In a review of Campbell’s diaries, David Hare notes:
“The virtues of pride, aggression and solidarity forged in the heat of New Labour’s difficult evolution proved pitifully inadequate to contain a neoconservative ally far more ruthless than itself… It was no longer enough to be on message. Sadly, for the lives of so many, it turns out you had to be right as well.”
I think this is the best single summary of the Blair years I’ve read. I think history will eventually see him as an essentially good man who meant well but who found governing much, much harder than he could ever have imagined. Especially with a US administration that screwed him, and a media dragon that he thought he had tamed.
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