The Master Thespian
The actress Joan Plowright used to say that she never knew whether her husband Laurence Olivier was acting or not – or indeed whether he knew himself.
The brilliance of Tony Blair is that he is able to take a brief, like any competent barrister, and stick to it, but he can also convince himself in the process that he does actually believe everything he is saying.
Until Blair arrived on the scene, we thought that Harold Macmillan was probably the greatest post-war actor/Prime Minister that we have had in Britain.
Yesterday, in what was almost his final curtain call announcing his resignation as leader of the Labour Party in Sedgefield, he combined all his accumulated stage talents for a farewell. However, even as the New Labour project draws to a close, some of its defining characteristics remain, such as the obsessive desire with spin and presentation. People were bussed in from South London and placards praising Tony were clearly displayed for the assembled media. The whole event was magnificently scripted and brings to mind the words leopards and spots.