Essay by Eric Worrall
“Infinite capacity for self-delusion” – Tony Blair kicked off Britain’s Net Zero disaster by signing Kyoto in 1997. Now he wants to hit the reset button.
Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump
In highly unusual intervention, ex-PM says his party’s ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’ makes it likely to lose next election
Jessica Elgot Deputy political editorWed 27 May 2026 07.00 AEST
Tony Blair has accused Keir Starmer, Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting of putting Labour’s future at risk by abandoning the centre ground, warning that the party’s “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” means it is likely to lose the next election.
In a scathing 5,700-word attack on the prime minister and his would-be successors published on Tuesday night, Blair argued for the government to crack down on welfare spending, abandon restrictions on oil and gas and smooth relations with Donald Trump.
His essay, a highly unusual intervention for a past Labour prime minister, is likely to draw a furious response from across the party, where Blair’s legacy remains highly contentious. On Tuesday, one senior source accused him of abandoning social democratic values to embrace an agenda that had “no answers”.
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A senior Labour source said: “Tony has evidently not been near a working-class Brit for decades but he’s clearly been away with the tech bro fantasists.
“Reheated Blairism has absolutely no answers to our national decline since the vultures were let loose. There was a time he would have stood up for social democratic values, but this shows just how far he has fallen.”
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/may/26/tony-blair-labour-abandon-net-zero-support-donald-trump
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I think it’s fair to say Blair is one of my least favourite politicians. But he didn’t get everything wrong, he stands with Margaret Thatcher in his level of support for the transatlantic alliance and the USA.
Blair’s latest critique pulls no punches;
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The government’s principal problem isn’t Keir’s personality. Or a failure to communicate ‘our achievements’. Or a need to assert more strongly Labour’s ‘values’.
It is because we don’t have a worked-out, coherent plan for the country in a fast-changing world and are in the wrong political position from which we can devise one and win a second term.
The government is governing from an essentially traditional Labour ‘soft left’ position, parked firmly in the party’s comfort zone.
Whether there is a leadership change or not is irrelevant if it doesn’t start with a policy debate. Are we really prioritising economic growth, essential not just for prosperity but for social justice, if there is a slew of policies we’re implementing which might restrict it? Does our economy need right now the goal of clean energy or cheap energy? How do we justify adding to the welfare bill when it is already ballooning, taxes are high and getting higher, and we’re told we have to increase defence spending to prepare for the possibility of war?
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At a minimum, the government should try to limit the effect of the changes made and, as we have argued consistently, remove those parts of the net-zero agenda which prioritise clean energy over cheaper energy; and from now on make sure the actions match the words on growth.
…9. Most important of all, reorganising the whole of government around the harnessing of the 21st-century technological revolution. All governments for the foreseeable future will govern in the age of AI. Those which understand it will see their countries prosper; those which don’t, won’t. This is literally the challenge across all sectors including welfare and health (digital ID is just one, though vital, part of it). It will define the future of the British economy which, ironically, has a powerful position in technology but one we’re in danger of squandering.
Read more: https://institute.global/insights/politics-and-governance/the-labour-party-is-playing-with-fire-over-its-future-and-the-future-of-the-country
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There is a lot in Blair’s public statement I disagree with – he still thinks leaving the European Union was a mistake. In my opinion Blair is still a big state authoritarian, who despite everything believes a long term climate goal is a good idea.
But Blair also got a lot right in his critique. He correctly identified AI as the great challenge of the 21st century, and eloquently argued for energy affordability over green purity, and the need for reforms which deliver hope and economic growth over an ever rising welfare bill.
Let’s hope Blair’s heirs in the Labour Party heed at least some of his call to action.
“A senior Labour source said: “Tony has evidently not been near a working-class Brit for decades but he’s clearly been away with the tech bro fantasists.”
It does not take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that the senior Labour source is over age 60. That use of language – in America at least – indicates someone who has been ‘out of the game’ for a few years.
The whole Labour party hasn’t been near a working class Brit for decades.
The float-ins are not “working” class, but they do know how to work the system to suck from numerous government programs.
So why work a nine to fiver, if you can supplement government bennies with some crime proceeds, such as pimping teenage girls to Pakistanis, to make payments on that new car, which is not covered by the bennies.
I’d say “Infinite capacity for self-delusion” is out of touch and unreflective.
“This is literally the challenge across all sectors including welfare and health (digital ID is just one, though vital, part of it).”
Why is digital ID “vital” except in an authoritarian, collectivist, anti-freedom ideology?
This part is the most alarming. The UK politicians, like the Canadian and US Democrats, desire such control to shut down opposition. Very Orwellian. But not a fictional fear.
“Green energy or cheap energy?” Labour has plainly chosen green, while Reform has chosen cheap. Easy to call the next election no matter who replaces Starmer.
Rud,
the fly in the ointment is that the subsidies for renewables are long term contracts, so to reverse direction will be a difficult task, or alternatively expensive, to buy off the operators who hold these contracts.
There is no doubt that without any renewables on the grid, electricity would be much cheaper, but another problem looms, that of sufficient dispatchable generation capacity as existing plants are getting near end of life and the time scale for replacements is long (5 to 7,8 years?).
We really are in a bad situation, just as the U.N. intends, “to dismantle the economic model that has existed since the start of the industrial age and within a specific time frame” quote from a speech by Christine Figueres, when she was in the UNFCCC.
Dear Tony
Not a chance. Now bog off.
Yours
Ed
RCP8.5 story tip
Scientists have scrapped the worst-case climate scenario – because action is making a difference
https://theconversation.com/scientists-have-scrapped-the-worst-case-climate-scenario-because-action-is-making-a-difference-283675
Very droll.
The only “difference” their stupid “actions” have ever made is impoverishment of western nations.
Worse-than-useless wind and solar haven’t changed anything else. Irrelevant “emissions” and irrelevant atmospheric CO2 levels continue to rise unabated.
Wind and solar are a such a tiny amount of world energy use, they couldn’t possibly make a difference anyway.
What difference have “actions” made?
Atmospheric CO2 continues to climb at an increasing rate.
Still more needed , though.
An entirely expected response from the “hair on fire” climate catastrophists.
Nick Stokes advanced this same utterly lame, piss-poor excuse of an explanation a few days ago.
It’s an attempt at the classic “well, it would have been much worse if we didn’t inflict those COVID lockdowns / lockouts in all the schools”
Rate of the Global increase in CO2 continues to climb, with no indication that human emissions calculated by the climate wonks has had any effect whatsoever.
2024 was a particularly good year ! 🙂
Note that the spikes were in El Nino years.. (1987, 1998, 2016, 2024) ..
… almost as if the oceans were providing most of the CO2 increase. 😉
What they mean instead of working-class Brits is recipient class and all the jobs tied to them. That worked fine in previous decades and generations when the issue was redistribution of wealth in an expanding economy, but now the issue is more basic for investment and job creation policy going forward. In other words, the old game rules and wording strategy are archaic. Since not all thinking Brits can fit onboard the Mayflower, they need to wake up–now.
Rats beginning to abandon the sinking ship?
They deliberately lied or were gullible creeps.
Remember those politicians fawning on stage with that Greta fibber.
Yes, clearly “working class Brits” are over the moon about skyrocketing electricity prices and mandates for worse-than-useless electric cars and heat pumps coupled with the simultaneous, systematic destruction of the UK electric grid.
What was that Tony said about an “infinite capacity for self-delusion?” LMAO
Story Tip (UK)
“MadManMiliband urged to drop his latest Net Zero push, amid warnings it could add another £1 billion to soaring energy bills.”
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15853077/Ed-Miliband-urged-drop-latest-Net-Zero-push-amid-warnings-add-1-billion-soaring-energy-bills.html
What? No job fm uncle Klaus? Anyone done an audit on the waste if taxpayer money and inflation & loss of production to China etc????
Did he mention anything about turning the UK into a third world muslim… you know what?
No, he ignored that elephant in the room.
There can never be Net Zero in the UK because there will always be long cold rainy winters. The humans in the UK exhale 70 million kg of CO2 everyday. What is Mad Ed’s plan to reduce emission of CO2 from humans?
The real threat to health in the UK at the moment is the National Health Service. It has reinvented itself as a vehicle for denying access to medical treatment, while it spends its time on reinventing the English language to replace things like ‘mother’ with ‘birth parent’ and ‘breast feeding’ with ‘chest feeding’. Because for some reason no terms may be now be used which refer to women or female biology. And it is also very big on getting itself to Net Zero, which means among other things making sure it does not use any GHG anesthetics. Not that many will notice the effects of this, because the waiting list for elective surgery is now approaching a large proportion of the population.
The UK has a nationalized health service which the people are perpetually told is the envy of the world. Despite the fact that no-one has ever tried to imitate it, and that it has higher avoidable death rates than any other developed country. I think any. Maybe its not the bottom, it may be only near the bottom.
In what other developed country would someone trying to get medical attention be told by his local practice that a phone call from his doctor had a lead time of over 2 months, no definite date. To just talk to a pharmacists at this practice had a lead time of a week. This is for a phone conversation, not a meeting! OK, go to another practice maybe? Good luck with that, if you suggest that then you do not understand the system. OK, self prescribe and buy your drugs? No, not possible, no-one will supply. OK, import them? Its illegal to import prescription drugs. On the amazing and ironic grounds that its a danger to health. As if not being able to get them was no danger at all,
I asked what my informant did. He said he refused the appointments because by the time they arrived he would be either cured, in hospital or dead. He didn’t go to A&E because it would take hours for an ambulance to arrive, and when he got to A&E the odds are anyway that he would wait on a trolley for hours in a corridor waiting to be treated.
And then he started looking for online sources of care. And looking up flights to Europe.
And they seriously think global warming and a hot summer is the real threat to health in the UK?
The UK is practising assisted suicide. The only debate is whether it shall be done by administration of drugs or by denial of treatment.
Electrify! electrify! electrify!
Electrification is the answer to save Europe’s industry, IEA tells Euronews
“The UK has a nationalized health service which the people are perpetually told is the envy of the world.”
That’s what the Democrats want to implement in the U.S. They want to control the nation and the health care system. They want control over our lives.
That sounds very similar to the medical situation in Canada. They actually have people in their national medical service actively trying to sell the MAID program to them (assisted suicide). The one advantage Canadians have is the availability of US medical treatment just across the border, so anyone who can does that
The response of unnamed Labour Party loudmouths proves Blair’s point about their self-delusion. Their doofus policies have not only done nothing to improve the decline of the UK, they’ve accelerated it, but they refuse to see it and blame others. The UK’s economy has stagnated for 19 years after a remarkable 27-year run initiated by Margaret Thatcher reversing decades of the creeping destruction of British Socialism embraced by both Labour (enthusiastically) and Conservative parties. As U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott drily observed, “You can’t fix stupid.” Brits’ only hope for reversing the decline of their economy, living standards, and culture is the Reform Party.
Nah keep up with the battery milk floats and fickles and watch the rise of One Nation in Oz as exactly the same is happening with the uniparties (read universityparties)-
MG says electric-car sales surge is over
“A senior Labour source said, “Reheated Blairism has absolutely no answers to our national decline since the vultures were let loose …””
Ah yes, the famous Mr. Anonymous, who admits to national decline under Labour’s leadership. That admission will surely work as a campaign ad.
Who are the “vultures?” The Muslims? Illegal immigrants? The wind and solar carrion fowl? The anti-Christian censorious police state?
I’m an American, so I’m just asking.
Labour certainly has no answers for fixing the UK. In fact, Labour and its Net Zero policies are destroying the UK.
The UK has bigger problems than CO2. A delusional government being the biggest one.
The US and UK has seen its best days.
Tariffs reduce trade, causing declining GDP growth.
Poverty increases, education and healthcare costs increase. Discontent grows.
UK left the EU and lost the free movement of goods and services. Poverty increases and discontent grows.
What is the reason for the declining welfare and increasing poverty?
https://uk.investing.com/news/economic-indicators/us-gdp-growth-falls-short-of-forecasts-but-shows-improvement-93CH-4702459
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/05/27/economy/us-food-insecurity-economic-sentiment
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/30/rising-costs-forcing-3m-uk-households-skip-meals-which-report
I live in the UK and welcome this intervention from Sir Tony, even though I was never a supporter. Why? He actually considers the trade-off between “fighting climate change” and rising energy costs. As a result of net zero, my household electricity bills are now 250% higher than 20 years ago, assuming the same usage. I left the chemical industry in 2004. The company I worked for had at least 6 production sites in England. Five have been completely demolished. High energy costs are the main factor.