Labour left reeling by Blair memoir
By Ian Dunt
Labour has been left reeling by the publication of Tony Blair’s memoirs, with various factions trying to work out how to position themselves in the wake of his intervention into the party’s politics.
Gordon Brown, who suffered a no-holds-barred attack from Mr Blair in the book, has for the time being held his fire, although some media reports indicate he is biding his time until the party conference later this month.
But other victims of Mr Blair’s pen, such as shadow education secretary and Brown ally Ed Balls, have been quick to rebut claims against them.
Reminded that Mr Blair said he did not ‘get’ aspiration politics, Mr Balls told Channel 4 News: “I’m afraid that the conclusion we all reached in the end was that Tony didn’t get it.
“The reason Tony stepped down was he had lost the trust of the British people and I am afraid he had become out of touch with the aspirations of working people, many of whom moved away from us.”
Speaking to Radio 2 today, Mr Balls said he had called Mr Brown last night to say how he disapproved of mr Blair’s comments.
“I spoke to [Brown] last night. I rang him at the end of the day to say I thought it was really harsh, some of the things which were being said in that book. It was so one-sided. I didn’t think it was comradely,” he said.
As Labour tried desperately to row back from all-out civil war, the book steadily climbed up the bestseller list.
“We’ve never seen a book like this sell so quickly in one day. It was by some way the biggest selling book for Waterstone’s yesterday,” a Waterstones spokesperson said.
“This is a serious book, a heavyweight political memoir. It’s selling in the sort of numbers you don’t see outside of mass-market fiction with huge appeal – Dan Brown and JK Rowling are the competition here.
“We are bowled over. We are immensely pleased with the performance of the book on day one.”
Careful worldwide marketing, which saw extensive media appearances on international news channels, is expected to boost international sales as well as those in the UK.
Labour members, who are currently receiving ballot papers for the leadership, will be dismayed that the most jubilant reaction of the day came from the Conservatives, who cited Mr Blair’s views on fiscal policy as evidence that he backed their deficit reduction plan.
“The coalition government is winning the argument on cutting the deficit to get the economy moving,” said Tory chairman Baroness Warsi.
“Now even Tony Blair has backed it. As he says in his book, taxpayers foot the bill if governments don’t tackle deficits because a lack of confidence would stop the recovery in its tracks.”
In truth, Mr Blair’s sympathy for the coalition government did not end at economic policy. He was keen not to criticise David Cameron during his interview with Andrew Marr and seemed full of respect for the new prime minister.
David Miliband has the most to lose from publication of the book. Mr Blair was careful not to explicitly endorse the shadow foreign secretary in his TV interview or the book, but he made no bones about the fact it was obvious who he was backing.
That implicit statement of support is potentially ruinous for David Miliband, who went out of his way to disassociate himself from his former mentor today.
“I’m sick and tired of the caricature that this leadership election is a choice between rejecting or retaining New Labour,” he wrote to Labour members.
“It does a disservice to all of the candidates and, even worse, a disservice to the thousands of members who’ve been participating in this contest over the last few months and working hard for years.”
The comments were interpreted as a rebuttal to Mr Blair’s claims that Labour had lost the 2010 general election because it abandoned the ‘New Labour’ model and veered slightly leftward.
David Miliband then hit out against the infighting and personality battles that typified Labour’s times in power.
“I want to change the way we do politics. Because I want to lead a government not a gang, a movement not a machine, where honest debate can be a source of strength, not a sign of weakness,” he said.
“I respect both Tony and Gordon deeply. But their time has passed. Their names do not appear on the leadership ballots.
“And now we need to stop their achievements being sidelined and their failings holding us back.”
Speaking on Cahnnel 4 News last night he went even further, saying: “There’s always a danger, isn’t there, that generals fight the last war.
“The truth is that both under Tony in the last couple of years of his premiership and under Gordon we did not reinvigorate the Labour project.”
Ed Miliband tried to make best use of Mr Blair’s intervention to remind Labour members that he was the ‘change’ candidate, signalling the greatest break from the past, especially in terms of civil liberties, foreign policy and economics.
“I think Tony Blair is wrong. I think Tony Blair is a great politician, he has served our country and our party well,” he said.
“But I’m afraid he, along with others, is stuck in a New Labour comfort zone.
“The truth is that unless we change our attitude on a whole range of things that New Labour took for granted, like flexible labour markets that mean low pay and bad working conditions for people, tuition fees and ID cards, unless we change we are not going to win again.
“So Tony was a great servant to us in the past, I don’t think he’s right about the future.”
Andy Burnham said: “When Tony Blair says we don’t need to move a millimetre away from New Labour I think he has not been on doorsteps recently and he has not recognised how we came to be seen.”
Diane Abbott said: “It’s certainly the case that Tony Blair gave us three great election victories but over that period we lost five million voters.”
The new Labour leader will be decided on September 25th.
