The Audacity of Tony Blair

Jeffrey Epstein was a vile individual, the kind any decent person would instinctively avoid. But Tony Blair isn’t like most people. He opened the door, put the kettle on, and asked about investment returns. Where others saw a predator, Blair saw potential: another billionaire to court, another rung on the golden ladder. For a man fluent in charm and comfortable with compromise, conscience has always been optional.

In 2002, while serving as prime minister, Blair hosted Epstein at Downing Street. It was not a chance encounter. Peter Mandelson arranged it. A civil service memo shows senior official Matthew Rycroft briefing Blair on the “super-rich financier” before their five o’clock meeting. The visit was deliberate, coordinated, and approved at the highest level. Epstein, a sadistic sex trafficker, entered the heart of British power because those who occupied it wanted him there.

That image — Epstein walking through the black door of Number 10 — captures the essence of Blair’s career. Power and privilege have always moved easily in his orbit. His gift has never been moral clarity but moral camouflage, the ability to dress ambition in the language of virtue. Many might argue that that afternoon in Downing Street was an aberration. They would be wrong. It was a preview of the career to come, where access trumped honesty and appearance outweighed truth.

His defining chapter remains Iraq. Blair sold that war as an act of conscience; the noble defeat of tyranny. What followed was an unmitigated disaster. Hundreds of thousands were killed, entire cities were destroyed, and a generation of young men and women returned home broken. The infamous “dodgy dossier” was assembled under the direction of Alastair Campbell, his loyal spin doctor and now, astonishingly, one-half of the most self-satisfied podcast in Britain (more on this in a minute). The intelligence that justified the invasion was not discovered but constructed. The facts were bent until they fit the policy, and Britain was led into disaster on the back of manufactured certainty.

When the war turned sour, Blair rebranded. Out went the messianic reformer. In came the global elder diplomat. He spoke with the solemnity of a saint and the slickness of a salesman; a halo on hire. Now he fancies himself a guardian of order, warning of climate doom, disinformation, and populist decay. He preaches as though none of these ills were sharpened, seeded, or sustained by his own hand. His foundation now trains leaders and advises governments on “good governance”, a phrase that in his mouth sounds like a private joke. These days, Blair’s favourite subject is digital identity. He sells it as the next step in modern efficiency, a world where every citizen is catalogued for convenience. The tone is gentle, the promise soothing, but the purpose is unmistakably authoritarian.

The irony of his entourage completes the farce. The aforementioned Alastair Campbell, architect of deception turned podcast bro, now lectures the public on honesty with a straight face. His co-host, Rory Stewart, plays the pseudo-philosopher. A sort of Tesco Value Tocqueville, he dispenses fortune-cookie wisdom to anyone soft enough to nod along. Together they host a weekly séance of self-regard, a kind of moral karaoke for the comfortably smug. Tuning in feels like watching arsonists host a fire-safety seminar while the curtains behind them burn. Their chemistry has all the warmth of a tax audit and the honesty of a campaign promise. It’s not dialogue but duet, a harmony of hypocrisy so grating it makes you envy the deaf. Stewart may be insufferable, but Campbell is even worse — still scheming, still sermonizing, and still allergic to accountability. Standing just behind them, calm as ever, is the man who taught him every trick in the trade.

Many would argue — and rightly — that Blair belongs in a courtroom, not on the conference circuit. War crimes should have ended his career, yet he drifts from summit to stage, speaking with unshaken confidence. Polite, persuasive, and impeccably rehearsed, he talks of peace as if he never sold war.

For all the talk of redemption, nothing has truly changed beneath the measured tone and careful smile. The appetites endure: the taste for control, the hunger for influence, and the unshakable belief that he is right. Tony Blair’s gift has always been to make self-interest sound selfless, and to turn catastrophe into consultancy. He speaks as though history has absolved him, but history has merely moved on. The war he started remains a wound without closure. The meeting he took with Epstein remains a symbol of how power protects itself. Blair today stands as a monument to audacity — the man who helped break the world and then crowned himself its conscience.