Skipper

I've written more than once about Blair's legacy- he is so obsessed with it after all- but was provided with a new slant on it by a French commentator today. Agnes Poirier suggests that the political trajectory of Blair since 1994 has not just changed British politics but profoundly affected wider European politics too. She suggests that Blair's practice of 'campaign to the left, govern from the right' has influenced Romano Prodi's government in Italy- already implementing rightwing reforms which eluded Berlusconi- and informs the pathways to power envisaged both by French socialist Presidential hopeful Segolene Royal and the even more upper class David Cameron over here.

Blair certainly seems to provide the template for the latter and I fully expect him to continue ploughing the furrows of social justice and inclusiveness; low interest and flexible employment on the economic side; and further 'modernization' through private sector involvement on public services. An interventionist foreign policy is the only policy area I expect Cameron to avoid as far too risky: it worked in Kosovo and Sierra Leone but proved a disaster in Iraq. It all depends how closely he chooses to follow the lead of Washington but I suspect that in his case if he wins the next election- not to mention the likely earlier one of Gordon Brown- Blair's legacy of blind obeisance to the White House will be smartly ignored if not overturned. And that will go for his European imitators as well.