adminThe former Labour premier, who left Downing Street in a huff in 2007, said he would now do a better job than during his 10 years in power because of what he has learned since leaving frontline politics. But this is not the first time that Blair, who is accused of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, has confessed he would like to return to No 10.
Blair, (59) admitted his prospects of a comeback — which would be the first since Harold Wilson reclaimed Downing Street in 1974 after losing a general election in 1970 — were ‘not very likely’.
In an interview with the London Evening Standard: “I am seeing a lot of the world and I have learned an immense amount in the past five years.
“One of my regrets is that what I have learned in the last five years would have been so useful to me. Because when you see how the world is developing you get a far clearer picture of some of the issues our country is grappling with.”
Asked directly if he would do the job again, he said: “Yes, sure, but it’s not likely to happen is it.”
Blair also said his successor, Gordon Brown, had condemned Labour to defeat by ditching the New Labour policies that got him elected three times. He accused Brown of having him ‘forced out’ of power, saying he would have liked to have stayed in the job but left to avoid a ‘bloody battle’ with Mr Brown’s supporters.
Looking back to the day of his resignation, he said: “I didn’t want to go but I felt that I had to.
“The only choice would have been to have fought a very bloody battle internally which I thought would damage the country as well as the party.”
Blair suggested that in some ways he is better equipped now to be PM than he was during his time in Downing Street. “I have learned an immense amount in the past five years,” he said.
“One of my regrets is that what I have learned in the last five years would have been so useful to me.
“Because when you see how the world is developing you get a far clearer picture of some of the issues our country is grappling with.”
Blair said that it was ‘inevitable’ that Labour would go down to defeat in the 2010 general election after it became clear that, under his successor Gordon Brown, it did not know whether or not it wanted to stick to the New Labour agenda he had mapped out.
He predicted that the Liberal Democrats will struggle at the next election, scheduled for 2015, and urged Mr Miliband to stick to the centre ground. Despite the upheavals caused by the financial crash of 2008 — which he admits he did not foresee — Mr Blair said Labour would be wrong to shift to the left. — Daily Mail/HR.
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