For security reasons newspapers have been asked not to name the holiday destination to which Tony Blair departed last weekend. This is fair enough, but Spectator readers will nevertheless be reassured to learn that the most characteristic feature of a Blair family holiday still applies: it is taking place at somebody else’s expense. The home where the Blairs are now staying is owned by a millionaire acquaintance, and it is most unlikely that they are paying anything near the market rate.
In other respects life has changed. The day before setting off on holiday the Prime Minister suddenly called a press conference to announce emergency measures against terrorism. This event seems to have been intended to leave behind a sense that he was in control.
If this was the intention it failed. This unnecessary press conference has left behind only chaos and contradiction. It soon became clear that Tony Blair’s ‘12-point plan’ to fight terror had not been devised with anything resembling the gravity which the subject demands.
At the heart of last Friday’s counter-terrorism strategy is a pledge to deport Islamic extremists from Britain. This means amending, or more likely revoking, the European convention on human rights which New Labour joyfully incorporated into British law eight years ago. On Friday Tony Blair made it plain that he was determined to amend the Human Rights Act if it would help to secure the evictions he craves. Yet within 24 hours Charlie Falconer, the Lord Chancellor, rubbished the Prime Minister’s assertion. He insisted that deportations would only be dealt with by agreements with foreign countries, and was adamant that ‘we are not willing to repeal any part of the Human Rights Act’.
But there is a wider curiosity about the Prime Minister’s press conference.
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