Eddie Barnes: The Future's Bright; the Future's Orange (Tony)

JUST finished watching Tony Blair. Even Tommy Sheridan has never managed to match the extraordinary orangeness of Blair's skin colour. I've never seen anything like it in my life.

As to the content of his speech, it amounted to a Man of the World summation of the global crisis, and a full-on critique of the Conservative strategy. The Tories were, he said, caught between what they believed in and what they thought they had to say in order to win. Hence the confusion over their policy on the NHS, law and order, Europe, and the economy. This, of course, was in total contrast to New Labour of the mid-90s. All those changes weren't motivated by the desire to win an election but because Tony and the gang believed in them all.

All very interesting, but there's something bigger going on here, evident both in Blair's speech today and the Chancellors' debate from last night. Today, Blair focussed relentlessly on the record of Brown and Darling during and after the financial crisis. Meanwhile, last night, Darling, Osborne and Cable all similarly discussed everything in the context of the crash - the deficit, the coming public sector squeeze, tax cuts, etc, all are explained by the credit crunch that preceeded them. The point is that the big crash of '08 has become the ground zero of this election campaign. Nothing before it matters a jot. In fact nothing else matters period.

This is good news for Labour, as it is helping them to obscure the main campaigning point of the Tories: that this lot have been in for 13 years, and that therefore we need change. But when October '08 is the base line, they've only been in for one and a bit years, and the change message becomes weakened. It be interesting to see how the Tories are going to challenge this.

NB. There will be a lot of talk no doubt about whether Labour is wise to have wheeled out Blair today, but I get the impression that this isn't so much a calculation, as the fact that all these Labour die-hards just want to be part of their cause's Final Campaign. This, as they will see it, is their life's work now being challenged - not just by the Tories, but by a new, younger, generation of politicians. It is their last hurrah - the final time any of them will get to taste the thrill of the fight, and they want to be here at the End. You can almost picture Blair et all as the characters of a classic war movie where the soon-to-be-defeated heroes rally for one last battle. "Wouldn't want to be anywhere else but right 'ere, sarg......it's been an honour serving with you Corporal....we've 'ad some good times, ain't we, Sarg?....Bloody good times, Corporal." (heads towards gunfire...patriotic music plays....credits roll....The End)

Gerri Peev: Forget Blair for El Presidente, what about Boris?

David Cameron should be careful what he wishes for. Clearly, he doesn't want Tony Blair to overshadow his own ascent to power. Imagine Barack Obama skipping London and heading straight to Brussels to deal with President Blair instead of Prime Minister Cameron.
As the Tory leader said, he does not want an "all singing, all dancing, all acting" president in the form of Blair. The truth is, Blair is a smoother, more experienced and better version of Cameron than Cameron. Perhaps, however, he should be mindful that should Britain miss out this time but have a chance for the second pop at the presidency, the alternative could be just as dangerous.
Sources tell me that Boris Johnson may not want to serve more than one term as London Mayor. Again, Cameron is slightly nervous about Boris coming back to Westminster in some senior capacity and possibly challenging him for the top job in future. After all, he is the only contemporary Tory leader with any experience of government. So how about Boris Johnson for EU President? He went to an international school in Brussels while his dad was a Eurocrat. He also frequently boasts of his Ottoman heritage - quite useful in the current context of the EU debate about whether or not to let Turkey in. And the timing could also work. Boris' term as London Mayor is set to end in the middle of 2012 - around the same time that the first term of an EU president was up for grabs....

David Maddox: Dealing with Britain's Nazis

You can understand why when Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP (pictured top right), came to make his acceptance speech the other seven victorious MEPs for the North West of England as one turned their backs and vacated the stage.

No doubt none of them wanted to be pictured sharing a platform with a man who represents some of the more odious elements in British politics and the act was an understandable sign of their disgust and rejection of all that he stood for.

But, think on this. For the past few weeks the news agenda has been full of how the politicians in main parties in British have being doing their best to prove how unfit they are to govern. As each day has passed by we have seen how they have been helping each other to help themselves at the trough of public munificence in the MPs expenses scandal.

At the same time there has been a concerted campaign by these so called "establishment" parties to dissuade voters from turning to the BNP.

And the BNP has throughout portrayed itself as the victim of an establishment plot, the "clean" party on the outside of the corruption but on the side of the people which the main parties want to keep out.

It is of course all spin to cover its racist core, but when the main the representatives of the main parties walked off the stage together like they did in Manchester, they simply reinforced the image which the BNP has used to successfully gain a foothold in British politics.

Like it or not Griffin and his followers are now part of the democratic process and have been elected to office by the rules that govern our democracy. For that we can thank Tony Blair and his bizarre decision against the will of many of his Labour colleagues to accept the Liberal Democrats demands of introducing proportional representation.

There was no need for Mr Blair to do this, it was born out of New Labour's arrogance in the heady days of the late 1990s that people would always love them and that PR could guarantee a centre left Lib/ Lab government for generations to come with the Conservatives and Nationalists forever kept out. The test bed, Scotland, has since proven this assumption wrong with the SNP's famous victory in 2007, although arguably PR has worked North of the border to a point.

But with the European elections the critics have been proven right. Opponents of PR always warned that it would open the door to extremists and not just "cuddly" fringe groups like the Greens or more reasonable Nationalists like the SNP and Plaid Cymru. Now we have BNP MEPs and we can only be thankful that Blair was prevented from introducing PR for Westminster.

So given this new political reality the main parties would do better, perhaps, to clean up their own act and take on the BNP through proper debate instead of taking an approach that bolsters their pretence that they are the "victims of British politics" kept on the outside by a dysfunctional elite.

David Maddox: Don't mention the "G" word

Why is it that in Britain we shudder when a politician wears his or her religious faith on his or her sleeve?
It was interesting to see the coverage of Tony Blair this morning giving the sermon at President Obama's National Prayer Breakfast and some of the comments he had to make.
In particular there was the disdain shown by civil servants when he wanted to end a speech as Prime Minister: "God bless the British people." Similar to the closing line of almost any presidential address in the USA.
"The system was aghast," he recollected "As I sat trying to defend my words a senior civil servant said with utter disdain, 'Really prime minister, this is not America you know.'"
It is not as if the distaste for religion is not well known among many people employed by the state. You only have to look at the annual round of town hall bashing at Christmas because Nativity displays or school re-enactments of the birth of Jesus have been banned by the local council.
It was noticeable too that Mr Blair was extremely reluctant to talk about his faith while he was still PM, and delayed his formal conversion to Catholicism until after leaving office, even though he attended Catholic mass most Sundays. Then there was the famous spat with Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman when he asked, in his usual sneering fashion, if he had prayed with George W. Bush.
But the British reluctance to have religion on display is also true in continental Europe where overtly religious politicians also are distrusted. Even in Italy, the home of Catholicism, many state schools too will not have re-enactments of the Nativity for fear of offending some minority religious group.
However, the antipathy towards religious expression is strange in Britain considering that 44 million lay claim to believing in God, about two thirds of the population. In Scotland it is 3.3 million, 67 per cent.
In Scotland the reluctance to talk about religion seems to be less than in other parts of the UK. There is a small fringe party, the Greens, that has become a focus of anti-religious sentiment and hardline secularism, while the others are happy to engage with religious leaders on issues such as nuclear disarmament and even ethical issues like abortion. Alex Salmond has noticeably cosied up to the outspoken Catholic church leaders and there are MSPs happy to put their church affiliation on their profiles. But you will be lucky to find one who talks about how their faith shapes their lives and their politics.
The problem is that when a person makes a lot of their religious belief then it is assumed that he or she is an extremist of some fashion which is why politicians, with rare exceptions like Anne Widdicombe, avoid talking about it.
Which brings us back to Tony Blair and the Prayer Breakfast. In his speech where he mentioned the word God 31 times, he alluded to the "unholy alliance" of aggressive secularists and religious extremists. His message was that the danger is that if moderates are not willing to talk about or even be identified with their faith, then the extremists will become the image of all believers and the anti-religious lobby will have all the justification they need.

David Maddox: For Foulkes Sake (5)

As yesterday was 12th night or Epiphany to give it its proper title, like many other people around the Christian (and materialistic) world I took down my Christmas decorations. It gave me a chance to take one last close look at the various Christmas cards I received and one in particular caught my eye.
The card in question was from Lord George Foulkes, Baron of Cumnock and list MSP for the Lothians, with an illustration of old men buying peerages. The picture is the famous Fountain of Honour cartoon by Stranger Prichard depicting the scandal of former Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George selling titles. It is now part of the House of Lords art collection.
It took little to remind me that the most recent cash for honours scandal involved the government in which Lord Foulkes served as a minister and lead to Yates of the Yard questioning a certain Anthony Charles Lynton Blair of 10, Downing Street, Westminster. So all in all it shows a remarkable ability of the good Lord to be able to laugh at one of his party's darkest moments.
There is of course no suggestion that the Baronacy of Cumnock was purchased through any means other than hard work and steadfast loyalty.