And he left his hairpiece to Battersea Dogs Home
It has 現れるd that the BBC is 準備するing Tony Blair's obituary. Although he wishes him a long life, an irreverent QUENTIN LETTS imagines what the film may show...
元気づけるs: A （人が）群がる of 支持者s 迎える／歓迎する new 総理大臣 Tony Blair as he arrives, with wife Cherie, at 負かす／撃墜するing Street in 1997
開始 scene: 負かす／撃墜するing Street, May 1997, and a tumult 迎える／歓迎するs 総理大臣 Tony Blair as he arrives to take 力／強力にする. 旗-waving. Poppy hype. He 作品 his way 負かす／撃墜する the line of 支持者s, shaking 手渡すs.
The film 削減（する）s to the modern day: a shrivelled, baleful character with the 激しい 注目する，もくろむs of 脚本家 Samuel Beckett and the oblong skull of Herman Munster.
He is dressed in jogging gear. A subtitle identifies him as ‘Alastair Campbell, ex-communications 長，指導者’.?
‘We nailed the image from day one,’ drawls Campbell. ‘The Tories didn’t know what had 攻撃する，衝突する them. I was 告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d with wrenching a dusty 政府 （警察などへの）密告，告訴（状） machine into a turbo-告発（する），告訴（する）／料金d Porsche. Tony ― who was always a lot more ruthless than his image 示唆するd ― told me not to mess about.
‘So we stuffed 負かす／撃墜するing Street with stooges and made it look as though the whole of Britain was wetting its pants for Blair. Pretty neat. You guys at the Beeb fell for it, not that you needed much 激励.
‘現実に, the Tory 投票（する） in 1997 was a fair bit bigger than 労働’s in 2010, when some of us 主張するd that 労働 保持するd wide support. But, hey, this is politics. Truth is for maiden aunts.’
The obituary continues. It shows Blair with that weirdly tweezered hairdo in 対立. It shows him winning a bicycle race at his first European 首脳会議. It shows him 反応するing to Princess Diana’s death and his overdone 配達／演説／出産 of a lesson at Diana’s funeral.?
Simon Callow, the actor, 支払う／賃金s 尊敬の印. ‘Tony? Remarkable ham. One of the very best. And I say that as something of a 最高の，を越す-階級 gammon myself.’
Callow, dabbing a 涙／ほころび, watches （映画の）フィート数 of Blair’s ‘手渡す of history’ 発言／述べる in Northern Ireland during peace 会談. Hoarse with wonder, Callow says:? ‘See what I mean? 熟した as 黒人／ボイコット? 気が狂って. Genius!’
戦略の advice: 'We nailed the image from day one' drawls Alastair Campbell. 'The Tories didn't know what had 攻撃する，衝突する them'
As the images of 早期に Blair spool 前へ／外へ, we are struck by the youthfulness of ‘Bambi’, as he was 最初 known.
He was the youngest 首相 for more than 100 years. His 選挙 in 1997 felt all the zingier 借りがあるing to the tiredness of the 出発／死ing Tory 政権. Blair was, if nothing else, an opportunist, a surfer who made the most of his wave.
Then on comes a fruity old Herbert in silk cravat and a Noel Coward dressing gown. Maybe a hint of eyeshadow. He speaks with a faint lisp 負担d with menace. Yes, it’s Peter Mandelson!
賞賛する: 'Tony was certainly a fresh 直面する,' coos Peter Mandelson
‘Tony was certainly a fresh 直面する,’ he says. ‘Attractive? Some said so.’ A slow, 殺し屋 smile.
‘All we were 利益／興味d in was newness. Most important word in the political dictionary, “new”. New 労働. New Britain. New men!’
Like anything said by Mandelson, it is a mixture of the shrewd and the （軍の）野営地，陣営, but he is 訂正する that novelty was Blairism’s most potent 武器, and that for a few years the party 住むd the ‘zeitgeist’.
It was at 緩和する with the 選挙民, certainly, even if that 伴う／関わるd a 確かな 廃止 of moral leadership in public life.
Its most long-継続している 影響s （機の）カム from the 課税 of 明言する／公表する egalitarianism and the 弱めるing of 形式順守, both socially and in education.
It was only when the 対立 保守的なs finally chose a leader who was trendier than Blair that Blairism was trumped.
Mr Cameron’s ‘you were the 未来 once’ line against Blair at PMQs is shown.
A spidery, academic man in late middle-age 分析 the 発言／述べる. ‘After that line, it was always going to be difficult to bounce 支援する,’ 収容する／認めるs Professor David Miliband of Harvard University.
The problem was that Blairism 含む／封じ込めるd the seeds of its own 破壊. His Messianic rhetoric and shallowness became a game of ever-smaller returns.
The 製造者s of the Blair television obituary have little difficulty in finding a proper 社会主義者 ― Clare Short, as it happens ― to speak about the 欠如（する） of a philosophical basis in Blairism.
'Proper' 社会主義: 労働 MP Clare Short (left) famously 辞職するd over the Iraq war
And then up pops Ed Balls, speaking 経由で Skype from 共産主義者 Cuba, where he now lives in a commune for retired 革命のs.
‘When I
について言及するd neo-endogenous growth to Tony, he thought I was talking about a new form of 癌 we could 扱う／治療する on the NHS,’ says Balls, his Che Guevara beret 始める，決める at a jaunty angle.
の中で these alarming cameos, we are able to 反映する on the 遺産／遺物 of the man they are talking about.
Retrospect: Tony Blair could have saved himself a lot of trouble by 解雇（する）ing Gordon Brown as （ドイツなどの）首相／（大学の）学長
What is 半端物 is how little the Blairites 試みる／企てるd in political 条件. Their hesitancy was ― depending on how you 見解（をとる） these things ― a lost 適切な時期 or a の近くに shave.
Had the first-称する，呼ぶ／期間／用語 Blair only 所有するd a clearer picture of his strength, he might have 解雇（する）d Gordon Brown as （ドイツなどの）首相／（大学の）学長 and taken us into the euro.
Is it too far-fetched to 示唆する that had Blair 掴むd on anti-royalist emotions after Princess Diana’s death, he could have 取り去る／解体するd the 君主国? But that would have been the 行為／法令／行動する of an ideologue, and Blair was certainly not that. He was, after, all, fanatical about? 焦点（を合わせる） groups and the 週刊誌 opinion 投票s.
Model visits: A casually-dressed Blair was anxious to be seen with 軍隊／機動隊s in Iraq and Afghan istan
Other must-have clips in the BBC obit 含む one of Blair’s shirt-sleeved trips to Iraq or Afghanistan. Male model visits 前線 line!
We are also told, en passant, how Cherie (now a recluse who lives behind a high hedge in a stately home in Buckinghamshire) used to take her Mayfair hairdresser, Andre Suard, on foreign trips.
Whoever 説得するd M. Suard that his 協会 with fashion-災害 Cherie would be good for his 評判? ‘That were one of Peter Mandelson’s ruddy little jokes,’ 爆発するs an 年輩の curmudgeon in string vest.
The caption advises us that this is ‘Lord Prescott of Kingston Upon Ull in t’郡 of East Yorksheer’.
The years に引き続いて the end of Mr Blair’s 首相の職 were, the obit 公式文書，認めるs, of sparse 利益／興味.
Mr Blair made money from speeches. He wrote lucrative memoirs. He filled his coffers by running errands for international banks. He 受託するd a メダル from the U.S. 議会.
But in his own land he was shunned. Was it the findings of the Chilcot 調査 into the Iraq War? Maybe. But no 事柄 what officialdom said, Tony Blair was regarded by his former admirers as shifty. Phoney Tony was the man who slipped out of 議会 the day after he lost the 首相の職. He was a furtive, 悲劇の 人物／姿／数字.
The programme 明らかにする／漏らすs how there were some lost years when the one-time leader of the gilded 青年 struggled to come to 条件 with his failing virility and receding hairline: it touches on a rumoured trip to Goa to receive 治療 from a swami of 性の potency; a （一定の）期間 at an ashram, wearing kaftans and smoking the 少しのd his friend 法案 Clinton never 吸い込むd; a 簡潔な／要約する 投機・賭ける sellin
g snake-oil in Marrakech.
Then, of course, we are reminded of the episode in 2022 when he talked of his 願望（する） to be King of All Africa, 説 he was the sort of 候補者 who could ‘stop traffic’, but his 企て，努力，提案 was dropped when he was told he’d need two new wives.
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‘Two more 始める，決めるs of in-法律s? After the Booths? You must be joking!’ he exclaimed.
Blair’s old 合法的な boss, Lord Irvine, not so much 井戸／弁護士席 保存するd as pickled, is wheeled on to say something faintly disobliging about Tony’s ‘upper-second-class mind’. The sitting U.S. 大統領 salutes ‘首相 Blair’s long service to this 広大な／多数の／重要な country of ours’.
The Israeli 外交官／大使 申し込む／申し出s a few words of 尊敬の印, given how much Mr Blair did for the Israelis (and how little for the Palestinians) as Special Middle East （外交）使節／代表.
The TV obit editors 終わりにする／要約する with Blair’s last 外見 at 総理大臣’s Question Time in 2007, when David Cameron 軍隊d his 気が進まない 保守的な Party to give the 出発／死ing Blair a standing ovation. Was that the moment Mr Cameron took 所有／入手 of the Blairite centre ground?
Mr Cameron certainly always sounded far more friendly に向かって Mr Blair than Mr Brown did ― but then he never had to work with Showpony Tony.
Talking of Gordon, the obituary-製造者s submitted a request to the Hermit of Kirkcaldy for an interview. They waited for an answer. And waited. And waited. But then, silence is the most eloquent 批評.
As we all now know, Mr Blair ended his days in a small hotel on the Dorset coast, entertaining 行方不明になる Ruth Turner ― his former political 助言者 in 負かす／撃墜するing Street ― to 時折の lunches, and playing 一連の会議、交渉／完成するs of ゴルフ with the ever-youthful Sir Cliff Richard.
He 変えるd to the Kabbalah 約束 during his final days, and in his will left his papers to the LSE ― and his hairpiece to Battersea Dogs Home.
