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PM David Cameron's early Christmas present

By Jonathan J. Ariel - posted Tuesday, 25 August 2015


A key theme of Corbyn's campaign and for that matter, much of the messaging from his predecessor, Ed Milliband is the rusted on hostility to everything Tony Blair stood for. Goodbye "New Labour" and hello "Old Labour".

Outside the party, the anti-Blairists have also been beating their drums. Often in the media.

Very red meat was tossed recently towards those expressing disdain towards Tony Blair in the form of the outrageous book, Blair Inc. The Man behind the Mask. "Outrageous" in the sense that it is "appalling" in promising so much, but delivering so little. It was penned by Francis Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan.

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The first two are journalists with unconcealed sympathies for socialism. Beckett has written for The Guardian and The Independent. His work for the New Statesman provided the munitions for the leftist strike on Tony Blair's New Labour.

Hencke spent 33 years writing for The Guardian and now contributes to Tribune Magazine, a Labour leaning fortnightly publication.

The third wheel, Nick Kochan, is a finance journalist who has written for a wide array of publications.

The book is what is commonly called a "hack job". Its focus is squarely on Blair and not New Labour's policies. It offers much smoke but no fire.

Blair apparently can do no right in his post Westminster life.

After handing in the keys to No. 10 to Gordon Brown, Blair scooted to Jerusalem as the Middle East Representative of the Quartet (the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia). While his remit was one with an economic focus, the authors let fly with accusations that he was ignoring (pro-Arab) foreign policies and on the ground did not support the Arab side (against the Israelis) enough. He is accused of spending most of time promoting his friends at J P Morgan to share in every business opportunity that came his way in the "disputed territories". To "make" their case, the authors lap up criticism of Blair from the Palestinian apologist Hanan Ashrawi, as though it was gospel.

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Blair is condemned for not spending enough time in the region and not giving his work for the Quartet his "all". He is compared unflatteringly with his predecessor, James Wolfensohn, a former president of the World Bank. In the eyes of the authors, Wolfensohn took his job seriously and actually lived in the region, whereas Blair did neither.

Blair wears many hats: diplomat, businessman, charity worker, fundraiser etc. The authors' chief criticism is that it's hard to know which hat is on when he ponies up to a meeting with, say, leaders of the Gulf States. Is he pushing peace, faith (he runs a faith based foundation), education, direct commercial opportunities for himself or arranging deals for his well-heeled clients and snipping a few percent for himself? Or is he doing all of the above?

Who knows? And frankly, should we care?

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About the Author

Jonathan J. Ariel is an economist and financial analyst. He holds a MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management. He can be contacted at jonathan@chinamail.com.

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