Kathryn, that’s an interesting letter. There are some in Britain who say that Blair’s performance over here is just another example of the PM telling an audience whatever it wants to hear. That, I think, is far too simplistic. More than that, it’s just wrong. Blair has paid a high political price domestically (at least within his own party) for his stance on Iraq – a crude opportunist would not have done that. He has done what he has done because he thinks it is right.

To understand Blair it is essential to realize that he is not a conventional socialist. Rather he is a reforming ‘liberal’ on the early Twentieth Century model (it’s easy to imagine him as a leftist member of Asquith’s cabinet). Such liberal ‘modernizers’ often lack any sense of history (we see that in many of the constitutional changes that Blair champions in the UK) and are typically unsympathetic to notions of the sovereignty of the nation-state (that can be seen both in Blair’s approach to the EU and, ironically, Iraq). Because such folk regard themselves as acting for the most high-minded of reasons (For example, in Blair’s case he is, unusually for a British politician, explicit in the importance he attaches to his religious faith), they are quite prepared to use the most ruthless means necessary to secure their agenda (thus all the spinning and deception that Brits have come to associate with the man).

Finally, they tend to be economic illiterates – that is the only possible explanation for Blair’s mishandling of the British economy and his rush to sign up for that suicide note better known as the Euro.