Blair betrayed Middle England

One of Britain's most accomplished political communicators, both orally and now in the written form, Mr Blair's fabled powers of persuasion will not appease those who maintain that the Iraq War was this country's gravest foreign policy deceit since Suez. The book was never going to.

Yet, despite his communication skills – one chapter is even titled "We govern in prose" – and an unprecedented Parliamentary majority at his disposal in 1997, this book reaffirms New Labour's failure to fulfil

its potential and how Middle England was ultimately betrayed.

Of course, countryside supporters will note the former PM's contrition over the hunting ban. Yet his words are too late for those whose livelihoods depended upon such pursuits. They also fail to justify Mr Blair's exploitation of this issue when in opposition. The regrets do not end here. With hindsight, Mr Blair accepts that his first term was squandered.

The Tories were in such disarray that he could have pushed through

far-reaching domestic reforms, without a murmur being raised. It is a shortcoming that the current government, a coalition brought together by circumstance, is determined not to repeat with its radicalism.

In many respects, it comes down to how Prime Ministers use their authority. And, even though Mr Blair was, electorally, Labour's most successful leader in history, his corrosive feud with Gordon Brown shows he was ostensibly "in office but not in power" – the charge once levelled against John Major.

This was a PM, so powerful on the world stage, who apparently was so timid when rehsuffling his team that he gave jobs to second-rate

Ministers so Mr Brown was not offended.

More crucially, Mr Blair also could not bring himself to sack his "maddening", petulant and disloyal Chancellor because of the unrest that this would cause. It did not help that Mr Blair clearly had little interest in the economy; such details were clearly alien to a leader who was more comfortable with making grand gestures and worrying about the consequences later.

Yet Mr Brown should have been sacked, if only to spare Labour and Britain from a far greater financial calamity. But, more importantly, this perpetual power struggle shows – as Margaret Thatcher and John Major can testify – that a PM is only as good as their Chancellor.

If it wasn't so serious, this introspection might, actually, be amusing. It is not because too many livelihoods have now been ruined because Tony Blair did not exert sufficient authority. If he had, he might – just – have preserved his reputation, and also New Labour's hard-earned reputation for financial competence.