Why Tony Blair should be furious

How do you suppose Tony Blair feels on hearing the news that Peter Mandelson and Gordon Brown have played pat-a-cake pat-a-cake make up men? I suspect he might feel a little like Christopher Hitchens when Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley started yukking it up:

I suppose I can understand why people are glad when they see Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams sitting down together and consenting to "power sharing" in Northern Ireland—and just in time for Good Friday, too, as if to consecrate a Protestant-Catholic brotherhood just on the verge of the various feasts of the resurrection. But the phony photo-op still made me want to spew.

Of course, Hitchens's objections were a little more serious. Thousands of people died. But Blair could be excused for feeling furious at the wasted hours and wasted energy he expended mediating a row which in the end turned out to be a whole load of nothing.

Read the best accounts of the Blair years and you will realise that the Mandelson-Brown dispute was a serious distraction, a serious problem, for the Government. And it reduced Blair's ability to do his job. It wasn't merely a political impediment, it was a serious governmental one. The great thing about Tony Blair was that you just know that he'll be forgiving and look on the bright side of the reconciliation. But the proper reaction? Fury.