Tony Blair’s plans post-Downing Street… chat-show host? I hadn’t picked up on the number of podcasts he has been recording with various celebs lately, from Chris Evans to Seb Coe, and now Stephen Fry. Of course, Stephen Fry is always going to be great to listen to. But he isn’t shy about asking some tricky questions – ‘do you mind knowing that so many people don’t like you’? (I’m not sure that one was cleared in advance?)
They touch on some interesting territory – the way new communication channels and challenges mean having to ‘conduct politics in a different way’, but disappointingly, it doesn’t really go anywhere. Instead, we end up on the old familiar territory of ‘oh, I’m rubbish with computers’. But at least we get a pledge: ‘It is something that when I leave I am going to have to devote a lot of time to.’ About time too, Prime Minister.
I have no idea what these podcasts are meant to achieve, other than some vague sense of improving engagement with the ordinary voters, by involving ‘that bloke off the telly’. I doubt it’s working particularly well. But it’s an entertaining listen (or read) nonetheless.
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