The Crash of 2008: No Left Turn

Extracts from the 31-page introduction to the paperback edition of Tony Blair’s A Journey are available on the book’s website. This bit, which is not on the website, is interesting, as it follows Blair’s warning to the left in the hardback original against taking the wrong lesson from the financial crisis:

In 2008, it was commonly believed that the left would gain from a mess thought not just to be “of the market” but begotten by unrestricted market practices. That state was said to be back in fashion. If it was, the fashion quickly passed. European elections and the US midterms saw, if anything, a move rightwards. Even the conservative leaders in Europe today tend to be under threat from parties more to the right or on non-traditional platforms rather than from the conventional left.

In other words, “I told you so.”

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