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Five Americans who changed Tony Blair

1. Will Marshall. In 1992, the President of the Progressive Policy Institute was visited by two young British Labour politicians. One of them was Gordon Brown, he forgot the name of the other.

But the impact on Blair of Marshall and his colleagues in the Democratic Leadership Council was greater. Brown and Blair were visiting to get tips from Clinton associates. The PPI was one of the most fruitful sources. Their working papers helped new Labour get started on a new policy agenda - with a Centre Right bent.

The identity of thinking became so great that Marshall now says that the balance of intellectual payments has changed and that the Democrats are drawing from new Labour. Blair became a new Southern Democrat.

2. Bill Clinton. The election of Clinton profoundly altered Blair and his associates. Philip Gould, Blair's pollster and one of the biggest influences upon him, spent time working on the campaign and absorbed its lessons.

Clinton changed Blair in three ways. First, the Blairites copied Clinton’s "War Room" and began combating the Tories in every news cycle. Second, Tony Blair learned from Clinton's immensely effective rhetorical style. He too began to feel the pain of the middle class. And finally, Clinton's failings hardened Blair. He reacted against the criticism that Clinton avoided hard choices by becoming harder himself. This trait first showed itself during the Kosovo conflict.

3. Rupert Murdoch. Your estimation of the influence of the proprietor of The Sun and The Times on the Prime Minister depends very much on what you think of Tony Blair. Do you think that his politics are on the Centre Right anyway or do you believe that he moved to the Right simply to win the support of the tabloid press? Perhaps it's a bit more complicated than that. Mr Blair provided his own assessment of the relationship last summer in a speech to a gathering of News Corp executives:

Rupert, it’s great to be back at the News Corp conference after all these years. When I first met you, I wasn’t sure I liked you, but I feared you. Now that my days of fighting elections are over, I don’t actually fear you, but I do like you.

This captures perfectly the way Blair has changed during his period in office - what he may have started out doing through necessity, he ended up doing though conviction.

4. Dick Morris. When Bill Clinton was choosing his holiday destination, he turned to his pollster for advice. He ended up in Wyoming. The obsessive use of focus group polling became part of Tony Blair's working method too.

In his book, Behind the Oval Office, about his work for Clinton, Morris set out his methods for developing policy. Morris suggests neutralising the Right on their strong issues - crime and the economy - leaving them to fight where they are weak - education, the environment and so on. Blair followed Morris's methods and ideas very closely.

In fact, Behind the Oval Office, written as a memoir of Morris’s time advising Clinton, remains one of the best texts on Blair's political methods.

5. George W. Bush. The partnership of Bush and Blair, the linking of their names in the public imagination, is an unlikely one. It happened because of Tony Blair's natural liberal interventionism and his view of the importance of the "special relationship". If George Bush had not chosen to invade Iraq, Tony Blair almost certainly would not have advocated doing so. But once the US President had made up his mind to proceed, the British prime minister was never going to allow the Americans to act alone.

Acting together with George Bush has changed Tony Blair in two ways - it has reinforced his interventionist instincts, making that a more prominent part of his political make-up; and it has made him a harder, more ideological politician. He became less reliant on popularity, less concerned about it. And lucky for him that he did, since at the same time he also became a great deal less popular.

The Daily Fix Extra: World reaction to Blair

Some headlines, opinion pieces and thoughts from around the world.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial: Britain After Blair - Who is Gordon Brown?

After more than 10 years at 10 Downing Street, he will leave behind a Britain that has bolstered its standing in Europe, solidified its role as one of America's closest allies and built London into a global financial hub. His Labour successor will be hard-pressed to do as well.

Kevin Sullivan in Washington Post: Briton's decade of achievements dimmed by embrace of Bush and Iraq War

At the same time, those who know Blair well said he believes that Britain is best served by a prime minister who keeps an airtight relationship with the U.S. president and stays "inside the tent" with him to influence policy. He established such a close relationship with President Bill Clinton that many American observers were surprised when he hit it off so quickly with Bush, Clinton's political opposite. But Blair was just being consistent.

Geoffrey Wheatcroft in Slate: Why do Brits dislike Tony Blair?

Although the religious faith worn on his sleeve would seem normal enough in an American politician, it's perplexing in a country where Church of England services are now attended by less than 2 percent of the population, but even that seemed at least authentic.

Alan Cowell in International Herald Tribune: Brown about to take over in Britain - but who is he?

Brown's manner is far from the silver-tongued smoothness of Blair, once nicknamed Teflon Tony. Indeed, with somewhat faint praise, Blair has likened his successor to "a great clunking fist" of a politician who will lead Labour into battle against the polished Conservative leader, David Cameron.

A. N. Wilson in the New York Times: A player who never found his stage

Being a man of quick though skin-deep intelligence, Mr. Blair found out very quickly that there are in fact fewer and fewer areas over which British politicians, perhaps any politicians, have control in today’s world.

The Great Moderation

Tony Blair's government has changed this country fundamentally. Mass immigration, gay rights, independence of the Bank of England, devolution, our interventionist foreign policy doctrine, an uncertain future for our relationship with the United States - Britain is very different as a result of this Prime Minister's tenure.

But is it right to assess Mr Blair by looking at what he changed? Perhaps his greatest achievement is what he didn't change.

It is often regarded as Mr Blair's failing that with such a large majority he altered so little. And I certainly concur that his reform, say, of public services was disappointing and that bureaucracy and regulation has grown due as much to sins of omission as to sins of commission.

Yet this failing has its good side, too. Tony Blair has been a moderate Prime Minister. He has presided over a period of stability. This morning Mary Ann Sieghart rather astutely compared him to Harold Macmillan.

Gerard Baker wrote a brilliant column earlier this year about the era we now live in. Forget Mr Blair's claims to have been a radical Prime minister. I think he will be forever associated with the Great Moderation.

Naming Blair's memoirs

I think it is time for Comment Central readers to offer Tony Blair some assistance. He will shortly be sitting down to write his memoirs. He'll have, ahem, some help with his recollections I'm sure. But the really difficult bit will be thinking up a title.

So I am launching a competition - the person who dreams up the best title for Mr Blair's autobiography wins.

Here are some thoughts, to show you what I mean:

• The Hand of History
• Pretty Straight Sorta Guy
• Who's Hoon? The story of my Government
• The Art of the Plausible
• The John Humphries Years - My role in them

Anyway, you get the idea. Put your entries in the comments section or click here.

Tony Blair has changed - he's abandoned New Labour

The first part of the Prime Minister's Today programme interview, in which he talked about cash for peerages and resignation, will be the one that claims all the attention. The second section, in which he talked about the NHS and (much less convincingly) Home Office matters, is the part he wants us to be interested in.

But me? I liked the last bit. I found his reflections on how he had changed as a man fascinating.

Two thoughts struck me. The first is that the Prime Minister has travelled far beyond New Labour. He talked about his previous belief that he could please all the people and his desire to do so. Now he realises that this isn't possible. He says he regrets that he tried so hard.

Now, this is no small conversion. The possibility of pleasing everyone was central to New Labour's working method and ideology. Abandon this and you're effectively abandoning New Labour.

My second thought is this - we all talk about how fed up we are with the Prime Minister, but at least as important is that he is fed up with us. All of us.

You can almost hear him sighing as he explains, yet again, the answer to another one of our stupid questions or tiresome complaints.

I think he feels he would have made it if it hadn't been for us pesky kids.

Free "No tribute from the Prime Minister" card!

Matthew Parris was on incomparable form in his column yesterday where he railed against Tony Blair and his tribute to the late Nick Clarke, presenter of Radio 4's World at One.

So as a service to Comment Central readers, please find above a cut out and keep card that you can stick in your wallet from now on, just in case.

101 uses for a discarded Tony Blair

Here's a game for everyone to play. What does Tony Blair do once he steps down? Apart from making his successors life a misery, I mean.

Here's my suggestion. The famous leaked Songs of Praise memo described Iraq as "the elephant in the room" and, as the Guardian's Jonathan Freedland argued in his column this week, this description is correct.  The memo author suggests "incorporating Iraq into the media plan". I suggest something a little stronger.

I think that Tony Blair and his advisers should be proud of his stance on foreign affairs and that, after he leaves office, he should set up a foundation dedicated to spreading democracy round the world. The Tony Blair Foundation should be a non-partisan, international campaign that is uncompromisingly outspoken on the need for liberal, democratic regimes to be strong in their support for human rights.

So that's my proposal. Terence Blacker, in an article originally published in the Independent, thinks Tony Blair should take up gardening instead.

And your idea?