Blair’s warning to Miliband about the policy abattoir

Nothing like a former PM poking their nose into your business, eh? John Major experienced what Daniel Finkelstein this week delicately described as ‘sub-optimal’ behaviour from Margaret Thatcher when he was in office, and today Ed Miliband has his own helpful little missive from his own former leader, telling him that if only he were just like Tony Blair, then everything would be OK.

Blair’s piece in the New Statesman isn’t surprising in many ways as it articulates the former Prime Minister’s firm belief that his party must engage with the centre of politics as it is at the moment, rather than trying to move that centre in the direction it would prefer. Blair warns Miliband of being overly optimistic about this, saying:

‘The paradox of the financial crisis is that, despite being widely held to have been caused by under-regulated markets, it has not brought a decisive shift to the left.