Emperor's New Clothes: Tony to buy a new hat

Just managed to open my laptop for a few brief moments on my weekend break and what do I discover? - some of my blogging colleagues talking about Tony Blair's future enthronement. Good heavens, I go away for a few days break from blogging and return to this development.

Tony Blair launched his campaign to become the first fully-fledged President of the European Union yesterday by describing the notion of left- and right-wing politics as redundant. With France preparing to oversee the appointment process, Blair set out his vision of modern European democracy at a meeting of the French governing conservative party by also claiming that EU countries could achieve far more by working together than acting in isolation. 'Europe is not a question of left or right, but a question of the future or the past, of strength or weakness,' said the former British Prime Minister, speaking in French.

After Blair's speech, Sarkozy took the former Prime Minister for lunch at the Hotel Bristol near the Elysee Palace. Despite support from Sarkozy - who is the architect of the mini-treaty for a European constitution - Blair is an outsider for the EU job. His support for the war in Iraq and Britain's reluctance to join the euro and other core projects is likely to count against him when EU leaders vote for their president later this year.

Hold on a minute - he may have spoken French to delighted political types, but shouldn't he be left alone to sort out the Middle East first?

United Kingdom - Middle East - Europe - The World

If my careers adviser is reading this post - you don't know what you're talking about!