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Tony Blair has written an extraordinary political memoir. He could hardly do otherwise. This is not a judgment on the quality of his prose, which is sometimes erratic. It is a statement of the politically obvious. Where some former PMs – John Major or James Callaghan, for example – wrote interesting and useful tomes that were more often put down than picked up again, others – most recently Margaret Thatcher and now Mr Blair – write as polarisers and protagonists. Mr Blair writes as what he himself is, a controversial leader and a continuing player. As he said to the Guardian in his interview this week, he believes he has something to say and something to explain. He wants the chance to be heard. He could not have written a boring book if he had tried....