Could Tony Blair actually get elected again?

Are we nostalgic for New Labour? Never were public services so good as under Blair – his return is improbable, but not now unthinkable, writes Jon Davis

Has the former prime minister gone on a journey from villain to hero? (Web Summit via Getty)

The hysteria of Tony Blair hate is over. The chapter has closed on egg-throwing, scuffles, “Bliar” placards, and juvenile attempts at citizen’s arrests whenever he dared to show his face. Instead, Labour’s most electorally successful leader is now openly consulted not only by Matt Hancock, the health secretary, but even by Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour Party, such has Blair’s brand detoxified.

In the wake of Labour’s recent poor electoral performance and botched reshuffle, Blair published in the New Statesman a manifesto for anti-Conservatives, prompting the magazine to say that Blair was eyeing a return; while Lord Adonis, the New Labour ultra, repeatedly tweeted that it is “Time for Blair”. Could the unthinkable really happen?

When in 2019 John Rentoul and I launched Heroes or Villains? The Blair Government Reconsidered – published in paperback today (20 May) by Oxford University Press – we expected a backlash. Though an academic text (we hope an accessible one) it was based on interviews with political insiders from both sides of the Blair-Brown divide, along with many of the most senior civil servants with whom the pair had worked, and our findings led to it being pro-Blair.

We wrote: “Blair invites comparison with 20th-century prime ministerial giants Lloyd George, Churchill, Attlee and Thatcher,” and: “Our hope is that time will eventually see Blair’s reputation in some way repaired.” If those words came across as mild, that was because our book was perhaps the first even gently supportive of Blair since he had resigned in 2007, and we were tentative in what had become a furious atmosphere.

But backlash came there none, and the tide was already starting to turn: Iain Martin in The Times wrote: “Making me feel nostalgic for New Labour is quite an achievement.” Alan Johnson in The Spectator thought “an account like this is long overdue”. And Ed Balls graciously described it as “the first draft of history”. We should have written what we really thought.

Teaching the comparative study of modern prime ministers at King’s College London has led to the understanding not only that history is clearly dynamic, and reputations change over time, but that Blair had been heavily underpriced in posterity. Opinion of his achievements in office had been too heavily influenced by the Iraq decision – which most people agree was a mistake, albeit one that our book tries to place in a sympathetic context.

As the fog of the Iraq war recedes, a record of extraordinary achievement is revealed: one that has cast a shadow on the governments that have come after. From the National Health Service to educational standards, never were public services so good as under New Labour. Indeed, the recent return to government of Blair’s king of public service delivery, Sir Michael Barber, along with the recreation of the delivery unit, is the strongest testimonial.

New Labour’s finest have expressed growing frustration with the state of Labour in the past few weeks, calling for radical surgery to prevent a fifth general election defeat. “If you take the last 11 general elections, it’s lose, lose, lose, lose, Blair, Blair, Blair, lose, lose, lose, lose,” as Lord Mandelson put it. Could we really see the second coming of Blair? After all, Churchill became prime minister for a second time at 76, while Gladstone started his fourth premiership at the ripe old age of 82. Blair is a mere 68, at a time when people are living longer, and living their later years better.

One of Blair’s favourite dictums is that “You start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your least popular and most capable,” and our book charts how he became a master of government by his third term. It is certainly intriguing that in recent years Blair has nurtured his Institute for Global Change into something that is looking increasingly powerful, with 300 staff. And he once again proved himself the master of the middle way in his New Statesman article, with his dismissal of the wilder dimensions of the culture wars, deftly explaining how to navigate the woke-bombs that threaten to trap the left.

To those who say he could never return simply because of Iraq, just imagine if the next election came down to Johnson versus Blair on the ballot paper – Boris the Labour-destroyer up against Tony the Tory-destroyer.

The idea of Blair’s return is of course improbable, but not now unthinkable, as it was until just recently. Blair back in Downing Street, with all that experience, this time without Gordon Brown’s handbrake? Just keep him away from American presidents.

Dr Jon Davis is director of the Strand Group at King’s College London. The paperback edition of ‘Heroes or Villains? The Blair Government Reconsidered’, by Jon Davis and John Rentoul, is published by OUP today