I think Tony Blair should be in the next Celebrity Big Brother ,he craves the fame make him a permanent housemate.

Bas, Nottingham, England

When is he going?

Firozali A.Mulla MBA PhD, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania

Tony I thought would become good leader , but to my dismay he proved to be very very weak leader.His only aim in last one year of office is the fulfillment of the goal that he will be one of the few Prime ministers who served the country for ten years.
He was weak with Bush possibly justified. He was not able to stand up to Brown was pathetic. Brown would have been sacked by Thatcher or other leaders within days of his chancellorship..
I pity Tony for the acheivements Brown got the credit and for all the failing Tony got the blame..
his memoirs will sell well as he would portay his failing well a good book for leadership 'How not to be a leader.

Vishwanath, Herts, Watford

I think you'll find Tony Blair is ONLY interested in staying in power, whatever it takes, and that includes 'saying the right things' eg 'Cool Brittania'. He is the Showman of the Century, the guy who makes you feel REALLY comfortable, the 'Strong Man' eg Iraq, Afghanistan etc, the 'Action Man' eg constant Policy Changes etc I don't think he EVER wants to leave Office, because his just too addicted to the 'Pomp and the Glory'. Perhaps this 'Cash for Honours' crisis will convince the Police to end our misery and detach this great Showman from his 'Theater of Dreams'.

Ahmad, Birmingham, UK

No amount of post power grandstanding will prevent Blair from being remembered as a weak PM. Too timid to stand up Bush over Iraq, and to G Brown over NHS reform and the Euro. He is a talented actor who has played to the crowd, be they Americans post 9/11, the UK public after the death of Diana or global opinion over aid to Africa. Success in N Ireland has been based on events elsewhere. He has had nothing to do with the economy. His constitutional reforms are muddled (Scotland and the Lords). He has no coherent strategy over crime (witness the shambles at the Home Office after 10 years and 5 Home Secretaries). Education has been improved but our schools still fail 40%. The welfare state has hardly been touched. Civil servants have been given unnecessary pension rights while private sector pensions have been severely damaged. The transport infrastructure is as it was in 1997 and there is no coherent strategy to improve it. House prices have rocketed because not enough new homes have been built. Fundamentally he is not rigorous enough in his thinking to be an effective leader. No amount of spin and no number of chat shows will change that.

J White, paris, France

A successful politician is not necessarily the same thing as a good politician, and the story of their rise to power is almost irrelevant to the question of how well they can do their job. I would rather have a good politician than a successful one as leader of the country, and to be honest, I don't really care what Blair does with the next five years.

Stephen Sweet, North Harrow,

I will remember Tony Blair as a man who had a unique vision of Britain and of Labour, who set in motion an incredibly large number of reforms to bring this vision to reality. Some of them were good and some of them, while not bad, simply didn't work. But the important part is that he didn't actually complete any of these reforms, he just laid the foundations and the reforms will have to continue for years if not generations.

I think Iraq and his attachment to the Americans will hang over his years the way Vietnam hung over Johnson's presidency and together with Watergate, Nixon's. Both did great things yet these were overshadowed by negatives that were as much a result of their personalities as the positives.

So Blair's legacy will not be up to him at all, but rather up to those who have it in their power to either complete his reforms or to abort them. Personally I believe the reforms are for the most part good, and if they are followed up constructively Blair will be considfered great.

Christopher Hobe Morrison, Middletown, USA/NY

An interesting and valid analogy.

From the perspective of the electors, it’s probably more useful to use this story as an opportunity for self insight into their own beliefs in politics generally, as well as Tony Blair, and how that has changed. The scenario is not unlike that of a consumer who has bought an item, and after the event seeks information, such as specifications and the views of others, to justify his choice. It’s also an allegory of the triumph, at least in the early stages, of fantasy over reality in many of life’s experiences.

With the tendency for the real and virtual worlds to seem to merge, the ultimate judgement can only be made from a historical perspective, but keeping most of the people reasonably content for most of the time is an achievement which may be overlooked in the absence of anything worse.

As most people prefer fantasy to reality anyway, maybe we can stay with that.

dr venables preller, Warminster, UK

Reform the empire

Horsley, Perth, Australia

Blair is one of the greatest political geniuses ever - better than Thatcher, Reagan or Clinton. It was not magic he performed, rather political alchemy. He delivered the elixir of perpetual change to Britain.

Richard Corcocran, Tampa, Florida

Well as I see it , Blair does have one last master stroke to pull out of the bag, for crown & country.
He wants to 'get even ' with all the plotters, particularly, the disloyal man at the treasury.
Calling a general election is the perfect & valid way to do this & would stop Gordon Brown in his quest to rob the people of this country.
Do it Tony, we will be eternally grateful to you for at least this one act.

Maggie Millington, Brittany, France

I agree with you about the ideal PM being a neutral personality who will more obviously represent his party than himself. I thus think that John Major was the best type of Prime Minister we have had in recent times. At the same time, as you have made clear, a PM is whatever other people think he is - care to describe him. So any PM should only concern himself at the end of his term with that opinion that could affect his material circumstances, and that seems to be what Tony Blair is committed to do. I personally get nervous about this cry for great policies, and the notion that these spring from a particular personality. But this is not in the field of magic so much as the field of puppetry.

Henry Percy, London, UK

Mr Blair doesn't actually have a clue what he stands for, or what the people want and need. He lets himself be pulled this way and that by vociferous vested interests without seeing that the majority "vested" interest, the public who voted for him, are not well served by the vociferous ones. Thus, we have today, a disparate, fractured and dissatisfied people, splintered into angry little groups, but some are united briefly in the big causes that gain everybody's attention, namely the NHS, immigration, the war in the Middle East, and religion. My overall feeling about Mr Blair, is that here is a man who, having become involved in politics after an indifferent start to a career in law, found that his ambition could be served by his cult of personality. Gordon Brown would have been better to have held his ground in 1995/6, because his bolt has been shot by his association with the Blair years.

SarahJane, London, England

Tony Blair certainly now seems both undecided and uncomfortable in himself even now about when he should go.
Surely the media people like Daniel Finkelstein first need to find out exactly why that is?
From day-one of his premiership in May 1997 Tony Balir seemed to suddenly find himself having to jump-off on the wrong foot.
On arrival at No.10 for the firast time at Prime Minister, instead of getting on and appointing his Cabinet, his made his first priority calling-in Margaret Thatcher.
Surely there were still not some Tory skeletons at No.10 of 7-years before???.

Michael Blatchford, Bath, UK

I think you're right that the years after a PM's tenure is over are the most important, but for a different reason: it takes so long for policies and initiatives to take effect, you really have to wait that length of time to judge what they really did and if they achieved what was promised. For me, Mr. Blair has raised taxation to record levels, raised the public sector to 65% of GDP, made huge intrusions into civil liberties and massively increased red tape. Let's see what we make of him in 2012 - I suspect we'll be blaming him for sowing the seeds of a whole bunch of problems.

Mark Foscoe, Silso, UK

He's a second hand car salesman

david kay, st legier, switzerland

Oh mr Finklestein... can't help but love the way you write. very nice.

nwlondoner, london, uk

Greetings from the American Kingdom,
Long live the United Kingdom;

I like the imagry with the wizard stuff; Although, I am not on a political kick-back or a strategist nor some Government taught special agent. Magic is a secular word. I'd prefer mystical in the air of "The spirit of God." You see Blair isn't telling a story nor are you or I, but rather God himself, lost himself and wrote right out of the pages and something Supernatural happened. I was caught up in His power "God's" and tried to get away, and even in all the insane attempts I only made things more mysterious by God unto everyone. The more I faught God to get away, the higher his revelations forced me into things not many in all of time have seen. It's like a God Capture. That is where I believe Tony Blair is. He's inside of a God Capture regardless of what others do, they (others) will either make things better or worse for themselves.

If he tries to water the story it will only turn more mysterious by God, and if he stays silent, God's spirit will beckon. If he tries to make shy, God will push him into victory and Boldness. Blair is locked into God Capture.

The Cherokee, USA,

The idea that a Prime Minister shapes their legacy to the extent you suggest by the manner in which they behave after they leave office is surely disproved by Tony Blair's two immediate predecessors in Number 10. Since leaving office John Major has remained tactifully moderate and measured in his opinions growing considerably in popularity whereas Lady Thatcher not only backed the wrong horse as her successor but inflicted considerable damage on her party through ill judged and ill tempered interventions. Yet as you writely point out Lady Thatcher will be remembered as the leader who cured the sick man of Europe whereas Major will forever remain the Prime Minister who wore his pants over his trousers and initiated the cones hotline.

John Marshall, Beijing,

Interesting point of view. I think he's a natural magician, he doesn't really think about what he's doing. In fact he often seems to be as taken in as the audience is. My first thoughts on seeing him in action were "This guy is a stage hypnotist", and it always amazed me that other people could be so taken in by him. People like this shouldn't be allowed to lead political parties, they should be lead by boring people with no hypnotic skills whatsoever. Blair is a very modern British form of the Hitler type of leader, brilliant at wowing an audience, full of messianic zeal, ruthless at crushing opponents, totally useless at improving the lot of the people.

John Small, Faversham, UK

When Mr. Blair first appeared on the Political scene, he presented himself as the modern way forward.
He was seen as the answer to the electorates prayers, here was a man who eschewed the pretence of being superior to the electorate, he acted like one of the lads, people felt they could trust him.
As he took power and problems arose, we found that he was not omnipotent, we began to see his failings, but with each succesive general election, what we, died in the wool tories have to look forward to.
A Liberal Party which was little different from the Labour party or a Tory Party still mired in it's mess of self accusation and intent on tearing itself to shreds.
I am not convinced at this stage where Labour is tearing itself to pieces, that the Tory's present a united front nor one that has any concrete and sensible solutions to offer the British Electorate.
Mr. Cameron really needs to convince ppl like me that he has the capability to Govern the UK.

Stuart Geoffrey, Zavalla, Tx, USA