President Blair

It was a term of derision, used to describe his presidential style when he was Prime Minister. It was also richly deserved, but last year we finally got rid of him from the British political sphere. Look at this though, and read the article. Scary, no?

Journalistic Differences

It was really quite striking coming home both from Paris and from Geneva. Two different countries, granted, but Geneva's just metres from France. Looking at their papers, their magazines, pretty much every news, gossip and popular culture medium, all you could see was Nicolas Sarkozy and Claudia Bruni. Over here - nothing, and more than just nothing - not even a hint of them. Why would that be? I'm not sure I get that. Is it really just a linguistic thing which makes him interesting there and completely irrelevant here? Is it because he really is 'their' Tony Blair - their first political leader given over entirely to the cult of celebrity? It's possibly almost too close an analogy. Maybe it's just that they're not used to this sort of domestic grandstanding and we've thoroughly had our fill...