'Psycho' Blair under attack
Friday July 18 2003
The assault in the journal New Statesman - owned by Geoffrey Robinson, a supporter of Mr Brown - claimed that Mr Blair was technically a psychopath.
During a torrid few weeks Mr Blair has been accused of most things by his backbenchers. Madness has not been among them and the charge was not taken too seriously.
Westminster's conspiracy theorists were given plentiful ammunition, however, by a series of articles in the New Statesman that highlighted the qualities of Mr Brown and suggested that Mr Blair might have outlived his usefulness.
The magazine denied any co-ordination and friends of Mr Robinson made plain that he had no role in determining the editorial line.
A leading article said that now that Mr Blair had lost so much public trust over the Iraq war "Mr Brown is probably the better bet for elections.
"Paradoxically, Mr Blair looks a rather dangerous, unpredictable figure given to foreign adventures and silly schemes for turning public services upside down . . . the reality is that a Brown government would have a sense of purpose that Blair governments lack."
This was followed by an item by a writer who said he had spent several weeks talking to psychologists about what drove Mr Blair.
He wrote: "One view emerged strongly: there appears to be something worryingly adrift in the mind of Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, a man who doesn't really know who or what he is. More technically, he is diagnosed as a psychopath capable of reinventing himself with remarkable dexterity." (© The Times, London)
- Philip Webster
