'Blair has a pheromonal effect on the global elite'

The news that Tony Blair discussed Gaza with Donald Trump raised eyebrows. But after watching him mingle with the US president’s family, Anne McElvoy says he’s a man with a plan

- Anne McElvoy

It is easy to roll one’s eyes at the presence of Sir Tony Blair, septuagenarian ex-prime minister, consultant to some questionable leaders and regular figure in the first-class lounges of international travel. So, the news that the most dynamic Pensioner in British politics has been back on the squishy cream White House sofas close to US power should not surprise us.

Nonetheless, the reports that Blair has been to Washington for the second time this year to discuss the “day after” future of Gaza with Donald Trump and his son-in-law and Middle East fixer, Jared Kushner, have piqued many. The popular children’s author and BBC presenter Michael Rosen captured a withering sense of left-wing allergy to “TB” in a post on X this week, which went: “‘So, Mr Blair, what are your qualifications for talking about Gaza?’ ‘I bombed Iraq.’ ‘Fair enough.”

Yet the man whose eponymous Tony Blair Institute - a glossy, well-staffed entity advising states and businesses on policy and technology - remains confident of his personal pulling power. While his meeting with Trump is a personal undertaking, his institute proudly proclaims on its website: “We help governments and leaders get things done” - a mission statement that its figurehead lives by.

The Times of Israel this week provided more detail on the content of the session, reporting that Blair has been putting together a postwar Gaza plan for the past several months, “meeting with various regional stakeholders to get their input and support for his efforts”, a source told the paper. The former British premier, it added, has been in regular touch with both Kushner and Trump’s most trusted foreign policy emissary, Steve Witkoff, to formulate plans ahead of the encounter.