“... is on schedule. So, too, is work on four large permanent US military bases. It isn’t clear how Tony Blair can think Iraq is a country on the verge of being a successful liberal democracy. But we do know what kind of mess will be left behind if the Coalition forces do eventually withdraw. 19 ...”

“... work only if they hit the tanks from the side. In his scathing contribution to British Generals in Blair’s Wars, a collection of 26 essays mainly by retired generals, Sir Paul Newton uses this story to mock the cliché that the British armed forces ‘punch above their weight’. ‘This was like telling a lightweight boxer he can only hit his oncoming ...”

“... an Iraqi woman living in Kuwait I met when I was here a few weeks ago. She thinks I look like Tony Blair, which I do not, but she thinks it anyway. I drive to her flat, navigating by map and mobile. She is wearing a white tracksuit. She has painted the walls of her flat an apricot colour. She leaves the door open. We can see the trees swaying in the ...”

“... it was not as much of a joke as you might think. Following whatever deal it was Murdoch made with Tony Blair in 1995, when Blair flew out to Australia to address a conference of News Corp executives, the Sun now backs Labour, the party most of its readers have supported all along. It would be fascinating to know the ...”

“... with Labour about to return to power, but still anxious to establish its mainstream credentials, Tony Blair chose to highlight his acceptance of the anti-union consensus in an article for the Times: ‘Let me state the position clearly, so that no one is in any doubt. [Under Labour] the essential elements of the trade union legislation of the 1980s will ...”

“... Commons he had been acting in when marching lockstep into Iraq with his role model in Washington. Tony Blair’s assurance was given as a response to the publication of the Butler Report (Stationery Office, £22.50), which he assumes has demonstrated that he is not in fact the Bliar of all those banners that were carried down Whitehall eighteen months ...”

“... of autistic people before autism was a concept, like the 18th-century ‘natural fool’ Hugh Blair of Borgue, a Scottish laird who filled his bedroom with twigs and feathers and liked to dine with cats, whose paws he licked clean. Silberman includes a chapter about Henry Cavendish, a pathologically shy scientific polymath whose many breakthroughs include ...”

“... A paragraph from the Sun reminds one what rational discourse in this field is up against: ‘Tony Blair was attacked last night for refusing to scrap hated human rights laws. The PM’s buddy Lord Falconer yesterday ruled out any change to the act that frees murderers to kill again.’ These characterisations of the Human Rights Act have not come ...”

“... and ‘poodles’ of the US new world order appear that way to Americans. (This includes Tony Blair.) Like it or not, Kouchner’s co-operation with the US has not meant knuckling under to US military might, but rather borrowing it for European purposes, which are often idealistic ones. Consider the interviews Kouchner gave this spring about ...”

“... has moved, sharply, unmistakably if not always consciously, back in the direction of Runnymede. Tony Blair had little interest in constitutional reform, Ted Heath not much more. Yet under them a new pluralism seeped into the governance of Britain. The edicts of the European Commission and the European Court were, as Lord Denning pointed out, an ...”

“... Predictably, the UK initially opted out of anything to do with ‘Social Europe’, but then Tony Blair opted in; at first Cameron aimed to opt out again, but pulled back for fear of losing Labour’s support for Remain. But in any event, ‘Social Europe’ lost all traction after Delors’s exit, which is why social democrats like Wolfgang Streeck ...”

“... and misery’ – while reaping its benefits, uncovering a road that led from Thomas Paine to Tony Blair. Settling his account with Marxism required a reckoning with Marx himself. As early as 1979, when Stedman Jones still identified as a socialist, he was exhorting his comrades to ‘de-theologise Marx’. Marxists had produced brilliant readings of ...”

“... political anagrams cited by Fowler are great: Shirley Williams is ‘I aimlessly whirl’, while Tony Blair MP decodes as ‘I’m Tory plan B’. There are more recent possibilities he doesn’t explore: Nicholas Clegg’s name suggests he could shift up a gear (‘I’ll change cogs’) or just slow things down (‘chain clogs leg’). Samantha ...”

“... despite its high Scottish representation, began to be alarmed about England’s reaction. Tony Blair announced that two referendums – one general, one on the taxing powers of the Scottish Parliament – would be held following a White Paper, but before a Bill was introduced into the Commons. This was a bold move, much criticised in Scotland. It ...”

“... further south; Poland and Finland further east; the Adriatic is a stone’s throw away. Perhaps, Tony Blair calls it a ‘doorstep’ because Albanians are predominantly Muslim. The Government repeatedly refers to Serb atrocities which, George Robertson teaches us, Europe has not seen the like of ‘since the Middle Ages’. Isuppose if you overlook the ...”