I don’t care about Tony Blair’s book.
I don’t care about Tony Blair’s book. I’m sorry, but I just don’t. Unless I really think about it, it’s frankly quite hard to remember who the man was. He’s just become this pious lurking bit-part character in tedious books by other people that I’ve forced myself to read. As though they all lived in houses with attics suffering chronic infestations of Sir Cliff Richard.
Didn’t Cherie write a book already? I can’t quite remember; I suppose she must have done. Everybody else did. Now I think of it, there was some story about her forgetting to pack her ‘contraceptive equipment’ on a visit to Balmoral, wasn’t there? That must have been her own book, unless Carole Caplin wrote one, too. It can hardly have been in David Blunkett’s. Although I didn’t read that one. I don’t think anybody did.
What do we learn from these books? I mean, properly learn — learn so we remember it years later, without having to use Google? Precious little. A forgotten dutch cap. A punch that Peter Mandelson threw at Alastair Campbell at a party conference, because Tony Blair didn’t want to wear a certain pair of trousers. Gordon being invariably peeved about something, and not that nice to work with. John Prescott making himself sick, hahaha, join the club. And that’s the big ones, the real insiders. Don’t forget the ambassadors, the wonks, the affiliated businessmen, the party officials, the backbench MPs. Or rather, do forget them. Doubtless you already have.
It’s like one of those laborious 1990s indie films, in which you see similar events over and over again, from a variety of perspectives. Blair’s perspective will be the dullest of all; like watching Pulp Fiction through the eyes of the suitcase.
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