One of the reasons why Sir Tony Blair was Labour’s longest-serving and, certainly in domestic matters, most successful prime minister is that, both while preparing for power and then while in it, he possessed an obvious youthful wisdom. Now, almost two decades after he left Downing Street, and in his most dramatic intervention yet, he brings that same wise counsel, tempered by experience, to bear on his party’s current travails.
As ever, he is worth listening to. His diagnosis is as sharp as it was when he was running for party leader back in 1994. Despite a hugely changed world and political context – or rather, because of it – Labour can only prosper by occupying what Sir Tony calls the “radical centre”. It is a phrase he may have picked up from a mentor of his own, who was a leader of an earlier generation of social democrats: Roy Jenkins. It means putting policy success – “delivery” – above all else.
