Politics
Country has ‘heard enough from grotesque Blair’ says Polanski
Tony Blair is being rightly slammed for his disappointingly common ‘rare’ interventions into British politics. This time, Green Party leader Zack Polanski had a sharp response:
This country has heard enough from Tony Blair. pic.twitter.com/SIC6hzxFEU
— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) May 27, 2026
Polanski was far from the only figure in British political life to speak out.
Blair is “grotesque”
In full, Polanski said the following about Blair’s lengthy essay:
I think it was 5,600 words too many. Tony Blair is a former prime minister who dragged this country into an illegal war in Iraq.
I think it’s pretty grotesque to see him selling the future of our children and grandchildren down the river through the kind of climate delay tactics, talking down clean energy and the security that we need.
I just don’t think this is a sensible intervention in a day where we’re speaking in these extreme temperatures, to have someone who should hold a position of responsibility or a former position of responsibility to be speaking like this.
Polanski wasn’t the only Green to slam the slimy toad:
Whatever world Tony Blair inhabits appears to be one without climate change & where UK temperature record for May hasn’t just been smashed by over 2C. How else to explain his extraordinary dismissal of net zero & erroneous claim that fossil fuels are cheaper than renewables? — Caroline Lucas (@CarolineLucas) May 27, 2026
The idea that “every honest sensible person” agrees that – for example – we should abandon our belief in climate science and drill the North Sea, and that those who don’t say it are all dishonest populists, is just a form of centre-right conspiracy theory. https://t.co/ZAJh0CwqTP
— Adam Ramsay (@AdamRamsay) May 27, 2026
Polanski did receive some pushback from the dead-eyed media shills who fawned over Blair’s rambling right-wing screed:
I’m pretty sure at least nine out of ten randomly chosen punters would agree with the Green Party leader and not the eldritch, night-stalking terror here, but since when did anyone care what they think about anything pic.twitter.com/LffTrU3Gbf
— Flying_Rodent (@flying_rodent) May 27, 2026
And, this is what the man himself looked like when he later defended his call to ramp up fossil fuel production:
really good timing to wheel out this ghoul in the middle of a record breaking heatwave to complain about net zero lmao https://t.co/HfMkXgCPfx
— adam (@resurrecti0ns) May 27, 2026
Media fawning
On 27 May, we reported:
Historically, people in Britain said there is ‘nothing certain but death and taxes.‘ At this point, the third inevitability we can add is ‘disgraced war criminal Tony Blair will stick his oar in, and the media will describe it as an ‘unprecedented intervention.”
You’re not going to believe this, but the mainstream media would spend much of yesterday describing the predictable intervention as being somewhat unpredictable.
how can you be employed as a political editor and write that tony blair having an unsolicited opinion on anything that aligns with his funding sources is 'unusual' https://t.co/Rw1MSDcfP4
— P.G. Chodehouse (@mynnoj) May 26, 2026
Tony Blair: Wow, get a load of AI. We should probably cut welfare somewhat. Also, we should be involved in the Iran War for some reason.
Broadsheet columnist: Say what you like about the man, but the sophistication of his analysis is unparalleled.
— Ben Sixsmith (@BDSixsmith) May 27, 2026
As an alternative, here’s what our analyst William Kedjanyi said:
Tony Blair has staged another intervention, our political analyst William Kedjanyi has read it so that you don't have to pic.twitter.com/posg9Ew5Od
— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) May 27, 2026
Kedjanyi explained:
The most important part of Tony Blair’s essay that he wrote on his website yesterday is arguably what he didn’t say. The ex-prime minister accused the current one of having no plan, but he didn’t talk about a massive issue in Britain: housing—something which exacerbates so many of the problems we are dealing with today.
I thought that was extraordinary, considering the scope of a 5,700-word piece. Now there’s an awful lot to go into, but crucially we have to acknowledge that the lack of housing impacts everything else, and for him to omit it is a very big thing.
Blair really should be talking about this issue too. House prices quadrupled under him, thanks in part to buy-to-let. This left us with permanently expensive housing, because Blair failed to use the housing boom to build more houses – creating a political issue which has hamstrung every PM since.
The shifting centre
It wasn’t just the media fawning over Blair, tbf – there was also the occasional dipshit like this:
Tony Blair is possibly the only person on earth that makes people instantly reach for the dislike button whilst secretly knowing deep inside that he’s absolutely right and no one has come anywhere near his level of seriousness since.
— Brendan May (@bmay) May 27, 2026
Yes, mate – everyone secretly loves Blair as much as you do; it’s not that your supposedly ‘centrist’ ideology is now a fringe belief in British politics.
Making this point in more detail, Scarlett Maguire noted in April that the political ‘centre’ today is not what it was in 1997:
The 'centre' of British politics in 2026 looks a bit different. The median voter:
– distrusts politicians — Scarlett Maguire (@Scarlett__Mag) April 20, 2026
-wants change
– backs deportations
-wants large reduction in legal migration
– pro wealth tax
– pro wage ratios
-anti big-business
She added that your modern centrist also:
-dislikes rhetoric that seems too inflammatory
– opposes Trump
– worries about an unstable world and doesn’t want a leader that makes that worse
– wants to see solutions over political point scoring
This is all particularly notable in the case of Tony Blair, because he literally just said the UK should be closer to Trump.
Yo, Blair!
Blair’s insistence that the UK should suck up to Trump is grim but unsurprising. After all, this is the PM who let George W. Bush treat him like his manservant.
Activist Andrew Feinstein described Blair as follows:
Tony Blair promotes the corrupt, money-grubbing warmonger Trump because he is a corrupt money-grubbing warmonger & believes the world should genuflect before people like him & Trump so that they can kill & loot unhindered https://t.co/W6LWQXRPeA
— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) May 27, 2026
Zarah Sultana said this about the sweaty war monger:
The only statement Tony Blair should be making is a plea of "guilty" from the dock at The Hague.
He is a war criminal with the blood of over a million Iraqis on his hands. https://t.co/bJ8yOylich
— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) May 26, 2026
Diane Abbott said:
Blair has no coherent plan for the country. His policy framework is support every US war, cut welfare and pensions, deregulate and privatise, continue anti-migrant policies. Labour has no coherent plan for country, says Blairhttps://t.co/eHMuyhUvgj — Diane Abbott (@HackneyAbbott) May 27, 2026
A hopeless, failed project.
Faiza Shaheen questioned why anyone would ever listen to Blair given the gravity of his crimes in Iraq:
.@faizashaheen: "Firstly on Blair, he should be held accountable for what he did with the Iraq War, when he lied to all of us, I just find it shameful that he can come out & expect to give us advice on anything"
Spot on. pic.twitter.com/YJgBYMcaep
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 27, 2026
While many have rejected Blair’s Trumpism the British media is trying to sell it as sensible politics:
this is an insane bit of "saying the quiet part out loud"
journalists & the former prime minister openly saying "Britain is not a sovereign state, our democracy is a sham, and we're all lying to you about it… and that's a good thing!" https://t.co/OcC4naM5PY pic.twitter.com/wyYW3yP7fK
— Archie Woodrow (@SamuraiApology) May 27, 2026
AI
If you’re wondering why war criminal Tony was so enthusiastic about AI in his essay, we can name at least 200 million reasons:
sometimes stuff doesn't need a complicated explainer pic.twitter.com/A9WbEFcyuL
— P.G. Chodehouse (@mynnoj) May 27, 2026
Sorry, make that £257 million:
I'm not interested in any coverage of Tony Blair's views that makes no mention of the fact the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) is bankrolled by billionaire Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle.
From 2021-2025, Ellison donated or pledged £257m to the TBI. Of course he's an AI evangelist!
— Aisha Nicole Malik-Smith (@ANMalikSmith) May 27, 2026
Dan Hodges suggested the essay may literally only exist to promote AI, with the non-AI stuff simply there to attract eyeballs:
Someone just pointed out to me, Blair’s article is actually a classic example of “Client Laundering”. He has a number of major AI clients, and if you read the “essay”, it’s peppered with AI references. So he writes an article ostensibly about Labour, gets a huge response, then contacts his clients and says “See, got a really good response to my AI article. All our top lines are in there”.
Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, said the following:
Tony Blair thinks the answer to this country’s problems is AI, welfare cuts and endless spending on war.
Who benefits? Arms companies and tech billionaires.
Once again, Blair is wrong. The answer is a redistribution of wealth and power and the relentless search for peace.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) May 27, 2026
Phony Blair
Economist Yanis Varoufakis was among those who highlighted what Tony Blair’s real priority is – namely Tony Blair. In his response, Varoufakis noted that Blair’s “real innovation” was:
the financialisation of the ex-premiership itself. The Tony Blair Institute, fuelled by £130 million from Oracle’s Larry Ellison—coincidentally, the largest individual donor to the Friends of the IDF—became a shadow state, brokering governance contracts for autocrats and companies like Palantir that weaponise AI to produce mega-death abroad and full-on surveillance of Western populations.
Many added to Varoufakis’s argument, including Feinstein:
Blair, who Thatcher described as her greatest achievement because he turned Labour into a corrupt, warmongering, neoliberal party just like the Tories, is a war profiteer & at best a sociopath at worst a psychopath who feels nothing for the slaughter & immiseration he has caused,… https://t.co/ONaDX0AK7r
— Andrew Feinstein (@andrewfeinstein) May 27, 2026
It’s crystal clear Tony Blair does not care about the lives of working class people.*
And, this intervention definitely does not speak on their behalf
He speaks for the billionaire class, vested interests and the status quo with the aim of protecting their wealth and power, much like his great friend Peter Mandelson.
His institute are bankrolled by big tech and corporate interests, not the 99% struggling through austerity, insecurity and inequality.
Completion
We’re going to end with the following from Richard Burgon:
Tony Blair once said: “My project will be complete when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson.”
That quote is worth remembering given The Times is reporting that Blair plans more interventions on Labour’s future. — Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) May 28, 2026
This is why Blair’s project will never be complete, and it’s also why he will keep feeling a need to intervene.
The only positive in all this is that the backlash against him only seems to be growing with each new intervention.
Featured image via Pool (Getty Images) / Ryan Jenkinson (Getty Images)
By Willem Moore
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