letter sent to but not published by the independent

" There is a vindictive and unappealing current running through the british liberal presses response to their arch-nemesis Tony Blair’s announcement that he will donate the proceeds raised from his, no doubt rather censored, forthcoming account of his political career to the British legion. Now I am not issuing a defence of his actions and reserve a particular breed of loathing for someone who led Britain into what was probably the most destructive and fruitless exercise in US jingoism since Vietnam, however I don’t think this should cloud my judgement on what is a commendable action. Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s column in the independent was so drenched in vilification and bile that it could not give an impartial statement regarding Blair’s actions without tacking on a sentence clause further reinforcing that he is actually ‘as ever, phlegmatic and a trickster, flaunting his iron will and unassailable arrogance, and intimidating’ in case we’d forgotten. Or she is assuring us that whilst he might have seemed an enticing prospect in 1994 as Education Secretary “we know now that those eyes blaze with vanity and egotism, greed, ceaseless validation and money”

This is not confined to her particular column but permeates most political commentary, where journalists seem to salivate at the prospect even a slightest allusion to Blair’s name allows for unleashing a character assassination. Is this the way the free press in Britain conducts itself; to subject the news of a charitable donation (presumably of a sizable sum, given the books current sales) to an unrelenting torrent of bile, of which even right wing US hate-fanning pundits such as Glenn Beck and Bill’ O Reily would be proud? It has seemed since the Iraq war that to allow in a liberal paper that Blair had any redeeming features whatsoever is to condone the warmongering, kleptomania of his foreign policy. Meanwhile whilst this is going on, Cameron and Osborne are surreptitiously introducing the most deadly package of spending cuts to the Welfare State since its inception and the coverage they are granted is handled strictly with kids gloves. It has long been that serious leftist political commentary would rather laboriously tread over the same route of continual speculation about ‘were Labour went wrong’ instead of turn around to confront the current truth that we have a government out-Thatchering Thatcher to minimal opposition. So whilst she might reprimand herself for being duped by the charisma of the Blair spin machine during its formative years, it has been overlooked that the same is happening with Cameron and Clegg, particularly the latter whom most liberals believe will somehow forego his first cabinet position to ‘see the error of his ways’.

Instead of fixating on the litany of problems that admittedly lay within New Labour (the neglect of labour members opinions in favour of the vested interests of those in the deregulated city, the flattery of Washington’s Neo-cons and most catastrophically the oligarchic way that Blair sidestepped the cabinet) and to avoid sounding like a senile geriatric berating an old foe at a louder volume because he thinks hasn’t been heard,surely it is more profitable to focus on the reincarnation of the centre-left in the current leadership campaign. Acting as though what is evidently a stab at atonement (however awkwardly undertaken) from Blair is a ‘move both cynical and provocative’ is quiet frankly churlish. The action can be applauded without surrendering ones admonishment of his past conduct."