There has been a lot of Labour reaction to the Tony Blair essay, and I will round up more of it later, but one of the most interesting critiques is from Torsten Bell, the Treasury minister and pensions minister and former head of the Resolution Foundation thinktank, who has posted a long thread about it on Bluesky.

It is worth reading in full, but here are some of his main points.

Blair putting on full display what is in many ways his special ability - to lay out a political argument grounded in his own view of global trends (globalisation in the 2000s, tech in the 2020s). But…

The truth, awkwardly for an essay that argues that policy not politics must come first, is that this is an essay that puts politics not serious policy first

Bell agrees with Blair on policy on some points, but here are some of the points where he differs.

1. There is no understanding here of why taxes have risen over the past decade. If you look at the data you’ll know this most significantly reflects two things

Most importantly higher debt interest costs (a global trend reinforced by scale of debt rise under the last government). This alone has driven taxes up by 2% of GDP since the late 2010s and has to be wrestled with not ignored as the essay does

The upward pressure on taxes is added to by the inevitability of unwinding the extremes of austerity for public services reached in 2018 - a level of austerity that was politically, economically and socially unsustainable.

It’s okay for the Tories/Times/Telegraph to pretend that taxes are up “because of welfare”. That’s politics. But if you care about policy you need to understand that is a long way from the truth - and wrestle with the consequences

2. The essay calls for VAT to have been increased. It does so in the middle of the 2020s, when countries are facing the biggest period of inflationary pressure for decades = a recipe for much higher interest rates with absolutely nothing pro-business about it

3. There is no real policy on energy here. Which reflects the failure to recognise the real pressure on bills is twofold. Our - reliance on hydrocarbons - need for investment in energy generation/distribution (in part because of a criminal lack of investment in 2010s & 2000s)

Our answer to those pressures is to accept that for future generations we have to deliver that investment but we don’t protect those generations by leaving the UK dependent on imported oil/gas. The exact path of North Sea transition matters but doesn’t buy us out of this reality

4. On foreign policy, the essay reiterates a (long held and broadly correct) view that Britain should not look to choose between Europe and the US

But the critique of today’s foreign policy choices is backed by a deep inconsistency, wanting: - a conditional relationship with Europe (largely based on EU tech policy) - an unconditional one with the US (pro-enabling an Iran conflict that has done huge damage to global economy)

This is what Bell says about Blair’s take on politics.

As I said, where the essay is much better is the politics - not shallow personality politics but what the 2020s requires of successful political leaders. Blair is entirely right to say that requires having “an attitude, a tribe and a project.”

In summary, this is in many ways an impressive attempt to engage with some of the big forces shaping our future. But, as Tony Blair would probably be the first to admit, governing requires a much grittier engagement with the world as it is, not as you might prefer it to be

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2026/may/27/tony-blair-keir-starmer-wes-streeting-andy-burnham-mahmood-labour-leadership-latest-news-updates