Blair and Europe – you heard it here first

It’s been the back room project of the coterie of Blair loyalists – Peter Mandelson, Jonathan Powell, and others.

So troubled has Mr Blair’s ‘non-candidacy’ for the Presidency of the EU become that both Gordon Brown and David Miliband were forced to break cover yesterday and, risking further domestic controversy, make a very public case for Mr Blair taking over the new lead role in Europe.

But the socialist group in Europe rejected their pleas, and without so prominent a bloc, Blair’s hopes are all but dead.

You read it here first – it was Snowblog that learned first of Mr Sarkozy’s rapid cooling on the matter.

The personal relationship between Nicolas and Tony remains strong, but Sarkozy is too wily a politician to have failed to spot the tide running against Blair, and with Germany’s Angela Merkel less than lukewarm on the idea, he gave up on his plan to anoint Mr Blair.

Barring ‘a walking on water’ moment, the ‘Blair project’ in Brussels is sunk.

As I blogged last week, the French are now much more excited by the idea of ‘young David (Miliband) taking over the potential more powerful EU Foreign ‘High Representative’ role.