The ghost rattles his chains

Blair is back.  The Guardian reports:

The familiar tics of “By the way” and “Let me just say this” that used to make listeners fall into his eyes now felt mechanical and dated. The narrative that there was no intrinsic tradeoff to be made between principle and the pragmatics of re-election no longer felt quite so easy or convincing. The longer Blair carried on talking, the harder it became not to hear the voice of a rather ropey management consultant whose speciality was platitudes.
 
“What the party needs to do is root and branch thinking,” he said, giving few pointers to what that might entail. “The world is a fascinating place and we need to be engaged with it. We need to remember how to connect with people.” The pathos in Blair not realising this was an ability he had long since lost escaped only him. If these are the kinds of leadership insights corporations are paying £200,000 an hour to hear, then brain death awaits us all.

Let him crawl back to whatever richly-appointed hole he emerged from.