An interesting experience listening to Philip Dodd interview Tony Blair on Radio 3 last night. As Blair himself said, it was a very unusual experience for him.
I thought Dodd had Blair pretty well filleted on the issue of the influence of religion on his policies, & Blair was certainly very uncomfortable at the idea of that power necessarily involves a Mephistophelian pact.
But Bridget Kendall made one of the most interesting points in the discussion which followed the interview, & which also covered a review of this weekends tv programme The Special Relationship. Perhaps, in time, the Blair era will come to be seen as one where he attempted simply to ride the wave of a sudden belief that we were still an important country with clout & influence in the world.
Something which, almost as suddenly, has been exposed as a delusion, with China not emerging but emerged, & most sadly, the limitations of our military power cruelly exposed.
