Theodore Dalrymple reviews a new book on Blair’s legacy. Dalrymple being Dalrymple, it’s all worth reading, but for those who persist in believing, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, in Blair the national security champion, this paragraph is definitely one to ignore:

The authors of Fantasy Island point to the Blairite illusion that we can reconcile the irreconcilable, not only by paying ourselves more than we earn, but by posing as a military power while simultaneously cutting expenditure on our armed forces. Thus we fight distant wars while shelving half our navy at a stroke, a policy that could only lead to national humiliation, as it did when Iran took our marines captive. Mr Blair did not exactly cut a Palmerstonian figure then, for the very simple reason that he had not the wherewithal to do so (even assuming he had the other necessary attributes). Aggression combined with impotence is rarely a recipe for success, and only those who live in a fantasy world think that it might be.

Quite.