Telltale diaries of a self-deluding man

It is true of politicians - as of others too - that their enemies never do as much damage to them as they do to themselves.

Tony Blair is living proof of this observation.

His diaries abound with his self-righteousness, his constant spin to gloss over his real motives, his inability - or dogged refusal - to admit to his own considerable failings, his lust for wealth and global self-promotion, his contempt for his party and for all others apart from those with power he couldn't cross, his obsessive obsequiousness to George W Bush and all things US.

But what comes across most strongly is his instinct to mislead others and his own self-delusion.

We were told Iraq was about weapons of mass destruction, then it was Saddam's atrocities, then Middle Eastern democracy, then that Iraq was in the end a better place. Actually it was about Blair aligning himself with Bush as a global power figure.

We were told that no decision had been made on Iraq until virtually the first night's bombings, when actually it had been taken secretly and without consultation 10 months earlier in a private meeting with Bush.

We are told by Blair in his memoirs - almost risibly - that "I adore the Labour Party," when actually he defined himself by his unmitigated opposition to it. He repeats, wearily, his new Labour mantra that the party can only win by focusing on middle Britain and voters in the south of England, when actually new Labour lost for precisely those reasons by utterly alienating its working-class vote in the rest of the country.

Again, what constantly hits home so forcibly about these diaries is how they reveal Blair in a way he clearly never intended or expected.

His antipathy to the state's role over the banking crash reveals not only his fixation with market fundamentalism but also, misquoting his comments on Brown, his own economic intelligence - zero.

Blair's statement that he can't apologise for invading Iraq because Saddam still had the intent to develop WMD shows his endless capacity for self-justifying rationalisation, as though slaughtering well over 100,000 Iraqis and leaving the country in ruins can be based on judgements about intent with not a single shred of evidence.

But perhaps his biggest delusion is that is his claim that new Labour will come to be seen as a "great reforming government," when in fact history will judge it as a huge wasted opportunity between Thatcherism mark one and the Thatcherism mark two to which new Labour has now delivered us.

It is however an enormous relief that on the very day the diaries are published the voting begins on a new Labour Party leadership which will finally close the door on the tragedy of the Blair interregnum.

Michael Meacher is Labour MP for Oldham West. Read more of his writing at www.michaelmeacher.info