Blair called the shots at No. 10, he dealt with barbarous men, now he wants power back again

If Tony Blair was good at anything, it was PR. The former prime minister had every paper talking positively about him as he led the way for centre-ground politics, the way for the now hotly contested ‘New Labour’.

After standing down as PM in 2007, he and Cherie Blair had been running a lucrative business known as Tony Blair Associates (TBA). Using TBA, he was believed to be earning between £60-£100 million a year.

Yet it seems that Britain’s political turmoil has become too much for Blair to stay away. After announcing he will end his commercial ventures to spend 80 per cent of his time on not-for-profit work late last month, he has now heavily hinted that he will return to British politics, calling the matter “an open question”.

In an interview with Esquire magazine, Blair insisted that despite “a huge reaction against the politics [he represents]”, the political centre could shine once more.

“I think it’s too soon to say the centre has been defeated… I think it will succeed again. The centre ground is in retreat. This is our challenge. We’ve got to rise to that challenge.” He said.

Blair’s PR magic is far from what it once was.The Chilcott report proved that he was wrong for the invasion of Iraq. His heavy suggestions of a hopeful return were reported unceremoniously by most of the press.

The Mail Online, however, noticed that Tony Blair’s body language in Esquire’s photos seemed rather suggestive. Referring to his manspreading, they dismissed him as appropriately as one can, with “we get it Tony, you’re a big boy!” right in their headline.

We felt that a slight edit could help show what Blair offers the tumultuous scene of British politics.

Blair’s recent moves are likely an attempt to make himself politically viable again. Closing up his lucrative businesses – bar a “small number of personal consultancies for [his] income” – to promise all this time to not-for-profit work.

How generous of him. As one who’s hyper-aware of his image, he must wish to seem a tad more selfless – possibly to remove some of the nastier associations of his ‘New Labour’ brand, to compete with the ridiculous level of perceived saintliness of Jeremy Corbyn, the left-wing current Labour leader.

But Blair insists that isn’t why he’s so interested in the Labour party at the moment. “This is not about Jeremy Corbyn. It’s about two different cultures in one organism.” He says.

Blair argues that Labour was originally formed as “a party of government… to win representation in Parliament and ultimately to influence and to be the government of the country.”

Never mind the fact that the words “The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party” is printed on the back of every membership card. To Blair, actual political views don’t matter. Being in charge is what matters. Because why would you bother with all that values rubbish when you can just push what your PR consultant insists is popular?

Labour has been a broad church for decades, but a man wishing to lead that doesn’t actually care what policies he’s implementing is a problem. Especially when his recent past shows endless conflicts of interest.
The Telegraph has been relentless in its investigations of Blair. Between late 2011 and 2015, he advised Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocratic president of Kazakhstan. Blair helped the president manage his image after the “slaughter of unarmed civilians protesting against his regime”. The deal was thought to be worth millions of pounds.

The paper also looked into Blair’s business accounts, learning that “the former prime minister and his advisers and consultants had run up expenses and salaries totaling around £57 million in just four years.”

They found he used his role as the Middle East envoy to help his wide-ranging business interests, securing a £1 million private contract with the World Bank at the same time as working with them as Middle East envoy. Seeking assistance from British officials to further private business interests, even meeting the same people for his role as Quartet envoy as his private contacts.

It reaches a point in reading about Blair’s exploitation of his influence that one goes from being mocking to feeling furious, then from feeling furious to feeling defeated. To know that the UK voted for this man for three separate terms and how he has manipulated that for his personal benefit is a sad, sad thing.

Of course most people will do what they can to improve in the world, especially in a globalist and neo-liberal age. But the heads of self-declared democratic socialist parties shouldn’t be most people. A party that attacks its main opponents as “the nasty party” shouldn’t have a leader that’s aided war criminals.

But maybe Tony Blair won’t try to retake the Labour party. Maybe he feels that it’s too far gone to recover. Maybe he’ll start up a new centrist party to fight both Labour and the Conservatives.

That’s what UK politics is missing. If there was a party like that, everyone would vote for it. It could be liberal like the Tories, but democratic like Labour. Why hasn’t anyone thought of this before?

Oh, wait.