Tony Blair

Well, is it right then that we do whatever an American president asks?

But I'm sure a lot of people listening to this would say it's Tony Blair that is on the wrong side of history here.

He's far too close to Donald Trump.

Look at him sitting on the Gaza Board of Peace where nothing much seems to be happening with the likes of President Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin.

Can I just talk about Europe now?

You obviously were one of the forefront voices saying Britain shouldn't leave the European Union.

You completely transformed our relationship with the EU when you were Prime Minister.

Here we have Wes Streeting saying, right, what we should be doing is going back into the European Union.

And you're saying, whoa, not so fast.

Okay, you are looking for answers in this essay of yours.

And you end by saying with a question, which is, we need a fundamental change in our politics and that we've done it before, but will we be able to do it again?

Given where we are, given the headwinds, given the limitations on politics, do you think there is a cat's chance in hell that is going to happen?

So Tony Blair is still a slick communicator.

and knew that he was going to ruffle feathers with this intervention.

But I was just hearing from one of his close aides, and they are delighted.

They are delighted that they think they've started a debate on the policy that this Labour government needs to pursue if it stands any chance of re-election.

I think he'll have also caused a huge amount of irritation.

It's probably the last thing that Keir Starmer needed right now to be told that he had no strategy, no direction, and was kind of listless in terms of the politics that he was pursuing.

I think what comes over in some ways...

With Blair, it used to be just the slick soundbites, and there were some of them in that interview.