Tony Blair has spent over a decade pandering to the rightwing media, so it strikes this blog as somewhat hypocritical for him to now refer to it as a “feral beast tearing people and reputations to bits”.
New Labour courted our vicious media back in 1997 when hacks devoured the Tories, and then, under the stewardship of Alistair Campbell, party apparatchiks worked around the clock to influence and shape the media’s output. New Labour has witnessed the birth of the 24-hour media, and it has been instrumental to its evolution.
In his final days, Blair appears to be unable to face up to the fact that his legacy is one of vacuous promises, rampant public spending, and a disastrous war. Blair cannot spin the fact that whatever ills Britain now suffers, the media included, he himself has been key to them all. Leaders create their own reality. They are change makers. It is too late for Blair’s whining.
*there is no guarantee that this will indeed be Blair’s last hypocritical act, in fact, Blair is likely to commit several more acts of hypocrisy before he leaves Number 10
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He may be a tad hypocritical, but do you think that he’s wrong on the substance? And do you think any government would have been able to mould the media into what they are now, when the advent of technology has been pivotal.
The man is a glib self-deluded fantasist. This became obvious during the first year of his premiership [Formula One and "I'm a pretty straight kinda guy"]. It is the responsibility of the spineless Parliamentary Labour Party that he has been allowed to remain where he is for so long. Anyone who votes for those gutless lobby fodder clones again will deserve all they get, whoever is PM.
davinon,
I never said the government were wholly responsible for the nature of today’s media, that would be silly, however they have been a key factor in its modern manifestation.
Do I agree with the substance of Blair’s comments? Yes.
anticant,
The story of the Labour backbenches, is the truly sad tale in all the this.