That third way

So while eggs and shoes are hurled at Blair by Dubliners,some would see it as his version of how the past was secured and the future thrown away in the write of the man who led Labour to three consecutive electoral victories,and thinks his successor threw away a fourth. The details and perspectives will be contested. However,as with political autobiographies,right or wrong,petty or magnanimous,one expects to delight in the anecdotes. Blair hasnt said sorry for the Iraq war,but claims to have shed his tears. He charges Chancellor Brown with blocking everything he wanted to do or sabotaging almost everything he did,down to the Keynesian economy PM Brown unleashed to tackle the recession.

Read as Blairs mea culpa or post-bellum revenge,a Labour electing a new leader,will be paying heed. As will Messrs Cameron-Clegg,who,some might say,are walking closer to the Blair line. After all,fallible Blair still had the right insight into post-Cold War politics : beyond ideology,class and tribal loyalties,building grand social coalitions,where state and public interest werent necessarily the same.