Historian Paul Johnson skewers Barack Obama ever so gently

Happily Blair has not made the mistake of making himself ineligible for a return to active politics by going into the impotence of the House of Lords or the Brussels bureaucracy. He can respond to a summons or an opportunity. Britain seems to be entering an era of coalitions, turning its back on the strict dualism of monolithic parties, and pushing men of all parties toward the center. This is a good climate to give birth to a Second Spring for Blair.

Both Labour and the Liberals will probably split in the near future. Blair is well placed to take over the leadership of a merger of the responsible rumps of both. And this could be the prelude to his assuming the leadership of a much wider merger with the Tories. His temperament, his views, his commitments (including the lack of them), and his enviable capacity to get himself liked all point in this direction. So does his book, if you read between the lines. A Blair revival, it is true, does not fit in with a continued Obama presence in the White House. But nor does any other good news for the West.