The Blair government once briefly thrilled the left by allowing Pinochet to be arrested in London. But that was in 1998; the days when even the faintest whiff of socialism clung to Blair are long gone. In A Journey, published four months after the coalition took office, he wrote: "If governments don't tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers." And: "The role of government is to stabilise [the economy] and then get out of the way." A more helpful endorsement of David Cameron's state-shrinking austerity strategy from a non-Tory would be hard to imagine.
Since 2007, during straitened times for most Britons, Blair has seemed increasingly comfortable being around – and being one of – "those with money", as he refers to the super-rich in his book with telling casualness. "Blair mixes with the Buffetts and the Gateses," says John Kampfner, author of Blair's Wars, "where it is seen as matter of no great surprise that you arrive in a private jet. In Blairland, there is a sense of: 'I have become part of the Davos global elite. But I haven't been able to earn properly until now.'"
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