Blair denies Iraq dented popularity

It happened to Thatcher and now it is happening to Blair. There's something about a decade in power that causes the resident of Number Ten to slowly lose their marbles, to start to think reality is what they say it is rather than something which exists out with of their own control.

For Thatcher it was the Poll Tax, an astonishingly unpopular replacement for the rates which drove even the blue-hair rinsed ladies of Cheltenham on to the streets in protest, and a tax which, even after she had been effectively sacked for it, she continued to proclaim could have worked.

For Blair, it is the Iraq war, which he continues to argue has nothing to do with his unpopularity.

In an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, Mr Blair was asked why the public was disenchanted with him even though the economy is sound. He replied: "I've won three elections and what happens when you're in power for a long period of time, people get tired of the same face, the same voice. It's just the way it is. I know people say this is all down to Iraq and so on, but that's not true. From the moment you start in these jobs, you're taking decisions people don't like. If you survive for 10 years, you're doing well."

There's actually something very sad about this level of delusion, as it appears to signal that he realises at some level that, if his unpopularity is caused by Iraq, then he was wrong and the rest of us were right.

And he can't concede that. So, just as Thatcher refused to ever admit that the Poll Tax was her undoing, now Blair in a similar fashion refuses to admit that it was the Iraq war which finally brought his Premiership to it's knees.

So he prefers to think that, with time, this was inevitable. Of course, in order to do so, he has to ignore every poll which states that overall he was a very good Prime Minister who made one very bad mistake. And that mistake was Iraq.

His comments surprised Labour MPs and political opponents, who accused him of "self-delusion" and being "in denial" about his legacy as he prepares to stand down in 12 days' time.

Sir Menzies Campbell, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "The Prime Minister should get out more. He should go for a drink in his local pub and read the blogs of British soldiers in Iraq."

Peter Kilfoyle, a former Labour defence minister, said: "This is self-delusion. He is trying to convince himself. The idea that it is some trick of time has taken him from the heights of massive popularity to where he is now is nonsense."

Bryan Gould, the former Labour politician who ran for the party leadership in 1992, told journalists: "I can't think of another figure in British public life who would have taken Britain to war over Iraq. I don't know anybody who would have had that moral certainty, that absolute belief that he could sell anything to the British people."

Indeed, Blair's self delusion even extends to how the war in Iraq itself is progressing:

In his interview, Mr Blair denied the intervention in Iraq had failed. "I'm sure that we haven't lost it," he said. "We have to go on and win it, but it's a different kind of conflict today. We've got to be prepared for the long haul now in these conflicts, because our enemies are going to fight us."

This is simply profoundly sad. This is a man who was massively popular and threw it all away in order to please the most profoundly right wing American administration in living memory. And he did so for a cause which turned out to be false.

And even now, as he finally heads out the door, he still refuses to admit that the Iraq war has anything to do with why the public now distrusts him.

There was little attempt to deny Iraq's impact at a question-and-answer session yesterday for Labour's deputy leadership candidates staged by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Oxfam and Save the Children. Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, said: "It has been hugely divisive. I accept that there are a lot of people who are very, very angry about what has been done."

Harriet Harman, the Justice minister, said: "A great number of people left the Labour Party because of our decision on Iraq, not to mention the public trust that has been eroded."

And so he is led off to the asylum, still insisting that he was right, that the war is still winnable, and that Iraq had nothing to do with why the people are now pelting him with orange rinds.

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Tags: Tony Blair, Iraq war, popularity, Saddam Hussein, George W Bush