Pantomime Villains

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The Tony Blair haters are out in force at the moment and seem to be driven somewhat mad by their animosity towards a man who won three general elections in a row and made the Labour Party electable again.

The reason for all this ill-feeling gives back to the days when the last Labour Government became factionalised with Gordon Brown and his supporters doing everything in their power to undermine their own leader, not by mounting a full-scale challenge but by waging an damaging civil war.  

Since Tony Blair had won a resounding victory in all three sections (including the trade union section) of Labour's electoral college, his internal opponents had to proceed by means other than an open and honest debate, so the weapon of choice became rather more insidious: Blair was not 'one of us' he was 'one of them'.

In this article for The Times Rachel Sylvester addresses the Blair-hating phenomenon, but the truth is that Labour has brought this on itself and in his speech to the party's conference in 2011 Ed Miliband failed to tackle ignorant heckling in the hall at the mere mention of Tony Blair's name.

Instead Ed preferred to 'milk' the moment for his own short-term political advantage, but this was both stupid and cowardly if you ask me, because it gave the green light to people inside and outside the Party that Labour's most successful ever leader was fair game.

Rachel Sylvester tries to address this pantomime villain phenomenon with an article in The Times, but it's in the nature of bullies to behave in this way, so I would not expect the hissing to stop any time soon.    


We must stop hissing this pantomime villain

By Rachel Sylvester - The Guardian


The loathing of Tony Blair is wildly out of proportion. No politician today has his power to appeal to so many voters

What is it about Tony Blair? The man who won three elections in a row, the only prime minister in almost 30 years to have secured a commanding majority in the House of Commons, has gone from being the hero of middle England to a pantomime villain, reviled by left and right.

Labour MPs in marginal constituencies have turned down his donations on the grounds that they do not want to accept “blood money”. And it’s not only his own party that loves to hate its former leader. Five attempts have been made to make a citizen’s arrest of Mr Blair for supposed “war crimes”. A recent poll found that 61 per cent of voters thought his support would be a liability for his successor. On Twitter he is the subject of persistent vile abuse.

Now the man known as “the Master” by allies of David Cameron is stepping back from his job as a Middle East envoy for the Quartet and preparing to take on a wider role advising the Americans on the peace process. Although those involved in the discussions insist he has not been forced out, one friend says: “This is a region where there’s quite a lot of malevolence and he’s receiving more than his fair share of it.”

The politician who broke down tribal party allegiances, class affiliations and the gender gap to build a grand coalition for his party looks increasingly isolated in a big tent of animosity. The truth is that the hostility is out of all proportion to reality because it is not only about Mr Blair.

Of course, the former prime minister has made mistakes since leaving No 10. Friends urged him to stay on as an MP after standing down as Labour leader in order to give time to shape his reputation but he couldn’t wait to get away from the House of Commons. He has seemed too keen to cash in on his political career, accepting millions from some controversial sources. One former Blairite cabinet minister says he has “tarnished the new Labour brand” by working for autocratic regimes. “There’s a sense of disapproval in Britain of a former prime minister appearing to use the office for quite substantial financial gain, combined with a bit of envy and the sense that he buggered off and left us with a mess. He needs to decontroversialise himself.”

With his perma-tan, his country mansion, his coterie of staff and his hand-made shirts, Mr Blair floats effortlessly above the world as a member of the global super-rich elite. I once wrote that it was hard for him to keep in touch with political reality from the first-class lounge at Heathrow. It was not long before a senior Labour politician texted to say: “He wouldn’t be in the First Class lounge because he only travels by private jet.”

His office insists there is absolutely no conflict between his business interests and his role in the Middle East, but there is too much ambiguity. As he knows better than most, perception matters in public life. “He’s in denial about that,” says someone who knows him well. “The fact is that enough people feel it’s a problem for it to be important but he won’t admit it even to himself.”

And yet the venom is excessive. The Iraq war — and the failure to properly prepare for the aftermath — was a huge mistake but this is also the man who as prime minister brought peace to Northern Ireland, introduced the minimum wage, took on the vested interests in the public sector to improve schools and hospitals, created a new socially liberal norm by introducing civil partnerships and transformed the work-life balance by extending maternity leave. Britain was a kinder, more relaxed place to live — a country more at ease with itself — at the end of his time in office.

Some in his party have never forgiven the leader who forced them to compromise, as they saw it, for the sake of power. But he stood up to the trade unions, took Labour to the centre and made it electable again.

Although the former prime minister hates what he sees as the “psychological stuff”, there is something deeper underlying the hostility than rows over foreign policy or Clause 4. Mr Blair was the last politician with whom the electorate felt an emotional bond. The 1997 election was a Labour landslide because the voters invested all their hopes in this youthful leader who promised a more modern country and a new politics.

This was not just a rational, transactional political relationship. People, whatever their background, thought “Tony” was just like them. In focus groups, when voters were asked what drink he reminded them of, they invariably suggested whatever was in their own glass. There is no politician now who has anything like the same appeal. When asked what drink Ed Miliband would be, focus groups suggest crème de menthe — “the sort of drink nobody would order”.

From the ushering in of a “new dawn” to “Cool Britannia” and the “people’s princess”, Mr Blair rode the emotional wave. Then came the crash when he failed to fulfil the over-inflated expectations. As Jean Racine once wrote: “The heart that can no longer love passionately must with fury hate.” Indeed the former prime minister admitted as much when he compared his relationship with the voters to a failing marriage, in which crockery got thrown, people got angry.

Mr Blair’s transformation from hero to villain also coincided with the wider collapse in public trust in politics. New Labour did not create this shift — that was based more on wider cultural changes such as the loss of deference and the rise of individuality caused partly by the internet — but the emphasis on spin and the toxic “dodgy dossier” on Iraq contributed to it. The former leader, who once promised that his government would be the “servants of the people”, has become the focus for a wider sense of betrayal that many people feel about a Westminster elite.

Despite all this, there is a gap in the market for a politician with Mr Blair’s emotional intelligence and centrist appeal. Labour will only get into power if they can appeal to southern England as well as its northern heartlands, with an aspirational pro-business message. The Tories will only secure an outright majority if they return to the modernising path and pursue a progressive compassionate Conservatism.

Neither Mr Miliband nor Mr Cameron will admit it but both of them need to become, in the right sense, “the heir to Blair”.

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