What it is with Blair?

The US magazine Time thuds onto my mat.

On the cover, a familiar face – our old prime minister, Tony Blair, looking less haunted than he does on the cover of his book.

It’s a gentle, thoughtful photo and is emblazoned “Blair on America” – (Time salivates) – “In an exclusive essay from his new book, Britain’s former leader reveals what made Clinton and Bush tick.”

There is an unquestioning sense in the magazine’s presentation that we are reading material from one of the great intellectual forces in global leadership. The article is headlined “A Call to Greatness”. There’s a moody black and white full page Blair to accompany the headline.

He reveals that he never went to America until he was 32, and rarely thereafter, until he became PM.

Clinton? “A brilliant president”, he writes insightfully. Bush?  Blair admires his “intuition”, “simplicity”, “directness”, “boldness”, and “integrity”. Obama escapes with “man of steel”.

America is one of the arenas in which Blair has made his money of late. He is lionised there, as Time amply displays. Why not here? He won three elections in a row – one long after he’d joined the invasion of Iraq. Yet now, in many circles, he is traduced and indeed reduced to having to restrict his public appearances.

Can we imagine Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher, or Wilson, abandoning a simple book signing in Waterstone’s in Piccadilly for fear of the protesters that would gather?

Few British prime ministers have been so turned upon by their own people in so short a time. But, why? Is it the millions he has earned since leaving office? Envy? Disillusion? Or something about who people now think he is?