‘The Real Radicalism the Moment Requires is at the Level of How the World Is Seen’

Nafeez Ahmed responds to Tony Blair’s recent intervention on the future direction that the Labour Party should take

Photo: PA/Alamy

Tony Blair’s recent essay – ‘The Labour Party Is Playing With Fire Over its Future and the Future of the Country’ – asked the right question but from the wrong perspective.

The pushback was swift. Andy Burnham criticised the former Prime Minister for not mentioning inequality once in 5,700 words. Treasury Minister Torsten Bell defended the Government’s net zero plans – as a cost the country can bear, rather than as the cheapest energy strategy on offer. Senior Labour figures dismissed the “reheated Blairism with no answers”.

Blair’s argument was made using a 1990s map of the UK that no longer resembles the reality of the country in which we live.