When Tony Blair’s government liberalised gambling, smartphones were still the stuff of science fiction. Sir Alan Budd, who wrote the 2001 review that the 2005 Gambling Act was based on, recently conceded in a House of Lords inquiry that “no …
The ghost of Blair haunts Sedgefield
To understand Blairism and its lessons for Keir Starmer, I go to Trimdon, a former pit village near Darlington where, on May 11, 1983, Tony Blair knocked on John Burton’s door. Burton was a teacher and the secretary of the …
Is Tony Blair Labour’s future?
Fifteen years after he stood down as Prime Minister, 25 after he was elected, Blair still deserves to be listened to. The three Labour leaders after him — Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, and Jeremy Corbyn — defined themselves against Tony, …
The rise of Cruel Britannia
In a properly ordered universe, there would have been a general election in the autumn of 1994. Certainly the country was ready for change. After 15 years in power, the Conservatives were exhausted, divided and lacking the will to govern. …
How Blair broke Britain
Tony Blair is hated up and down the land but not in Islington, and not in Labour HQ. Speaking to the FT last summer, Keir Starmer embraced Blair’s legacy. “We have to be proud of that record in government,” he …
Tony Blair’s war on reality
“I have always believed that politics is first and foremost about ideas,” Blair declared in 1998. At the time, it was probably meant as a dig at the grey-toned, sleaze-riddled Tory administration that had clung to power, seemingly without vision …
New Labour was beyond parody
We all knew it was coming. Blair’s ascension had been heavily trailed for months. It would have taken a miracle to stop the landslide. The Conservatives looked preposterously old-fashioned, tired and boring. You could say what you liked about young …
Cherie Blair’s class war
It started on the morning after Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997. His wife, Cherie Booth, was photographed answering the door to a delivery of flowers at their home in north London. She was still in her nightie and looked …
We are all Teletubbies now
Is children’s TV programming actually made for ravers? It’s a long time since my last pharmacologically-assisted all-nighter, but I have vivid memories of watching programming aimed at the under-fives at breakfast time, having not yet been to bed.
The bright …
The abject failure of Cool Britannia
Storm Eunice tore the Millennium Dome’s PTFE-coated fibreglass roof to shreds over the weekend. In the footage that circulated on social media, the steel struts that make up the underlying structure lie unnervingly exposed, like a whale carcass on the …
Australia is ruled by clowns
Of all the absurdities currently plaguing Australia’s political class, perhaps the most revealing is the recent surge in voters Googling “April Sun in Cuba”. For the uninitiated, April Sun in Cuba is a Seventies song by New Zealand band Dragon. …