Tony Blair is strong on diagnosis but deluded on prescription: Britain's ills cannot be fixed by him, writes Larry Elliott. The former prime minister's essay rightly calls for a coherent economic plan but sets too much store by artificial intelligence and a worldview stuck in the past.
Blair's Correct Observations
Blair is right that Labour has made avoidable mistakes since coming to power nearly two years ago. Keir Starmer had a winning election strategy but lacked a coherent plan for government. Blair also correctly notes that unless Britain tackles long-term structural issues, it risks being relegated from the premier league of nations. Higher sustainable growth and welfare reform are key challenges, and reversing Brexit is not a solution.
Flawed Analysis
However, Blair's 5,700-word essay is flawed. It combines nostalgia for a golden Blairite era that never existed, an over-reliance on AI, and a failure to accept that current Labour politicians might be onto something. On AI, the UK government sensibly seeks a middle way, encouraging startups while providing regulatory safeguards. Blair seems to have drunk too much Silicon Valley Kool-Aid.
He has also jumped on the anti-net zero bandwagon, a curious stance for a politician whose government commissioned the Stern review on climate change. The choking of oil shipments through Hormuz and record-breaking UK temperatures underscore why Ed Miliband is right to push renewable energy.
Failure to Accept Change
Blair fails to accept that the world has changed since he left office in 2007. Within a month of his departure, cracks appeared in the global financial system, leading to the near-collapse of banks. This was a system failure of the free-market liberal model championed by Margaret Thatcher. Attempts to revive it have failed because it was a dud: it didn't boost growth, investment, or trickle-down wealth.
Instead, it led to deindustrialisation and a labour market where employers call the shots. Labour's employment rights changes will modestly shift the pendulum back to workers. Blair sees this as a return to the 1970s, rather than an acknowledgment that Thatcher's flexible labour market caused casualisation, exploitation, and weaker productivity.
Andy Burnham is right that Scotland, Wales, and northern England have been treated badly. Britain needs a reindustrialisation plan to raise manufacturing's share of the economy, requiring public investment across sectors, not just AI.
Blair's Legacy
Deindustrialisation continued under Blair, who broadly accepted the Thatcherite settlement: trust in free markets, focus on financial services, and legal curbs on trade unions. For a while, cheap Chinese goods kept inflation and interest rates low, fueling a property boom. Light-touch regulation spawned an anything-goes mentality in the City, with ministers ignoring debt buildup because tax revenues from speculation funded higher public spending. It worked until it didn't. Thatcher's dream died when Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, and Blairism died with it.
The left missed the opportunity to critique and plan for the future. The economy has drifted for 18 years, with weak growth, stagnant living standards, and growing public anger.
Blair's Fantasy Prescription
Blair advises Labour to occupy the centre ground, cozy up to big business, get people off welfare, embrace AI, and raise VAT instead of national insurance. This is fantasy-island stuff. He fails to accept that the centre ground has shifted left as voters reject a model that delivers only for the better off.
If Starmer is furious, he has every right to be. When fighting for political life, having a predecessor lob bricks is unhelpful. As Clement Attlee once said, a period of silence would be welcome. In truth, Starmer's inability to connect with voters may doom him anyway.
But it is not serious politics to suggest the government rip up manifesto pledges, axe welfare, ignore privatised utility abuses, pretend the climate crisis isn't happening, and move closer to Donald Trump. Blair says Labour has an infinite capacity for self-delusion. If he thinks he has the solution, no one is more deluded.
