Tony Blair

Why?

Why write this?

You've avoided it for so long.

Yes, because as you rightly say, it's possible we're about to have the seventh prime minister in 10 years.

A serious country can't do that to itself.

And what is bizarre about the present situation is that we're all talking about politics when the key thing is to talk about policy.

If you don't decide what your policy direction is, there's no point in changing the leader.

And so the whole essence of the essay is to say it should be policy first, politics second.

Is it Tory?

Is it reform?

Is it Greens?

Is it Labour?

I'm just saying, OK, take a step back, analyse the world.

Where do we go?

And I don't really...

I think part of the problem with the way we have this debate is that it always does start and usually end with politics.

You started a sentence there and you stopped.

I don't really.

I thought you were going to say, I don't really care.

Well, I was going to say, I was going to say, I don't really care whether it's left or right in a traditional sense.