Keir Starmer banged on and on as Tony Blair’s eyes glazed over: HENRY DEEDES sees the two Labour leaders come together in the Future of Britain jamboree
Expensive dentistry, designer manbags and more corporate gobbledygook than an episode of Succession. Welcome back folks to Tony Blair’s ludicrously titled ‘Future of Britain’ jamboree.
A merry-go-round of smugness and self-importance, which got its first outing last year, it was deemed worthy of a repeat performance by the former PM.
The message of the show remains very much the same as last year: Britain is broken and the only person who can glue it back together again is… Sir Tone.
The star turn (if you can call it that) this time round was Sir Keir Starmer, whose decision to bend the knee before Blair will doubtless infuriate his more Left-wing MPs who are already grinding their molars over his decision this week to U-turn on child tax benefits.
For half an hour, the pair indulged in a rather stunted conversation which had the slightly awkward air of the schoolboy who’s been summoned to the headmaster’s study for a quick chit chat about the birds and the bees.
Tony Blair speaks with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s Future of Britain Conference in central London yesterday
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer speaks during the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s Future of Britain Conference
Blair did not quite anoint his successor in oil. In fact at times he appeared quietly unimpressed with the guff spewing from Starmer’s mouth.
All perfectly chummy and gracious, of course. But by the end the old fraud left his audience with little doubt he still considered himself the maestro.
Starmer is hardly box office but considering how worryingly light on stardust this year’s event was, the organisers must have been mighty pleased he agreed to attend.
Last year we received a talking to from such political luminaries as former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and ex-Treasury Secretary windbag Larry Summers.
This year we got an over-caffeinated Jamie Oliver talking about junk food and a few preachy hedge-fund or Silicon Valley types being interviewed by those pin-ups of progressive politics, Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.
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Sir Keir arrived on stage just after 4.30pm. He’d got the memo at least on the dress code, appearing all daddy cool and open collared, and talked in the usual jargonistic language that audiences wolf down at these sorts of things.
Starmer may though have caused some momentary buttock-shifting when he launched into one of his class-war rants about people benefiting from their background. Didn’t anyone warn him Sir Tony went to Fettes College, the ‘Scottish Eton’?
Time for a sit down with the host. Blair looked in quite decent nick, to give him his due. The skin appeared as though dipped in Ronseal and the eyes are now a little haunted, but a surprisingly lithe frame suggested the regular exertions of a personal trainer.
He and Sir Keir exchanged end-of-pier banter about PMQs. Blair admitted he didn’t miss it. No kidding. He loathed Parliament altogether.
Tony Blair speaks with Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer during the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s Future of Britain Conference
The body language between the two was respectful if slightly frigid. Blair congratulated Starmer on saving the Labour Party and admitted there was a ‘pretty good’ chance of him being the next Prime Minister.
Not that Sir Tony seemed overly excited about the prospect. In fact, slip him a truth serum and one wonders if he would admit he and Rishi Sunak were more politically aligned.
He kept teeing his guest up to say something rampantly pro-business to get the audience whooping.
Sir Keir, however, preferred to keep banging on about the ‘laser-guided, mission-driven government’ he planned to lead. Talk turned to Starmer’s much-vaunted green revolution. Blair’s eyes slowly glazed.
Things ended rather abruptly when Blair shot up and announced he was certain with Sir Keir in charge the country would be ‘in good hands’. Just so long as the apprentice listens to the master, presumably.
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