"Governor of the 51st State of the USA."
"Almost directly across from me was Blair, looking smaller than life. According to the press his handlers had ordered him to ration his tic-like smile. So, solemnly, tight-lipped, he stared, one by one, at the TV cameras all around the room. Yet when a mildly sharp question was asked, the ghost of the rictus smile, like a negative undergoing slow exposure, would appear and Blair would say, gently, 'Trust me!' That was that."
— Gore Vidal, Point to Point Navigation
"Well, I think this does one thing: it draws a line under what, before the war, had been a period of... well, a faint air of pointlessness, almost, was hanging over Downing Street. There were all these slightly tawdry arguments and scandals. That is now history. Mr Blair is well aware that all his critics out there in the party and beyond aren't going to thank him — because they're only human — for being right when they've been wrong. And he knows that there might be trouble ahead, as I said. But I think this is very, very important for him. It gives him a new freedom and a new self-confidence."
— Andrew Marr
on the Iraq decision
on the Iraq decision"I view him as the kind of air guitarist of political rhetoric.... Should he go? It feels like he left a long time ago, leaving this Tony Blair shaped hole that carries on talking."
— Will Self
"Its main purpose it to sidetrack people who want Social Democratic policies, and channel them safely into a reformist project that is, essentially, a neverending roundalay. Moderate the slogans to get elected. Get elected. Play it safe. Get voted out...Then play it safe to get elected again. 'Twas ever thus, to an extent, but especially since the Blair revolution, when the Labour Party was essentially remodelled into a slick, larger-membership, higher-profile version of the SDP."
— Jack Graham on New Labour, "Round and Round"
on New Labour, "Round and Round""Tony Blair is a good propagandist for the United States. He's articulate, his sentences hang to together, apparently people like the way he looks. He's following a position that the British have taken, self-consciously, since the end of the Second World War...Britain has been kicked in the face over and over again in the most disgraceful way, and Blair just sits there quietly and says, "We will be the junior partner.""
— Noam Chomsky
