It never ceases to amaze me how Tony Blair's skill as a salesman manages to blind his conference audience to the flaws in his premiership. It's partly his breathtaking audacity. Even he couldn't keep a straight face when praising Ken Livingstone ("a great London Mayor") - and, lest we forget, the man Blair fought tooth and nail to try to keep from that job. Fulsome praise for London does not disguise the fact that it was Blair's military action in Iraq that put the capital's citizens at risk from terrorism, a warning he was given by the Joint Intelligence Committee and chose to disregard. Blair's resilience and powers of self-belief always were extraordinary, but now they're coupled to a desperate desire not to go before he has achieved something that will eclipse the memory of Iraq. Something; anything. Dramatic and lasting reform, unequivocal success, irreversible change. Yet all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten that little hand, nor Neptune's oceans wash it clean. As Shakespeare's Macbeth said:
. . . I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Strange things I have in head that will to hand,
Which must be acted ere they
may be scanned.
Strange things indeed. Gordon must wait: for the next few years, this government will be fuelled by Blair's personal ambition; and there are few more powerful forces in politics than that. The rest of us had better fasten our seat belts: it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Given all the talk of coded speeches from the platform, it might be an idea to have a political interpreter at the side of the stage relaying in sign language what's really being said. Certainly it's a practice used over the years to help people with hearing difficulties (genuine ones, not the selective deafness that afflicts the party leader). A couple of years ago, Labour decided to experiment with surtitles above the stage. As the speakers addressed the conference, their words were transcribed - in real time - on to a screen behind the speaker's head. A good idea, or so it seemed, until Ian McCartney started his speech. A combination of his high-pitched Scottish accent and the speed of his delivery defeated the transcribers, with the result that the words that appeared on the screen bore only a passing resemblance to what he was saying. It then dawned on the horrified organisers that if the system was struggling to follow McCartney, the appearance of John Prescott the following day would cause it to blow up entirely. The surtitles duly came down, and the Deputy PM's speech was relayed in sign language as usual. Ironic, when you consider that Prescott himself has slightly impaired hearing. Probably the result of years spent in the Blair/Brown crossfire.
Back to the Tory Leadership Race (can it really be called a "race" - except in the sense of sack race, or that embarrassing sports day event, the fathers' race?). Anyway, by a happy coincidence, the contest coincides with the finals of the ITV talent show The X Factor, where wannabe pop stars are selected and groomed by a panel of Simon Cowell, Sharon Osbourne and the other bloke. It's hard to think of any of the Tory hopefuls having the X Factor, though Ken Clarke and Malcolm Rifkind can at least boast the Ex Factor. But it still seems to me that the Conservatives need to decide what sort of party they want to be before they choose the next leader. Withdrawal timetables are the flavour of the month at the moment (Iraq, Gaza, Tony Blair) but Michael Howard's exit strategy is by some margin the most urgent ("I'm a Calamity, get me out of here"). He rather movingly told his conference last year that this country had given him everything and he wanted to put "just a little bit back". Well, he wasn't exaggerating there, was he?
Advertisers like to refer to the contents of your iPod as "the soundtrack of your life". I've got David Davis, Simon Hughes and Hazel Blears on mine. Something, somewhere has gone terribly wrong. The thought occurs that I should change either my life or my iPod. Or both.
Bremner, Bird and Fortune is on Channel 4 (Sundays, 8pm)
