Forget about Blair (it’s for your own good)

By Mark Ferguson / @markferguson

The adoring crowd entered the room at the Progress 15th birthday bash to the slightly discordant strains of Queen and Lady Gaga. Freddie Mercury blasted out a somewhat ironic “don’t stop me now”, but the crowd awaited another ageing star (in open white shirt, rather than a vest). It may just have been my imagination, but the chatter of the audience appeared to thrum “To-ny To-ny To-ny” as the minutes counted down to the arrival of the exalted one. The crowd rose to their feet in near rapture. Before he spoke he had them in the palm of his hand. And then he began. And he was magnificent.

Regardless of whether you love or loathe Blair (and during the latter years of his premiership, I was closer to the latter), he is a supremely talented politician, almost certainly the most talented of his generation. He has a natural aura that transcends the individual words or phrases that he uses (which, as an aside, are impeccably crafted soundbites), and appears to radiate out from the stage. Watching him you can begin to appreciate not only how he led a country to war on flimsy evidence, but also how he brought together seemingly irreconcilable groups in Northern Ireland. It was sheer force of personality.

Since 2007, British political commentators have doggedly sought to attach the label “Britain’s Obama” to an as yet undiscovered, British, progressive messiah who can lift the Labour Party back to its glory days. And yet the simple truth is that we have had a politician with the talent, charisma and ability of the 44th President of the United States. Strip away the political differences between the two men and it’s clear to see – Blair was Briatin’s Obama. He was a man who in his heyday thousands would have queued up to see. He has the hundred watt smile that can bring a room to their feet.

You may dismiss this as the rantings of a deluded uber-Blairite, and yet, no Blairite am I. On the contrary, I joined the party on June 27th 2007, the day that Blair stood down as Prime Minister. The man who took us to war in Iraq, introduced tuition fees and sought, at times, to define himself against the party he led, was in the end the only stumbling block between me and the party of which I am now a proud member. I couldn’t bring myself to join a Labour led by Blair. He was never my party leader. And yet, still, today I felt the awesome power of his political skill, charm, charisma or whatever else you might wish to call it. Today I saw the most talented Labour politician, probably of my lifetime, return to the stage and wow a crowd (albeit one of true believers), with a performance that far surpassed anything his successors as Labour leader of Prime Minister have shown themselves capable of.

And for that reason, I, and everyone else in that room today, should forget that Blair existed.

That’s not to argue that we should ignore the lessons of the Blair years (although what those lessons are is a matter for debate and a separate article on it’s own) but by comparing each subsequent Labour leader to Blair, we do the party, and ourselves, an injustice. Blair was a one off, a not to be repeated one time only offer. If we try to pick a new Blair, or use him as our gauge for success, we’ll only go through the growing pains experienced by the Tories ten years ago. Seeking a new Thatcher, they lumbered from mistake to mistake. In the end Cameron was no more talented than Hague. He was, like Blair in 94, simply the right man for the right hour.

Blair put it well himself this afternoon. Confronted on the branding of the party, and the need to drop the “New”, Blair said he didn’t care much. The name could go, and it was important too that the personalities moved on. These are all distractions, he seemed to suggest, from the real matters at hand.

So let’s admit to ourselves, that Blair is gone, that his era has ended, New Labour is finished and that there cannot and should not be a return to what we should really now call “Old New” Labour. That chapter of our history is over. We must forget Tony and move on, allow him to drift into the pages o the history books and instead look forwards, or we’re doomed to be the 1994 re-enactment society for the next few years. We can do better than that.

And 1994 Tony, who began this journey, would expect us to look forwards too.