Labour leadership candidates, looking to replace Blair's successor, Gordon Brown.

Andy Burnham has been tremendously candid about the necessity of cuts under a Labour government.

"Let's get some honesty in this debate," Burnham said. "There would have been significant spending cuts under Labour and there would have been job losses under Labour."

For his own part, Ed Balls seems to think that things would have been magically different under a Labour government.

"I think Labour would have been creating jobs this year," Balls insisted. "At a time when the economy is slowing down, we should be building houses, not cutting them, building schools, not cutting them."

This of course begs the question of where the money would have come from. But Balls seems to think that he has the answer... or at least something he can easily pass off as the answer.

"The banks should be paying the price of the crisis, not people up and down this country," Balls insisted.

Of course, it shouldn't be the banks that pay the price for the excessively poor fiscal policy of the Blair and Brown governments. One way or the other, under one government or another, the British government will have to pay the price for that.

Unfortunately, it's inevitable that when the government pays, the citizens will pay as well.

Many among Britain's left have gleefully seized upon the looming cuts by the David Cameron government of waging class warfare against the middle and working classes.

But even as Tony Blair spent the government of Great Britain deeper and deeper into debt, he had to have known that a fiscal day of recknoning was coming. Tony Blair had to have known that the middle and working classes would be hit hardest by that reckoning than anyone else -- including himself.

If class warfare is being waged against the working and middle classes at all, it's Tony Blair's defferred class warfare.

Ed Miliband Drives Spear Into HIs Brother's Heart

Younger Miliband brother playing for keeps

When Ed Miliband followed his older brother, David Miliband, into the Labour leadership race, their mother Marion Kozak, must have been hoping for a tame contest.

With Ed Miliband's recent denunciation of Britain's participation in the Iraq War, any hopes of that have likely faded. Ed Miliband has introduced what will be the greatest wedge issue between himself and his older brother.

"As we all know, the basis for going to war was on the basis of Saddam's threat in terms of weapons of mass destruction and therefore that is why I felt the weapons inspectors should have been given more time to find out whether he had those weapons, and Hans Blix – the head of the UN weapons inspectorate – was saying that he wanted to be given more time," Miliband the younger announced. "The basis for going to war was the threat that he posed."

"The combination of not giving the weapons inspectors more time, and then the weapons not being found, I think for a lot of people it led to a catastrophic loss of trust for us, and we do need to draw a line under it," he continued.

In making the Iraq War a key issue in the Labour leadership contest, Ed Milibad also makes the Blair Doctrine a key issue.

The Blair Doctrine, simply described, reflected Tony Blair's belief that military intervention is often necessary in order to achieve humanitarian ends.

The Blair Doctrine represents an overly moralistic take on neo-conservative thinking in regards to foreign policy. Neo-conservative thinking recommends the diligent confrontation of known threats; Blair's variation of this notion recommends the diligent confrontation of humanitarian dangers.

While George W Bush's official pretext for the Iraq War depended heavily on the presence of weapons of mass destruction -- which, even if Hussein didn't possess them, he was certainly seeking them. Blair's official pretext relied on this as well, but a global do-gooder philosophy weighed heavily on the decision.

Not only is David Miliband perceived as being much closer to Tony Blair than his brother Ed is, but as Foreign Secretary Miliband had key responsibilities for the prosecution of the Iraq War. Miliband the younger carries no such baggage.

However, the older Miliband will also be able to boast involvement with the decision to end British combat operations in Iraq. Moreover, while the older Miliband was involved in managing the last years of that combat mission, he had no significant role in the decision to go to war there.

Naturally, David Miliband doesn't want Iraq to be at issue in this leadership campaign.

"While Iraq was a source of division in the past, it doesn't need to be a source of division in the future," he announced. "Iraq was a big issue at the 2005 general election but the vast majority of MPs and candidates I have spoken to this time say that while it was a big issue then it was much less of an issue in 2010."

"I said during the election campaign that I thought it was time to move on," he added.

Ed Miliband clearly has little intention of moving on from the Iraq War -- just yet. But while invoking the Iraq War will certainly help to divide Labour voters from his older brother, he isn't the only candidate to denoucne the war. Ed Balls and John McDonnell have also spoken out against the war.

While the war will divide Labour voters against his brother, that portion will likely splinter between the three candidates -- and a significant porton of them will look toward Balls as their candidate of choice.

Whether Ed Miliband envoking the Iraq war will lead to hard feelings between himself and Miliband the elder will be a matter for the private lives of the two brothers.

But foreign policy will be a key challenge for the Labour Party moving forward. The leadership campaign would have been remiss without addressing it.

Ed Miliband to Come Up the Middle?

Labour may ditch Blair/Brown baggage with compromise candidate

With the slate of candidates for the Labour leadership contest filling up, David Miliband remains the odds-on favourite to win. Ed Balls seems to be viewed as the number two man in the race.

But as Andrew Grice suggests, the dynamics that are so often at play in political leadership contests may give the winning edge to a third candidate: Ed Miliband.

As Grice notes, David Miliband was a staunch supporter of Tony Blair. In turn, Blair helped champion his careeer. Ed Balls is a close contemporary of Gordon Brown who, in Paul Martin-esque fashion, applied relentless pressure to help spur Blair's departure from office.

Balls will be saddled with memories of that relentless push.

Like any political party in need of unity, Labour members would very much like to put the Blair/Brown divide behind them.

For Ed Miliband, matters are rather different. He isn't seen as particularly close to Blair or Brown, despite having served in Brown's cabinet.

The differences between the two Milibands also seem be paramount in the minds of Ed Miliband's supporters.

"Ed Miliband's supporters do not like comparing him to his brother and there is a noticeable absence of war (and major policy differences)," Grice writes. "When pressed, they say David offers brains without charisma while Ed offers both and can therefore reconnect with Labour's lost supporters while uniting the party."

"Ed Miliband's critics claim he lacks the experience or instant judgement to handle unexpected events and would offer compromises rather than strong leadership – more Neil Kinnock (one of his main sponsors) than Mr Blair," Grice continues. "Mr Brown is said to have described Ed Miliband as 'a cross between an academic and a preacher'. Quite a lot of Labour members may like the sermon."

Last but not least, the preferential ballotting system used in Labour Party leadership votes may facilitate the younger Miliband in emerging as a compromise between his older brother and Ed Balls.

While Labour could stand to break from the bitter divisiveness of the Blair/Brown struggles, it would adopt a risk in electing Ed Miliband as a figure of compromise.

Compromise candidates are often perceived by the public as not having been fully imparted with their authority by the party membership.

For a party coming off of a catastrophic election loss, that could prove to be even more devastating than the loss itself. The Labour Party will need to weigh its options very carefully before making that kind of decision. Unfortunately, the preferential ballot may actually deprive them of the opportunity to do that.

Tony Blair: Wanted Dead or Alive

(By George Monbiot)

If former British Prime Minister Tony Blair thought that the Iraq inquiry mas making settling his legacy uncomfortable, he may have no idea just how bad things can be.

George Monbiot recently offered a reward for anyone who successfully manages to place Blair under a citizen's arrest.

Some would interpret this as essentially placing a bounty on a former head of government. Others, like UBC Professor and former NDP candidate Michael Byers, see it differently.

"Speaking within the British context, with the British police being in most instances quite respectful of citizen rights—including in most instances not carrying arms—yes, I think it is a brilliant idea,” Byers said. “I wouldn’t want to recommend someone in another country with less historic respect for citizens’ rights to try this, because the police might react excessively. But certainly in the UK, George Monbiot has thought this out, and the recommendations I think are quite reasonable.”

"I think there is a strong case against Mr. Blair for the crime of aggression,” Byers continued. “The crime of aggression did not make it into the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court because of a lack of agreement among negotiating states, but it is still part of customary international law and exists in the statute books of several countries. So yes, without saying definitively that Blair is guilty, there is a case to be answered. Certainly, from a purely legal perspective, he is open to arrest and prosecution.”

Some, of course, disagree with Monbiot's bounty -- he offers up the first 100 pounds stirling out of his own pocket.

Oddly enough, an arrest of Tony Blair would probably be one of the best things for his party. Facing an election in 2010, Gordon Brown must be thinking that Blair would better serve him anywhere but in the election -- even if that means he's standing trial at the Hague.

John Major's Revenge

Sir Major calls out Tony Blair on Iraq War

Revenge, when executed most masterfully, is often executed over a very long period of time.

More than 12 years after being defeated by Tony Blair, former British Prime Minister Sir John Major may be very close to having his revenge. And he's waited a very long time indeed for it.

When Sir John Major took power as the British Prime Minister, it was in relief of Margaret Thatcher, a leader whose autocratic tendencies had made her increasingly unpopular with the British public and increasingly at risk of sparking an outright revolution within her own party.

Likewise, when current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown took power as Prime Minister, it was in relief of Blair, a leader whose foreign policy missteps and the use of Prime Ministerial power that facilitated them had made him increasingly unpopular with the British public and increasingly at risk of sparking an outright revolution within his own party.

As has been the case for Brown, Sir Major's tenure as Prime Minister seemed ultimately doomed from the very beginning. Much of this was due to his predecessor's actions.

Considering the declining state of Thatcher's mental health, time -- and human decency -- have sorely limited Sir Major's opportunities to seek retribution on his Prime Ministerial predecessor.

But there's always the next best thing: seeking retribution against the man who defeated him.

Sir Major -- who was the Prime Minister during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War -- recently weighed in on the events swirling around Britain's Iraq War Inquiry. Sir Major has joined the growing ranks of those who are suggesting that Blair deceived them in order to gain their support for the war.

"I had myself been prime minister in the first Gulf War, and I knew when I said something I was utterly certain that it was correct, and I said less than I knew," Sir Major said. "I assumed the same thing had happened and on that basis I supported reluctantly the second Iraq war."

And while Sir Major would very likely agree that the removal of Saddam Hussein as the President of Iraq was a good thing, he doesn't feel it was sufficient justification for the war.

"The argument that someone is a bad man is an inadequate argument for war and certainly an inadequate and unacceptable argument for regime change," Sir Major insisted. "There are many bad men around the world who run countries and we don't topple them, and indeed in earlier years we had actually supported Saddam Hussein when he was fighting against Iran."

To call the developments coming out of Britain's Iraq War Inquiry "revelations" would be in error. As a matter of fact, many British commentators have been suggesting for yers that Blair deceived Brits in order to make the case for the war, and that the Inquiry is really only confirming those suspicions.

With Labour MPs like Ken Purchase suggesting publicly that Tony Blair left no legacy, and left Gordon Brown with little opportunity to leave one of his own, Sir John Major knows full well that Tony Blair's historical legacy will very much be decided by the Iraq War Inquiry.

Sir John Major has waited a long time -- nearly 13 years, in fact -- to get his revenge on Tony Blair.

After all these years, he may finally have it.

Definitely Not the Endorsement He Must Have Wanted

Tony Blair endorsed by Taliban-bribing Berlusconi

Tony Blair's campaign for the soon-to-be-created office of the President of the European Union received a significant boost today, as Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi endorsed him for the job.

"Tony Blair has all the right credentials for becoming the first president of the European Council in the terms enshrined in the Lisbon Treaty, and to be appointed to that post as soon as it is legally and politically possible to give the go-ahead to the implementation of the clause renewing the union's governance," Berlusconi wrote in a letter to Il Foglio.

But this is one endorsement that Blair may want to distance himself from.

As it turns out, Berlusconi's government has been bribing the Taliban to keep their operations quiet in areas where Italian troops are operating.

When the Italians handed responsibility for Sarobi in 2008, the tranquil conditions in the province led the incoming French command to sorely misjudge the security situation in the region. 10 French soldiers were quickly killed in a single ambush when the Taliban, no longer receiving tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, retook the field of battle.

The French are understandably disappointed in their erstwhile allies. As Benedict Brogan notes, they'll likely get even with the Italians in their own time.

But considering the judgement of Berlusconi's government on how to discharge its duties to NATO -- an organization that Italy honestly ought to be expelled from over this episode -- Silvio Berlusconi's endorsement is one that Tony Blair should actually reject.

After all, Blair committed British troops to Afghanistan. It very well could have been British troops that came to harm over Italian duplicity.

Accepting Berlusconi's endorsement ought to be utterly toxic to Blair's Presidential campaign.

Tony Blair: The Non-Destined President

Blair Presidency not inevitable after all

As Michael Cockerell notes in Tony Blair: The Inside Story, Tony Blair ascended to the Prime Ministership of Britain riding a wave of enthusiasm that had marked him as a "figure of destiny".

When he finally left the Prime Minister's Office, it was a tide of discontent that hastened his departure -- and now threatens to wash his Labour party away.

Recent speculation suggested that Blair may ride a similar wave of enthusiasm into the soon-to-be-established Presidency of the European Union. That enthusiasm is said to have deeply taken root in the European leaders who will ultimately elect the EU President.

But, as it turns out, there seems to be some opposition to a Blair Presidency crystalizing. Some may feign surprise that much of this opposition is emerging from left-wing elements in European politics, although it really isn't all that surprising.

French Socialist MEP Pervenche Berès phrases the cause for the objections rather succinctly.

"A lot of Socialists have not forgotten Blair for his wholehearted support for the US-led war in Iraq," Berès said. "He does not represent the views of real Socialists and there is no way he should be considered.”

Berès' sentiments were echoed by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the joint leader of the European Green Party. "There is no way Blair should get this job," Colin-Bendit insisted. "He did nothing to defend European interests when he was Prime Minister and has done even less as a Middle East envoy."

One would expect that at least the British Labour party cacus in the European Parliament would be in favour of a Blair Presidency. But Richard Howitt, a Labour Member of European Parliament, doesn't buy into the notion of the inevitable Blair Presidency.

“Some say Blair is the only credible candidate but I don't see it that way at all," Howitt said. "I am sure he wants the job but there are other outstanding candidates who should be considered."

Even with some high-profile endorsements -- such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- there may well be enough residual bad will toward Blair lingering from the days of his close association with George W Bush to torpedo his bid for the European Presidency.

At the very least, reports that Blair has it all locked up are clearly greatly exaggerated.

Tony Blair's Tender Legacy

As alluded to in part one of Michael Cockerell's Tony Blair: the Inside Story, many politicians spend a great deal of time and energy concerning themselves with their legacy.

Unfortunately for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, he will very likely share a legacy with US President George W Bush. It likely will not be an entirely positive one.

Like George W Bush, Blair's departure from office was mired by tension with his successor. Just as Bush's departure from office has been mired by increasing tensions with his Vice President, Dick Cheney -- who believed Bush had stopped taking his advice during their second term -- Blair's final days were marked by tensions beteween himself and Gordon Brown, his Chancellor of the Exchequer.

For Bush and Cheney, the matter was clearly the war on terror. For Blair and Brown, the issue was the prospects of Britain replacing Pounds Sterling with the Euro as Britain's currency. Blair favoured this, and Brown did not.

Like Bush, Blair's legacy will be decided by whether or not he led his country to war under false pretenses. Like Bush, Blair's legacy will be impacted by personal controversy. For Bush, a lingering controversy was the outing of CIA agent Valeri Plame. For Bush, the lingering controversy was the suicide of Dr David Kelly, a British arms inspector who had been accused of helping falsify evidence justifying the war.

Like Bush, Blair's efforts to reform the civil service badly backfired. There was a palpable backlash against Blair's proposed reforms for hospitals and schools. Meanwhile, Bush led a dismantling of regulatory economic agencies that eventually helped precipitate a global economic recession. Bush's educational and health care reforms were widely lampooned. At one point, Bush even vetoed a Democrat bill that would supply health care to millions of uninsured children.

Like Bush, Blair left office amidst a push within his own party to minimize its association with him. While Brown worked behind the scenes to collectively push and shame Blair out of office, Bush failed to show up to his own party convention in order to best keep his distance from Presidential nominee John McCain.

Like Bush, Blair was viewed as a liability to his party. In a 2005 election that proved to be a significant setback for his party, Blair was targeted by the opposition Conservative party of Britain as an individual who had lied to take Britain to war in Iraq, and would lie to win an election. Bush was encouraged to stay as far away from the 2008 federal election campaign as he could in order to avoid associating McCain too closely with Bush.

(These efforts were mitigated when McCain hugged Bush at a political rally.)

Like Bush, Blair's time in office was marked by a savage terrorist attack. For Bush, 9/11 eventually wound up writing the story of his time as President. For Blair, 7/7 will be central to his legacy. Unlike Bush, however, who led his country to war partially as a retaliation for a terrorist attack, 7/7 could be viewed as a retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq.

Just as Bush's government had received ample warnings about the impending 9/11 attacks, Blair's government had received numerous warnings about the "inevitable" attacks that finally came to fruition on 7/7.

Like Bush, Blair led his party into office as a well-organized political machine, ready to do its country's business. Like Bush, by the time Blair departed, his party was in shambles, with its premier political opposition -- in this case, the David Cameron-led British Tories -- poised to knock them off in the next election.

For a man who came to power at the head of an overwhelming Parliamentary majority, Blair must be very disappointed to look back at his time in office and see such a disappointing record.

Blair came to office as a "destined" Prime Minister, with big hopes and huge expectations to live up to. Like many such leaders, the dizzying heights of his expectations could only be matched by the dispirting depths of disappointment.

Tony Blair: Is There Life After Death?

Former British PM's EU Presidency campaign has real momentum

As Michael Cockerell seems to infer in Tony Blair: The Inside Story, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair rode to his premiership at the head of nearly unprecedented enthusiasm and hope.

Blair arrived in office with sky high expectations, but managed to squander his surplus of political capital amidst infighting with his Chancellor of the Exchequer and questionable foreign policy decisions (namely, the Iraq war).

But if there's life after death in politics -- or at least new beginnings after "the end", as Blair himself described his departure from No 5 Downing Street -- Blair seems to have found it.

Speculation seems to hold that Tony Blair will win the Presidency of the European Union.

Much of this may, however, simply be wishful thinking on the part of Blair's supporters. Blair's close association with former US President George W Bush solidified a place for him as the world's second most unpopular politician -- at least for a time.

While Blair's personal unpolularity seems to have subsided -- Bush continues to be able to draw a good protest almost anywhere he goes -- memories of the invasion of Iraq, the various debacles that ensued, and the United States and Britain thumbing their nose at the United Nations can't be that far removed from the minds of many European leaders.

Then again, Europe has changed significantly since French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder fumed over the affair.

Chirac's successor, Nicolas Sarkozy, has voiced his support for Blair, although Schröder's successor, Dr Angela Merkel, is reserving judgement.

Blair must be waiting on baited breath to hear the results of a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland. But he isn't alone.

British Conservative Party leader David Cameron has suggested that his party may hold a referendum on withdrawing from the treaty. If Ireland -- who, for the record, have previously rejected the treaty -- ratifies the treaty and Tony Blair is elected EU President by the time the 2010 election rolls around, Cameron will have an undeniable dilemma on his hands.

It would be considerably more difficult to withdraw from the treaty after ratification -- and with a Brit (a former Prime Minister, no less) holding the Presidency, such an act could be politically troublesome.

It takes a special brand of leader to be able to cast a spell like the one that led Blair to victory in the 1997 British election. It takes a leader of yet greater calibre to be able to do it again after as rocky a tenure in that office as Blair had.

Whether or not Tony Blair is that special a leader is something that only time -- and Ireland's decision on the Lisbon Treaty -- will tell.

A Newer (Better) Blairism?

Tory leader emulating Labour PM

If David Cameron is the Tony Blair of the Conservative party, he certainly seems to relish the role.

"He was the future once," he once famously told Blair. "I want to talk about the future."

David Cameron has so effectively claimed Blair's mantle as the "future of Britain" that many consider his victory in the 2010 general election to be all but assured -- just as Blair's victory over John Major was considered assured.

According to Lord Andrew Adonis, the Labour party's Transport Secretary, there is more than a passing resemblence between Cameron's and Blair's style. That resemblence may be more than coincidental -- it may be by design.

"Cameron is trying to offer a better Blairism when he’s trying to be sunny," Lord Adonis remarked, although noting that Cameron's rhetoric can also have a dark side. "Then when he’s not, it’s the age of austerity and broken Britain."

If Cameron has mixed his upbeat rhetoric with some gloominess, he certainly isn't alone.

Many Labour party supporters and boosters -- as well as Prime Minister Gordon Brown himself -- continue to insist that their party is still very much in the running to win the 2010 election. Yet the prognosis offered by polls and various experts is far less than promising for them.

Compass, a left-wing British think tank, has predicted the end of the Labour party altogether if Cameron wins the next election.

They predict that, aside from whatever defeat Labour may absorb in 2010, a Conservative government increases the chance of Scotland opting to secede from the United Kingdom, taking a bastion of Labour strength with them.

Compass insists that a referendum on abandoning Britain's "first past the post" electoral system could gain the party desperately-needed ground against the Tories.

Gordon Brown has yet to fully embrace this issue as a "game changer", but has reportedly taken it under consideration.

Meanwhile, Lord Adonis doesn't believe that all is yet lost to Cameron and the Tories.

"We shouldn’t take the view that we’re in a situation like 1979 or 1997 and should be fatalistic and Cameron has found the new middle ground," Adonis insisted. "I don’t think that’s the case."

For Gordon Brown, defeating Tony Blair (they are well known to have been rivals) is a prospect that has long faded from view. But if anything substantial is to be taken away from Lord Adonis' commentary, it's that defeating David Cameron may be just as good.

That, of course, is provided that Brown can save his (and Labour's) skin in 2010.

Political Doctrines Make Strange Bedfellows

Part two of Michael Cockerell's Tony Blair: The Inside Story deals with Tony Blair's foreign policy.

Like the many distinctions Blair shares with Barack Obama, Tony Blair shares an important distinction with former Prime Minister Jean Chretien -- being one of the few world leaders to have led their country from the period shortly following the disintegration of the Soviet Union (in Chretien's case, he was elected Prime Minister in the period immediately following this event) right up to the post-9/11 period and the end of the so-called Pax Americana.

As the film shows, Blair approached foreign policy matters with an activist and nearly evangelical fervour. The "Blair doctrine" was a moralist foreign policy doctrine, that demanded nearly open-ended commitment to foreign interventions so long as he was convinced it was the right thing to do.

From the fight against Slobodan Milosevic to the battle against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Blair was able to use his considerable diplomatic skills to help build interventionist coalitions.

The religious influences on Blair's foreign policy decisions -- which were obvious from the language he used to support his policies -- were obvious. Although Blair was often unwilling to discuss his religious beliefs with the media or in public, he was willing to allow his religious values to influence his political decisions.

While overzealous secularists may condemn such influences, there is little wrong with allowing one's values to influence their decisions -- so long as those values can be shown to be largely positive.

Although Blair had once spoken about the prospect of his generation never knowing war -- apparently the Faulklands Islands don't count -- during his time in office, Blair deployed British troops to Kosovo, Sierra Leonne, Afghanistan and Iraq.

However, just as Tony Blair needed President George W Bush to help implement the Blair doctrine, Bush wound up needing Blair to help implement the Bush doctrine of preemptive engagement.

After 9/11, Blair stepped quickly to Bush's side, pledging support to the United States. Just as Bush must have known he would need Blair's diplomatic skills to build a broad anti-terror coalition, Blair must have known he would need Bush and the power of the American military in order to implement his moralistic vision of the fight against terrorism.

Yet Bush would, in turn, use Blair to carry out the war in Iraq. Blair shared a moralistic view on the war in Iraq based on the alleged presence of weapons of mass destruction. Just as questions would rise over the extent of Bush's complicity in the clear manipulation of intelligence leading to the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had acquired weapons of mass destruction, questions would eventually rise over the extent of Blair's knowledge of this, and his complicity in it.

Eventually, the British public failed to share Blair's moralistic view of the planned war in Iraq. Cynicism about the intelligence being used to justify the war became more widespread. Even as Blair made it evident that he at least seemed to firmly believe in the evidence being presented.

In the face of UN opposition, Blair's diplomatic skills faltered. With it disappeared any hope of garnering global support for the Bush doctrine.

Yet Blair was eventually able to essentially shame his party and the House of Parliament to back him on exercising the Blair doctrine in Iraq. Yet, if the War in Iraq truly was a defining moment of the 21st century, it was certainly a defining moment for Tony Blair.

Like George W Bush, the war in Iraq will define Tony Blair as a leader who was not immune to poor judgement. In sticking so doggedly to their foreign policy doctrines in regard to a conflict that didn't necessarily need to be fought at the time it was, both men will likely be remembered for putting more obstacles in the path of those fighting terrorism than any that they may have ever conquered.

Tony Blair and the Limits of Charisma

When Barack Obama gave his victory speech on November 4, 2009, he must have felt a lot like Tony Blair giving his victory speech on May 1, 1997.

As Michael Cockwell notes in Tony Blair: The Inside Story, Blair, like Obama, came to power amidst the corruption and incompetence of his political opposition. For Obama it was George W Bush and the Republican party. For Tony Blair it was John Major and the Conservative party of Britain.

Like Obama, Blair came to power with a tremendous mandate. Blair came to power with a Parliamentary majority greater than 200 seats. Obama came to the White House with a massive majority in the House of Representatives and a nearly filibuster-proof Senate.

Yet, just as Obama managed to break promises made about issues such as Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Blair's government quickly tarnished itself with a scandal over an exemption given to a Formula One race to Britain's laws forbidding the sponsorship of sporting events by tobacco companies.

Like Obama, Blair came to power with a gifted corps of media advisors, led by Press Secretary Alasdair Campbell. But like Obama, Blair found his ability to manage the media hampered by the modern 24-hour news cycle.

While Obama came to power with the resounding support of comedians such as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Blair had enjoyed the support -- to the extent that he agreed to appear in Labour party TV spots -- of Stephen Fry.

Just like Barack Obama, Tony Blair was hailed as a "destiny" candidate. He was treated as if he were destined to be Prime Minister, just as many media commentators came to treat Barack Obama as if he were destined to be President (this even despite the alleged inevitability of Hillary Clinton!).

Yet like Obama, Blair quickly found his ability to push through his policies to be rather limited. As Obama struggles to gain traction for his health care policies, Blair stumbled over the construction of the Millenium Dome.

Just as Obama must imagine his health care reform to be integral to his legacy, Blair consiered the Millenium Dome to be centraa to his legacy -- to the extent that he even spoke of it as a "legacy" to the British media.

Like Barack Obama, the experiences of Tony Blair show how quickly the lustre can wear off of even those leaders hailed as "destined" for high office. It's a lesson that a great many prospective leaders -- regardless of however charismatic they may be -- can stand to learn.