Does the EU deserve Mr Blair?

Oct 29 2009 by Peter Jackson, The Journal

TWEETERS are being invited to submit questions for the spirits of departed celebrities including Michael Jackson and William Shakespeare as part of the world’s first Twitter seance.

As it happens, I was in Los Angeles at the time of Wacko’s memorial service and nobody turned up apart from close family (no, not me) and the police, so I can’t see him taking the trouble to answer questions from those who couldn’t be bothered for him.

This isn’t the only attempt at trying to raise the dead. David Milliband is campaigning for Tony Blair to be made EU president, saying he would have the motorcade factor and stop the traffic in Beijing and Moscow.

Surely, if he was to be linguistically consistent, this should be Beijing and Moskva, but still, he’s only foreign secretary, what would he know.

What are Tony Blair’s qualifications for the job ? And why Britain should want him to have it? It might fondly be hoped that, as EU president, he would stick up for Britain’s interests, though I doubt that’s in the job description. But Europeans will be assured by the fact he failed to stick up for Britain’s interests in the EU when he was prime minister, having given up Britain’s rebate in return for a reform of the Common Agricultural Policy that never happened.

But perhaps that sell-out will be gratefully remembered by France and maybe the rest of Europe will be impressed with his CV, especially by his foreign policy triumphs of Iraq and Afghanistan. They will also look with approval at his record of standing up to the US and the way he has brought peace to the Middle East.

The Europeans are also big on style and will have noted with approval the grace and good breeding that Cherie Blair brought to her role as prime minister’s spouse. Who better to become first First Lady of Europe?

Probably most important, for this fledgling European state however, will be Mr Blair’s talents as a healer and unifier. After all, has not his stewardship of this country led to us to a situation where nearly one in four voters would consider voting for nazis, albeit Nazis with a small ‘n’?

Does Europe really deserve this colossus?

Peter Jackson is a freelance journalist and former Journal business editor p.jackson77@btinternet.com