The Horsell's Mouth Politics, pedantry and personal interests

Putin in reverse - former PM wants to be your President

Things really are hotting up in Europe. Firstly, we’ve got the “will he, won’t he?” saga about the European constitution with the Czech president Vaclav Klaus – rapidly becoming a hero of Eurosceptics – trying to hold out on the Lisbon Treaty as long as possible. I can’t find it now but I read this morning in one of the papers that he was trying to get a ruling in a Czech court that the treaty had to go to a referendum in the Czech republic – this is probably the only tactic that would be able to hold up the process until May next year.

I’m not holding my breath that the legal system of any of the member states would give a judgement against the EU. I think it is likely that the treaty will have to be signed by the end of the year; certainly that is the line being spun by Klaus’s inner circle to the press. Such a line clearly relieves the political pressure on him. But at the same time, some signals from Conservative bigwigs suggest everything is not as it seems. We shall see.

David Miliband is not among the doubters, as he made his pitch for the EU Foreign Secretary post today. But the most worrying thing about this whole business is the idea of Tony Blair as the President of Europe. As far as I’m concerned, the whole concept of a European President is a totally obnoxious and febrile one for the very reason that someone like Blair was always going to end up holding it.

The centre-right have a majority in the European parliament, yet the European Commission is stuffed full of socialists and the only real contenders for President are left of centre as well. That’s the EU for you - made by socialists, for socialists regardless of what the voters of Europe think. We elect 650-odd troughers to go and sit in a bi-local theatre of buffoonery also known as the European Parliament while the people who make the decisions remain from the same political class and persuasion that dreamed up the silly European sophistry to start with.

The idea of Blair sitting on top of them all as a “reward” for his achievements is poetic. Remind me again about his achievements – the failure to reform welfare, the failure to reform the NHS, badly botched constitutional tinkering, opening our borders to immigration without provision of proper infrastructure, cash for honours, a PR disaster in Kosovo and two illegal wars in the Middle East. More importantly, he failed to persuade Britain to go into the Euro and by the end of his tenure – where politics was changed for the worse – event the British people had had enough of him.

Like PM, all you need is a few years on the lecture circuit and all is forgiven in British politics. Sometimes, like in the case of Sir John Major, who was badly let down by his greedy and complacent parliamentary party, that it a good thing. But Blair’s failures were all his own and the result of a hubris that badly let down large sections of this country.

For goodness’ sake, let’s not give him the opportunity to do the same to the whole of Europe.