But Blair, who highlighted his three-time win record, argued that rather than “Keir’s personality” or “a failure to communicate,” the current government’s main affliction is the total absence of a “worked-out, coherent plan for the country.”
In the essay, he urges Labour to avoid a drift to the left and instead to push for a “radical center” policy agenda if it is to hold on to power, including grappling with artificial intelligence policy, capping pension spending, and easing restrictions on oil and gas drilling.
“Trying to force the prime minister out before we know what policy direction we’re bringing in, is not a serious way of conducting ourselves,” he warned.
Blair took direct aim at the cornerstones of modern Labour policy, attacking a host of top officials and their signature initiatives: Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s net-zero targets, Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ business tax policy, and former Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner’s workers’ rights package.
“Taken together, these measures have given headwinds not tailwinds to British business despite the macroeconomic gains for which the chancellor is rightly praised,” he argued.
Potential challengers to Starmer also came in for a lashing. He blasted Burnham for drifting leftward on tax and spend, and critiqued the more centrist Health Secretary Wes Streeting over capital gains tax and EU relations.