Yo, Blair!
Tony Blair's Disastrous Premiership
Geoffrey Wheatcroft
'It's worse than you think ... I really believe in it' Tony Blair on the Iraq War
'A man who has apologised for everything from slavery to the Irish famine says that he "will never apologise" for what he has done in Iraq, and to his own country. There is nothing left to tell him but Cromwell's words: "Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"' Yo, Blair! That unforgettable greeting from President to Prime Minister at the St Petersburg summit in 2006 has come to epitomise their relationship. It summed up Tony Blair's servile standing in the eyes of George Bush, and like a lightning flash illuminated the appalling truth: under Blair's prime ministership, the country he governs has ceased to be an independent nation. From the beginning a Prime Minister without a party, he now clings on to office but is openly despised by all those he deals with. The calamitous Blair decade has been defined - and he has been ruined - by foreign adventures, culminating in an unnecessary, illegal and catastrophic war in Iraq, which will entirely overshadow any domestic achievements. How did it happen? Yo, Blair! shows that everything for which Blair is now so widely despised and disliked is not a random accident, but could be discerned in his career and personality from an early stage. Not a conventional biography of Blair, nor of his government, this is rather a polemic, in the tradition of Orwell: a blast on the trumpet about the most disastrous premiership of modern times. 'In this country there used to be a healthy tradition of political pamphleteering, and this short, sharp book is probably best regarded as representing a welcome return to it... modern tract for our times... A fluent polemicist, Wheatcroft certainly builds up a compelling case.... This powerful philippic offers the best account I have yet seen of what can happen when a political leader chooses to clothe himself in the armour of self-righteousness' Sunday Telegraph 'This vivid, enjoyable denunciation. His book has several virtues. It is short, and wastes no time trying to be balanced. The author is not inhibited by the fatal instinct for fairness which for so long led so many of the English to give Blair the benefit of the doubt... One of the pleasures of Wheatcroft's book is his love of quoting eloquent but forgotten figures' Telegraph 'Deftly meshes the events of the last years with a commentary heavy on rage, bafflement and scorn... Blair the monster is held fully to account in this timely book' The Observer 'Geoffrey Wheatcroft has done history a great service here, with a comprehensive and racy excoriation of the despicable warmonger... This book does an invaluable service. Recommended.' Morning Star 'A balanced analysis of Blair's premiership this isn't, but as polemic, Yo, Blair makes its point with a clarity that is quite breathtaking' PublicService Magazine'A brilliant and engrossing polemic... many withering and memorable passages' Oldie
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About Geoffrey Wheatcroft Geoffrey Wheatcroft is a well-known journalist and author. He has written for the Guardian, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Spectator, the Times Literary Supplement, the New York Times and Atlantic Monthly. Among his books are The Randlords, The Controversy of Zion (which won an American National Jewish Book Award in 1996) and The Strange Death of Tory England (shortlisted for the Channel 4 Political Book of Award, 2005). Geoffrey Wheatcroft lives near Bath with his wife, the painter and fashion designer Sally Muir, and their two children.
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