To see how fondly Tony Blair is remembered, you only need to see the “related searches” in this image.

Having a pop at Gordon Brown for failing to show his face in Crewe and Nantwich is all fair and good, but why does David Cameron have to go and spoil everything by talking unmitigated bullshit like this?

Mr Cameron taunted him by saying his predecessor as PM, Tony Blair, “led from the front” at by-elections.

During the Blair years it was a standing joke, as it is now, that the Prime Minister never attended by-elections. Indeed, in the last general election, using a picture of Tony Blair (almost always with George Bush) on your literature was one of the easiest ways to pick up votes (assuming you aren’t the Labour Party of course). Blair was ballot box poison, at least after 2003.

David Cameron, having as he does a bit of a schoolboy crush on Tony Blair, may like to think different, but that’s the way it goes.

Simple question: Nick Clegg has repeated Lib Dem calls for an inquiry into the scrapping of an anti-corruption investigation into the Saudi arms deal following revelations that Blair wrote a “who will rid me of this turbulent priest?“-style letter to the Attorney General on the eve of the investigation being dropped. Will David Cameron join this progressive alliance, or not?

Since we are apparently all progressives now, this is surely a no brainer? A basic fundamental tenet of progressivism is the idea of equality under the law, with no exceptions for special status. Who could argue against such a thing?

It is a simple question that demands a simple answer. Perhaps my Tory readers would care to try answering it.

…check out his guest slot on George Bush’s dog Barney’s Christmas video in which he manages to not only look deferential to a miniature dog but even comes up with some excrutiating dialogue about how they’re both Scotties. I’m only comforted that they decided to cut to another scene before Blair got a chance to proffer his balls to Barney to lick. It’s for kids Tony - show some decency!

It’s one thing to be a poodle to a halfwit. It’s quite another to be a poodle to a halfwit’s poodle. Suddenly Gordon Brown doesn’t look quite so bad after all.

Reading Sarah Helm’s article in yesterday’s Observer severely pissed me off, on at least two levels.

• The complete lack of contrition from Blair’s inner-circle that they had done anything wrong. Lest we forget that if anyone tried raising funds via undeclared loans now, they would be committing a criminal offence. They might not have committed any laws, but they were going around bending them like it was going out of fashion. If Sarah Helm was capable of self-introspection, she might be a little less quick to bemoan how her family has been treated these past few months.
• If anyone, say the makers of Taking Liberties say, were to go around claiming that the police under the Blair regime have become equivalent to the Gestapo, the Blairistas in the press would tear them several new arseholes. Yet here we have a member of Blair’s inner circle bemoaning that fact that the police, under Blair, have become like the Gestapo. If the police are mob-handed these days, which Prime Minister spent 10 years indulging such behaviour?

Finally, a note of caution about Guido’s attempts to bring a private prosecution on this case. Firstly, I wouldn’t bet your shirt on this getting anywhere. Proving anything over this in a court of law will be difficult even with the CPS behind it. Secondly, is Guido going after all the individuals implicated, or just the Labour ones? After all, the Conservatives are up to their necks in cash-for-honours as well; Michael Howard was even interviewed by the police. I wouldn’t want naive people to think they are giving money to clean up politics when what they are actually doing is funding a partisan exercise in mudflinging. Thirdly, Guido is a cautious soul when it comes to the law and his pledge seems to be deliberately vaguely worded. This isn’t a tenner you’re being asked to cough up for, it is a “donation” of no fixed amount. Sign it and you may find yourself jointly and severably liable for the legal costs incurred, with no say over what is spent and how.

Me? I wouldn’t touch it with your’s, mate.

I have to admit I did a double take when visiting Blair’s new out-of-office-yet-somehow-official website.

It took me a moment to realise he’s actually holding a mobile phone in this picture. I thought he was giving his beloved people a certain kind of salute in a moment of frankness!

If I were the Lib Dem Sedgefield campaign manager, I’d be using the phrase “cut and run” as often as possible.

I’d also use this photo. A lot. Under the caption “the new face of Labour”. I’m sure it will go down especially well on the housing estates.

Tony Blair is lamenting about that eeevil old media. You know, the thing that he used to become Prime Minister:

the media can operate like “a feral beast” and its relationship with politicians is “damaged” and in need of repair.

Can this be true? Well, it would appear that we now have a way to find out. Simply stick one of these up a journo’s bum, et voila!

If the test is positive, the good news is you can use the bile they produce to make shampoo. How wonderful is that?

(I’d hat tip Chris Keating, but actually I read about it somewhere else first and thus he deserves no credit whatsoever)

From the redoubtable Home Office Watch:

It has just been announced in today’s parliamentary business that the ID cards cost report - which the government was legally obliged (I repeat, legally obliged) to publish 31 days ago - is to be published today.

You couldn’t make it up really, could you?

Today was a family day, but I still managed to catch most of the key moments of the 1997 General Election results on BBC Parliament. I was having problem with our set top box but I just managed to tune in in time for David Mellor.

It was weird watching it - on the night itself I watched the coverage with about 500 other people in the Main Debating Hall at the University of Manchester Students Union. The film society, which I was also an active member of, was projecting the coverage on its big screen (I understand that the union has managed to kick MUFS out of the building now, which is a crying shame).

The Mellor bit I recall quite vividly, right down to Dimblebum making a wild prediction during it that the Lib Dems were set to win 61 seats (in fact it took us another 8 years to get to that point). His rant about Goldsmith failing to buy the election was much mocked at the time, but he had a point: millionaires should not presume to buy elections out of personal vanity. Goldsmith, having largely failed in his mission, was dead within weeks.

Neil Hamilton was as ungracious in defeat as I remembered (I’d forgotten about the Miss Moneypenny Party, with their candidate towering over the returning officer), Michael Portillo very much the opposite. Two points about the Enfield Southgate announcement. Firstly, Jeremy Browne was the Lib Dem candidate. Secondly, the BBC commentary was by Lance Price, who quite soon afterwards of course jumped into a job at Number 10.

The Enfield Southgate declaration was swiftly followed by the Stevenage one. I remember seeing Alex Wilcock standing on stage with his partner Richard (these were pre-millennial times, otherwise, I suspect a certain elephant would have been there as well) - at the time he was one of the few people I knew who was actually a candidate.

All the Lib Dems being interviewed kept talking about the Lib-Lab constitutional deal. Of course, a large amount of that was indeed delivered - it seems odd to hear people talking about creating a Scottish Parliament, Freedom of Information Act and Human Rights Act as these are all very much part of our daily politics now. Shirley Williams prediction that this was the last - or at worst last-but-one election to be fought under first past the post however proved to be somewhat wide of the mark.

Blair looked close to tears when he spoke at the Sedgefield Labour Club, and shockingly young. Various other faces popped up as well, such as Nicola Sturgeon, then 27, at the Glasgow Govan declaration (with black hair!). Peter Snow’s graphics were fantastic, particularly the animation where they flew over the UK showing Labour/Lib Dem target seats exploding and transforming from blue to red/gold (it reminded me of a cross between the post-2004 BBC weather map and the Death Star trench battle at the end of Star Wars).

If we’d known then how it would all turn out, very few of us would have cheered as loudly as we did, but nonetheless it was a fantastic evening. With the Tories now back on the rise and Labour in long term decline, it is just conceivable that we might have a similarly momentous General Election next time around, or maybe the next-but-one. Can the Tories make the bulk of non-Labour, non-Tory supporters as happy for them as we were for Labour winning 10 years ago? I suspect the answer is no, and I suspect that lies at the heart of Cameron’s problems.

I should explain that last sentence better. As the coverage today repeatedly reminded us, Labour’s vote share in 1997 wasn’t actually that high. What did it for them was the degree of tactical voting, with people voting for anyone but the Tories. Fewer and fewer people are prepared to vote in such a way, but the Tories only really have a shot if the public becomes so sick of Labour that they start to vote tactically against them. I don’t see that happening, not in the numbers that it did in 1997. People are open to Cameron, but the Tory brand remains toxic.