Labour must put policy first, politics second, Tony Blair says

Tony Blair has continued his attack on the Labour government, saying it should be about “policy first, politics second”. Hours after he published a scathing essay in which he warned that the party’s “almost infinite capacity for self-delusion” meant it was likely to lose the next election, the former prime minister said it should “take a step back, analyse the world”. On Keir Starmer and his would-be successors Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting, he urged Labour MPs to “force people to say where they stand” before getting behind a change in leader. In his 5,700-word essay , published on Tuesday night, Blair argued for the government to crack down on welfare spending, abandon restrictions on oil and gas, embrace the technology and artificial intelligence revolution and smooth relations with Donald Trump. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Wednesday: “If you don’t decide what your policy direction is, there’s no point in changing the leader. …