Typical Blair - pulling the rug from under a successor's feet. As someone else has noted, Blair was never Labour, hence, "New Labour", i.e., slightly watered down Thatcherism. If Milliband had any guts he would be fighting for the real Labour party instead of shufflying around trying desperately to sound not too anti-Tory. The problem with our politicians is that they all look to that dysfunctional society across the Atlantic for their ideas, instead of to our neighbours in northern Europe. None of them can even think that it is possible to increase taxes to provide effective public services and instead want to privatise - leading to greater costs for the consumer and more public money in the bonuses of the super-rich management class. I work part of my time in Sweden and the contrast between the thriving towns and cities in that country and the urban disasters in the UK is striking.

Tony Blair said yesterday that he read religious books rather than history books - every day in fact.

Blair doesn't understand Economics, or history, his only interest is religion and the clashes between religions. That's what really gets him excited and his eyes start to revolve.

His ignorance of history is such he does not even know what happened in Egypt and Iran in the fifties. The trouble is interviewers are usually too ignorant to trip him up, so Blair gets away with being an ignoramus.

He has been sucking up to Cameron for 12 months because he wants to slide into a job somewhere. He wants out of his Middle-East envoy job because he knows he has made pigs ear of it.

@ J Hill
Agree with you about Blair and I also didn't and wouldn't vote for him. I also think Alex Salmond is far shrewder than all his UK peers.

Tony the Great Reformer naturally wants his work to continue whoever is in power. But Tony is mistaken in thinking that he can influence events anymore. It just that the events have now assumed a momentum of ther own and nothing will stop them.

Ed is not going to take any advice from a 'mass murderer'. Blair should be in jail, not praising the Tories and harming the Labour party. I wish he'd just go away.

I like to think if any member of the 1945 Labour Party met Tony Blair today, they'd punch him in the face.

To be fair, Blair does himself no favours here. Labour's "ideological past" is the New Labour disaster, so it's nice to see he is still in a state of absolute denial. Booting Blair out of the party would probably do Labour a lot of good, as it would be the true start of a break from the past and allow a line to be drawn under Iraq (Blair's policy), and allow Blair to move to the Tories (since he is one in all but name). Then watch the Tories' support slowly dissolve away by association with the nation's favourite criminal.

Blair is a conservative who highjacked the Labour Party. By quoting Tony Blair in a speech Ed Miliband has proven he doesn't belong in the Labour Party.

At last! Blair has finally given up the pretence of being anything other than the Tory he always was. Govern from the centre my arse. Follow the neoliberal agenda come what may more like.

When is this horrible man going to bundled into a plane heading to The Hague?

John Smith must be turning in his grave.

I've thought about this subject a great deal over the last 14 or so years. After much reflection, I've come to a firm conclusion:

Blair is a twat.

And there it is.

He should be stripped of his membership and barred from the party permanently.

Dear me, you lefties always want to punch people. I don't know why you didn't select Jon Prescott as your leader.

Blair endorses the NHS and Education reforms is consistent with his political ideology .He is a Thatcherite tory who has more in common with John Redwood than he does with David Cameron .Blair is a market fundamentalist.He believes that only market solutions can drive up standards in schools and hospitals .He supports the austerity measures of the coalition .He has nothing to say on reform of the financial system .I don't understand why he doesn't join the coalition because he has more in common with tories than he does with Lib Dems or the Labour Party .If Labour followed his strategy it would be a mirror image of the government .Tony you adocate choice in the private realm ,however you want the public to have know choice on which government they choose collectively at election time .I think it is time for you to become the leader of the coalition because you could sell the policies far more effectively than Cameron or Osborne .You are the best salesmen of your generation .

Sorry but what on earth does being left or right have to do with any of this? Can't we just agree this guy and his ilk are liers and profiteers?

I don't believe Blair understands the detail of coalition policies. He always went on gut feeling even with his own govt policies. He was all for the Internet years before he so much as sent an email.

Blair was a winner and implemented more left of centre policies than all the other Labour Governments from 1960 onwards, says the Whig.

The irony needs no explanation.

Blair hated his party. It's about time we hated him back. And don't let his Followers back in charge.

Blair doesn't understand Economics, or history, his only interest is religion and the clashes between religions. That's what really gets him excited and his eyes start to revolve. His ignorance of history is such he does not even know what happened in Egypt and Iran in the fifties. The trouble is interviewers are usually too ignorant to trip him up, so Blair gets away with being an ignoramus. http://www.pc-geeks.org/

Kippers

Do you have any evidence to back up your assertions ? By evidence I don't mean the opinions of vested interests which you lazily try and pass off as facts.

"Do you have any evidence to back up your assertions ?"

For the last 10 years I have been asking politicians to back up their own assertions about the desirability of choice and completition in public services, and I am still waiting for some answers. It is assumed that the involvement of private companies must bring some benefit, but it has not been demonstrated. Have Academies driven up standards in secondary education? Have they been innovative? We don't know. Blair makes the assertion and Gove makes the assertion, but they are just assertions. The evidence hasn't been produced.

Blair was good box office - for a few years. He was able to use spin to persuade different groups of people that he would meet their aspirations even when those aspirations were opposed. But then people woke up to the fact that it was spin. They realised that there wasn't much substance.