Stop Hating Tony Blair

Start with Blair's premiership, and recall that it was he, with a little help from his then-friend Brown and his still-friend Mandelson, who made Labour electable. You don't have to like the Labour party to admire that feat; all you have to realise is that a democracy with two viable parties functions a lot better than a one-party democracy. So long as Labour threw up the Michael Foots as candidates and was in thrall to the trade unions, it could not provide a viable alternative to a sleaze-ridden Conservative party that had forfeited any right to manage the UK economy. Blair created that alternative – out of unpromising materials, I might add.

He went on to make respectable the idea that the public services exist to serve parents and the sick, not merely to provide places for millions of workers. True, he never succeeded in getting many of his consumer-choice reforms past Brown's Treasury, but he did make voters realise that they should be in charge, achieve at least some reforms, and create a dialogue that will make others possible once the Brown regime passes into opposition and Blairites regain control of the Labour party.

Which brings us to Iraq. Blair got the reason wrong and the cause right. And he was not alone: the intelligence services of most European countries believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Even if he did not, a continuing relaxation of the sanctions would have made the acquisition of such weapons possible had he remained in power – as Iran's mullahs are proving.

Then there is all that money that Blair is now making. Why that should be a sin I know not, especially since the former prime minister does devote time and energy to public service and to his charity. The objections seem to be three.

First, he gets a high fee for short speeches. The snide reporters who divide the fee by the length of the speech to get a high per-minute number should be ashamed: a speech requires preparation, staff research, travel time, and post-speaking schmoozing.

Second, the Blairs are building a property portfolio. Would they do better to stock up on bank shares? Or pounds?

Third, Cherie Blair likes to buy things, including fine antiques. Here we run smack into the lingering remains of the class system. The Mail on Sunday complains that this "working-class girl from Liverpool" fancies antiques and, horrors, antiques from the Napoleonic era. That's OK for lord this or that, but not for a working-class girl – who, by the way, earns a nice living, rather than relying on the inherited wealth that sustains so many who haunt the auction rooms.

There is worse, according to the Mail on Sunday. Cherie seeks to "curry favour with her American audiences" and promotes her book. Is she supposed to insult her American audiences and let her book head for the remainder piles, at a loss to herself and her publisher?

Finally, there is the EU presidency, or the possibility of it. I yield to no one in my dislike of the unaccountable, kleptocratic bureaucracy and its appropriation to itself of the prerogatives of parliament. But you lost that fight when your prime minister reneged on his promise of a referendum and signed the constitution – er, treaty. The EU's interest, which is what the role is all about now, is clearly in appointing (elections are not the thing in the EU) a famous, dynamic leader who can give it instant credibility on the world stage. Unfortunate for Britain, but that is of no interest to the Eurocrats. Indeed, the discomfort of the British prime minister when receiving President Blair at No 10 is one reason Blair's sponsors are probably advancing in favour of his candidacy.