A salute for Tony Blair

Admiration for the prime minister from an unexpected quarter. Henry Porter in today's Observer:

The trauma London experienced that day [July 7] was palpable on every face. I remember watching Blair in front of the world's leaders denouncing terrorism and thinking that such shocks always funnel upwards to the person in charge. Blair looked grave but resolute. Shortly afterwards he left the summit and travelled to London for a security briefing, which removed him for that whole first day of the summit.

But the climate change meeting went well and all the key provisions were passed. The following day, by which time he had returned, Blair had similar success on debt relief and increasing aid to Africa to £25 billion per annum for the next five years. Not a bad result; in fact one of the big achievements of his premiership.

At a human level one has to admire the qualities which took the Prime Minister through that tumultuous and extraordinarily pressurised week. Although I am more used to attacking him for his position on Iraq and his onslaught on civil liberties, it's worth saluting his stamina and poise during that week and noting that such a character may not be as easily shoved aside as the Daily Telegraph likes to predict.

And, of course, if you think that Blair did the right thing over Iraq, it's worth saluting his being on the right side of an important historic division as well.