Opponents of these are damned as “unreconstructed traditionalists” and “knee-jerk liberals”, and that, pretty much, is that.The uncritical approach makes this a slight book. Unintentionally, however, it also illuminates the problems and opportunities facing Labour. The party is preparing for power, but a reader of this biography, which was based on long interviews, is left with little idea of what Tony Blair would do if he won This is not all Sopel’s fault. He notes that to date the Labour modernisers have been defined by what they are against – over-mighty trade unions, huge programmes of renationalisation, penal rates of taxation. They have not defined what they are for, and this is becoming worrying. Unless the Labour leadership starts to think more about a future in office and less about aspects of the party’s history and constitution it does not like, it may find that one victory is all it gets. A confused government unprepared for the gigantic task of tackling the consequences of the long Conservative rule of Britain could mean that Blair goes down in history as Britain’s Bill Clinton.On the first page is a revealing scene.

But children who kill are criminal oddities who appear every few years. Such rarities tell us as much about long-term trends in British society as the 1987 hurricane told us about long-term trends in the weather.Nor is there any discussion of how Labour would handle complicated law and order issues. Blair began to discuss the need to stop being afraid of talking about values after the murder of James Bulger, “which was a hammer-blow against the sleeping conscience of the country”. As it is, critical discussion is firmly avoided and a surface neutrality maintained.Take the case of Blair’s most famous sound-bite: the promise that Labour would be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime”.

In my rare moments of sweet temper, I don’t think he’s all bad myself. However, for most of this book Sopel accepts Blair’s views on everything from the trade unions to the market economy. If he made his position explicit, he would have produced a better book, one which could convince sceptics. He is a deft and astute politician who simultaneously strikes the voters as a decent family man.Now there is nothing wrong with admiring Tony Blair. It is impossible to write a book on contemporary politics without a point of view, and Sopel’s is simple: he thinks Tony Blair is marvellous. The Labour leader is variously described as modern, radical, charming, tough, full of grit and intellectually open.