A liability

If he's so damn good, why are we so far behind in the polls? Blair's own myth, that he won all these elections for us, isn't true. John Smith would have won in 1997. In fact maybe bigger than Blair. I would have won in 1997. Anyone would, against the hated Tories.

Blair has been less of an asset than the myth holds. And he has increasingly been a liability, as my boy James said after the big speech yesterday.

Polly Toynbee puts it like this:

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Charm and eloquence. But a missed chance: "Yet they know why he must go, for his winning days are over. Many wished he had said goodbye right here, right now, sudden and decisive. These delegates have seen their Labour stronghold councils fall, long-time Labour cities lost, Wales and Scotland in peril, local parties near defunct for lack of members - all poisoned by Iraq and that wider mistrust it came to symbolise."

It's not just Iraq, but the war on terror which symbolises the lack of reality. The conference applauded a lot of rubbish yesterday, as noted by Simon Hoggart:

Guardian Unlimited Politics | Backbench | Simon Hoggart's sketch:
"The speech was well-delivered, and well-received, but it was classic Blair. He could have delivered chunks at any time in the past 12 years. The gist was, as it generally is: 'I'm right, you're wrong, and the voters know it.' On education, reforming the NHS, identity cards and even Iraq he read them a crisp and businesslike lecture. There were the usual verb-free sentences - 79 in all - which in the past implied commitments without making promises. Now they evoke achievements that may or may not have occurred: 'The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic. Transforming secondary schools ... Historic.'
And there were those clunking sentences that make you ask what on earth he could possibly mean, though you haven't time to work it out because the speech has swept on. 'The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled.' Eh? 'Ten years ago, if we talked pensions, we meant pensioners.' What was that about? 'The danger is failing to understand that New Labour in 2007 won't be New Labour in 1997.' Sorry, run that past me again. 'Ten years on, our advantage is time, our disadvantage, time.' Lost me there, old cock."

The point at which Blair lost touch with reality is not easy to determine since so much of New Labour is newspeak double dutch, but the attempts to justify the war and suggest that the world is safe as a result of this ill advised foreign policy have shown him to be genuinely delusional. Not a good thing for a prime minister.

The response to this stuff is negative and very damaging amongst ordinary people - ie voters - and the very Labour conference delegates who cheered the rubbish described above yesterday couldn't endorse his latest war on terror soundbites with even faint applause.

Not a winner.