Tony blair

The coalition’s vulnerability on crime

Parliament has that beginning of term feel today, lots of people discussing what they did on their summer holidays. After the holidays, the main topic of conversation is this whole phone tapping business. Everyone is wondering how long the BBC will keep playing it as the top story; it even devoted two thirds of the One O’Clock news to it. Given how reluctant the papers are to touch it, the story will burn out if the BBC stops fanning the flames. But one thing that I feel is being overlooked is Tony Blair’s attack on the coalition as soft on crime. If David Miliband wins the Labour leadership, I expect

First free schools will open next September

Tomorrow’s Guardian front page says Michael Gove dealt fresh blow as only 20 ‘free schools’ approved. But this is actually not a bad rate of progress. The 20 refers only to the new schools that will open in September 2011, more will open in 2012 and 2013 and so on. One would expect the numbers to increase as momentum behind the programme builds. As soon as parents see what these schools can do, there’ll be greater demand for them. Ed Balls is out tonight with a typically pugnacious statement claiming that this proves that parents don’t want free schools. But it is worth remembering that Tony Blair, a man who

James Forsyth

Balls turns on the man he called Labour’s ‘greatest ever leader’

The ever-pugnacious Ed Balls was on the Today Programme this morning denouncing Tony Blair for saying that the coalition was, broadly, right in its deficit reduction plans. As Balls warmed to his task, he started reeling off Blair’s failings—his advocacy of entry into the euro, his one-sided account of things in his autobiography and the like— and I wondered: if this is his opinion of the man he called Labour’s greatest ever-leader, what on earth does he think of the other men who have led the party?   But in all seriousness, the coalition needs to start hitting back at the ‘growth denier’ charge that Balls keeps hurling at them.

Brown’s plan for the future

Mr Blair’s former breathless lover will form the fully staffed Gordon and Sarah Brown Foundation, paid for by lucrative speaking engagements, which the Spectator revealed some weeks ago. He has accepted three pro-bono appointments – joining Queen Rania of Jordan’s Global Campaign for Education, working on a new programme to bring the internet to Africa and joining the board of Tim Berners Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation. He will also continue to write on the plight of the world’s poor. Presumably, he won’t now be seeking a spot at the Shadow Cabinet table. Like Blair, Brown’s ambitions are global. I can’t criticise Brown for any of this – they are

“The worst-written memoir ever twittered by a serious politician”

That’s how Bruce Anderson sums up Tony Blair’s book in a caustic piece for the magazine. Here’s the whole review for the benefit of CoffeeHousers: ‘It is bizarre. As he often demonstrated in the House of Commons, Tony Blair knows how to use words. He could also have mobilised a team to help him write his memoirs. Instead, it is all his own work, and the words mutinied. This book is not just badly written. it is atrociously written. For almost 700 pages, Tony Blair stumbles between mawkishness and banality. Prime ministers send soldiers into combat. Some of those soldiers are killed. That is a subject which would lead the

Tony Blair, freelance statesman

Say what you like about Blair, but he is something of a political entrepreneur. He detects a gap in the market and fills it: he did with New Labour in the mid-1990s. And he detects a trend in the globalised world: a system where governments don’t matter so much and power is held by a global elite. This, CoffeeHousers, is what he’s up to with his memoirs. He is presenting himself in new incarnation, a statesman without a state, able to move without being tied down to an electorate. There’s a very revealing passage in his book where he talks about Condi Rice: “She is a classic example of the

Blair: the sex scenes

Not just a Prime Minister, not just a global statesman, in A Journey Tony Blair also demonstrates he knows how to treat a girl: CHERIE: “I DEVOURED HER LOVE” “…that night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that I was about to do was right … On that night of the 12th May, 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every ounce of emotional power to cope with what lay ahead. I was exhilarated,

The Mirror backs ‘The Special One’

The ballot has opened and the Mirror has joined the mounting chorus in favour of David Miliband. They say of Miliband: ‘We believe he has the intellect, talent and experience to take on the Tories – and eventually become PM.’ Their timing is odd, given that Fleet Street and Westminster are currently captivated by Tony Blair’s memoir. But it is also a neat coincidence that Blair’s journey ends on the day that his apparent heir’s begins. As Tim Montgomerie notes in today’s Times (£), the Tories fear David Miliband because he is the only Labour leadership candidate who asks: ‘What would Tony do?’ It goes deeper than that. Tony Blair

Blair’s contempt for the left

In tomorrow’s papers the reviewers will compare ‘A Journey’ to those “real-life” misery memoirs that seem to be publishing catnip. It is not inaccurate to conclude that this is tale of one man’s struggle in an abusive relationship, and all the more unstatesmanlike for it. The tiny details of the relationship between TB and GB fascinate me. Brown is the one, Blair admits, who coined the soundbyte “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” for example. However, by far the most interesting aspect of the book is Blair’s barely disguised hatred of the Labour left and, most of all, the left-wing intellectuals. So here, very quickly are some

Tony Blair’s advice for Labour: be more like the coalition

There’s a remarkable self-certainty about what we’ve seen of Tony Blair’s book so far. Sure, there are the fleeting moments of doubt and insecurity: the drinking that was becoming less a pleasure and more a habit, for instance.  But, apart from that, the dominant motif is how His Way was the Right Way. And so, he was right to keep Brown on as Chancellor. He was, it seems, right to prosecute war in Iraq – even if the WMD intelligence was “mistaken”. And his chapter on Northern Ireland is written up as a ten-point action plan for future peace processes after future conflicts. Make no mistake, this isn’t a bad

Tony Blair’s memoirs: the first extracts

Even the literary critics have to wait until tomorrow for the Blair memoirs – but the book’s contents are slowing spilling out onto the Internet this evening. A series of extracts has just been published on the official website, and the Guardian has extensive coverage, including an interview with the man himself. So far, there’s nothing too surprising. Blair, for instance, lays into Brown – but adds that it would have been wrong to sack him as Chancellor. And he declines to endorse a candidate for the Labour leadership, beyond offering a handful of veiled criticisms of Ed Miliband. Coffee House will have more tomorrow. For now – and for

The Blair memoirs loom over Labour’s leadership struggle

A day before the ballot papers get sent out, and the grey corpse that was the Labour leadership contest has suddenly leapt into a crazy jig. Ed Balls is slamming the “soap opera” of the Mili-rivalry, while calling for more social housing. Andy Burnham is insisting that he’s still in with a chance of winning. Alan Johnson has – with a nod to Jose Mourinho, of all people – labelled David Miliband as “the special one“. And as part of his rebranding exercise the former Foreign Secretary has even starting making fairly amusing gags. Welcome to the Twilight Zone. But it’s not just the prospect of imminent voting that is

No tax cuts in England’s green and pleasant land

Danny Alexander has told the Observer that substantial tax cuts are highly unlikely for five years. Alexander argues that ‘the tax burden is necessary as a significant contribution to getting the country’s finances in order. So it will have to stay at that level for quite some time.’ Given that the income tax threshold will rise to £10,000 over the course of the parliament, designed to help lower earners, we can take it that there will be no tax cuts for the well-off and hard pressed middle classes. So the 50 percent rate stays, which is not wholly foolish strategically as Labour would preserve it. The squeezed middle classes pose more

New Labour’s psychodrama went global

Not as thick as he looked, Dubya. The Sunday Telegraph reports that the Bush administration urged Tony Blair to remain in office because it had ‘big concerns’ about working with the monomaniac Gordon Brown.  Here are the details: ‘Senior officials in the US administration sounded the alert after a meeting between Mr Brown and Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush’s secretary of state, in which Mr Brown “harangued” her over American policy on aid, development and Africa. After the uncomfortable session, sources said she reported her misgivings to the White House, and they were sent on in turn to Mr Blair. After taking the warnings on board, Mr Blair signaled his intention

Cameron: I fear David Miliband most

Strange but true: the Cameroons are wary of a Labour Party led by David Miliband. The Guardian’s Nick Watt has been eavesdropping and he’s gathered a few choice quotes. Kool-aid drinking Tories say: “David Cameron said the candidate he hoped for was Ed Miliband, and the candidate he most feared was David Miliband.”  “On the whole we would prefer if Ed Miliband won. His analysis that Labour has to go for a traditional Labour vote, rather than the middle classes, is absolutely wrong. The Ed Miliband analysis will lead them into big trouble.” In spite of his best efforts, David Miliband is likely to win. But, as I wrote on

Burnham goes blue in the face

Whilst Ed Balls descends into bellicose self-caricature, Andy Burnham, the quiet man of this campaign, has written an incendiary article for the Guardian. It is subtly constructed: behind the veneer of his folksy idiom, Burnham proclaims a self-conscious radicalism. He has sharpened some of the ideas expressed so loosely in his pamphlet Aspirational Socialism. He advocates the adoption of land value tax, the abolition of inheritance tax and a very tough Blairite stance on crime and the causes of crime. He angrily dismisses the Milibands as thoughtless ‘comfort zone’ politicians, both stuck dumb in a trance to the mantra of ‘tax and spend’. Burnham’s aides must be as aghast as

Today’s GCSE results prove that academies work

Today’s GCSE results demonstrate the tremendous success of City Academies, a hugely heartening trend given that this formula – which was so slowly rolled out under the Labour legislation which introduced them – can now be rapidly implemented under the new Academies Act. It’s always been a con to look at the absolute results of Academies, as under Labour the only schools given such status were schools that were doing poorly. What matters is improvement. Let’s take the three Academies groups and look at the ratio of  pupils winning five good GCSEs (i.e. A-C including English and Maths). In the The Harris Federation, which now runs nine schools, there was

A very British diarist

The extracts from Chris Mullin’s diaries that ran in the Mail on Sunday this weekend suggest that the second volume will be as good as the first. It contains things that you just couldn’t make up. Tom Watson, for example, told Mullin that he was pushed into rebellion by the knowledge that Cherie Blair had had the Prime Minster’s section of the nuclear bunker redecorated.   But, perhaps, the most telling  story is what happened when Gordon Brown went to the Chinese embassy to sign the book of condolence for victims of the earthquake there: “While Gordon and his party were inside, word reached them that David Cameron was waiting

Exclusive: Gordon Brown launches his public speaking career

While Tony Blair has been pledging a slice of his massive post-PM earnings to The Royal Legion, a tale reaches me – from an impeccable source – about what Gordon Brown is up to. He once indicated he’d devote his post-PM life to modest good works, but it appears he is also trying to build up a large nest egg of his own: in the world of public speaking, with six-figure fees. He’s asked a London speaking agency to tout for speaking engagements for him in the Middle East and Asia. And the price? He’s been offered at $100,000 a pop and is promising to speak on areas covered by