Andrew Rawnsley (London Observer): Blair's troubles won't fly away

From the London Observer (Sunday supplement of the Guardian)
Dated Sunday July 13

Tony Blair's troubles won't fly away
The Prime Minister's world tour may have been planned as a victory parade but it is turning into an assault course
By Andrew Rawnsley

After such a dreadful run of weeks at home, it would be perfectly understandable if Tony Blair is desperate to get away from it all. Getting away from it all the Prime Minister may think he will be when he embarks on a circumnavigation of the planet which will take the Phileas Fogg of Downing Street spinning around the globe from London to Washington to Hong Kong and back to London via Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing and Shanghai.
When he takes off on Thursday, he will be putting thousands of wonderful miles between himself and revolting Labour MPs, dissatisfied voters, scheming colleagues, and sneering newspapers.
As the jumbo grumbles down the runway, I can just imagine Mr Blair looking out of the window and a smile of relief growing on his lips as Britain shrinks ever smaller until this difficult country disappears below the horizon altogether.
Half of the public - according to one poll - say they wouldn't trust the Prime Minister as far as they could throw him. Some of his MPs - the ingrates - are now as openly contemptuous of him as he has always been of them. Given the chance, a chunk of his parliamentary party - the unreconstructed expletives - would ditch the man who has won them double landslides unique in the Labour Party's history. He looks around the Cabinet table and finds himself surrounded by Brownites and Kinnockites, but very few allies he can really call true and faithful Blairites.

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I for one think blair is a chamelleon who cares nothing for the truth of the matter!

well I see who he truly is, and it is most disheartening. I read that The Big Dog visited Blair 3 times before the Iraqi debacle. What did Clinton say? Why didn't Blair take his advice? I feel sure that Clinton told him he was "being used." I don't get it.