Tony Blair may itch to return, but he faces a cruel reality check
Britain in its hour of trouble needs a Tony Blair. It has a queen, a prime minister, a chancellor, a leader of the opposition, but it is deficient in Tony Blairs. Or that is what Tony Blair thinks. He last year earned £20m from this and that, and feels that now his purpose "is not to make money but to make a difference". The old phraseology still brings a tear to the eye.
The result has been impressive. A "comeback team" has assembled under "Tony Blair Associates" in London, in the style of an early contender for an American primary. It is not yet T-shirts and interns, but two interviews have been graciously awarded to the BBC and one each to the Financial Times and Daily Telegraph. Blair has "guest edited" the Evening Standard. He has appeared at a £500-a-plate Arsenal dinner with Ed Miliband, a faith seminar with the archbishop of Canterbury, and a Labour reception for Keith Vaz. The choreography is immaculate.
Blair's contribution to economic policy is that "Britain must not hang 20 bankers at the end of the street", a dutiful nod in the direction of his £2m salary from JP Morgan. He is an adviser to Kazakhstan on human rights and to the Labour party on Olympics legacy, a double whammy of hopeless causes. The Kazakh dictator, Nursultan Nazarbayev, apparently paid him $13m to eulogise his odious regime in a state video and applaud him for "subtlety and ingenuity … in a region fraught with difficulties".
SNIP
In a book analysing "hubris syndrome" (covering many world leaders), David Owen recalled how Blair dismissed an official who cautioned him on Iraq, by saying: "You are Neville Chamberlain, I am Winston Churchill and Saddam is Hitler." We can see why Blair admitted to Roy Jenkins that he regretted not having studied history. Owen quoted Justin Frank on narcissistic personality disorder, or megalomania, in which a leader "is indifferent to any damage he caused [when in office] because he always had a reason for his actions; he is without guilt or compassion, and incapable of even thinking about reparation". Witness Blair's appearance before Chilcot.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/26/tony-blair-itch-return-reality-shock
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