THOROUGHLY MODERN TONY:

A journey that leads to Cameron: Blair is wrong about Brown, and about the crisis. He warns of a 'drift to the left' but does not explain how his alternative differs from the Conservatives (Steve Richards, 2 September 2010, Independent)

Tony Blair is Labour's great election winner. No Labour leader will win three successive victories by such wide margins again. In the memoir there should be a model for his successors to follow, at least a hint of a route back to power. There is one, but it is for another party. There is nothing I have read that could not have been written by David Cameron, George Osborne or Michael Gove, a self-confessed Blairite. As I wrote on Tuesday in the context of Labour's leadership contest, Cameron has worked out how to deal with Blair's version of New Labour. He supports it.

The problem begins on page two of the opening chapter when Blair states his position. "I was and remain first and foremost not so much a politician of traditional left or right, but a moderniser." [...]

[L]abour's great election winner warns of a "drift off to the left" but does not explain how his alternative would differ in any way from David Cameron's Conservative Party. Indeed, he suggests in relation to education policy that the Tories would be "at their best" without Liberal Democrats, some of whom he dismisses as "old Labour", whatever he means by that.

How does Blair address the fact that on many issues he is closer to Cameron's Conservatives than any other party including his own? He does so by claiming his anti-politics outlook is universal: "The policy space is now as much shared as in single occupation. The point is: that's the way it is!"

The fact is that the Right is more likely to move permanently to the Third Way than the Left is.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 2, 2010 3:28 PM