One strange thing about the reception of Tony Blair's memoir is that Labour people have run screaming for the hills, while Conservatives have been speed-reading it for lessons in How to Do Government. The Labour leadership candidates have competed to distance themselves from the fastest-selling British political book. David Miliband said that Blair and Brown's "time has passed"; his brother Ed repeated yet again that it was time to "turn the page". But not of this book, naturally.
One Conservative cabinet minister, on the other hand, having read the extracts and the first few chapters, told me that, "if it were possible for the ardour of my Blairism to deepen, it has done so", and that a research assistant would be despatched to Waterstones on Wednesday to queue up for a signed copy.
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