IF THE Bourbons were still a thing, it would be time to crown Tony Blair king. Just like the French royal dynasty, which famously “learnt nothing and forgot nothing,” the former prime minister seems determined to endlessly repeat the blunders and crimes with which he is forever associated.

It is bad enough that the blood-stained invader of Iraq is now pitching to govern Gaza on behalf of Donald Trump — a proposal that even the US president allowed may not fly in the Arab world — as if his name did not reek in the nostrils of every Palestinian.

But he is also still offering up the same old economic policies which the country and the world is desperate to escape from. The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) — lavishly funded by reactionary US tech billionaire Larry Ellison — has offered Rachel Reeves its advice for her Budget, due at the end of the month, and on the economy more generally.

If the Chancellor is sensible — a very big “if” admittedly — she will file it straight in the Treasury wastepaper basket. Bad as things already are for the floundering Labour government, Blair’s advice would make the situation immeasurably worse.

What does the TBI propose? First, diluting further the government’s employment law proposals, above all by removing day-one rights for workers. 

Then tax cuts for business. And, of course, reductions in welfare spending.

It also says that any increases on VAT or income tax introduced should be only temporary and reversed as soon as possible.

In short, Blair seeks to resurrect the whole New Labour playbook, an agenda precisely nobody is calling for.

New Labour prioritised the interests of big business, including tax cuts and deregulation, above every other consideration. It also kicked off by cutting benefits for single parents.

And it took only the most limited steps to address the huge workplace power inequalities entrenched by the Thatcher government — indeed, Blair boasted about how restrictive anti-union laws remained under Labour.

Those policies set in train the haemorrhaging of Labour votes after the 1997 landslide, as working-class voters increasingly realised that the government was not on their side in any significant respect.

Workers already believe the same about the miserable Starmer administration. The TBI prescription would only worsen the ailment.

The last thing Reeves should do is present a Blair-style Budget. She should rather be listening to those proposing a wealth tax, and other measures — like properly taxing the gambling industry or a windfall tax on bank super-profits — which would really solve the budget deficit which so haunts the Treasury at the expense of those best able to bear the burden.

Cold sick

ZOHRAN MAMDANI’S election as mayor of New York City has not been universally welcomed among Labour politicians. North Durham MP, and veteran right-wing fixer, Luke Akehurst is one who is not happy.

“I’m one MP who has no desire to be associated with Mamdani at all. The politics that appeals to NYC would go down like a cup of cold sick in US Rust Belt states or in UK equivalents like North Durham,” he posted on X.

What is in fact going down badly in Durham is Akehurst and his policies. He was elected last year, parachuted in by Morgan McSweeney, with under 40 per cent of the vote, the lowest since the seat’s creation.

And in this year’s local elections, Reform reduced Labour to just four seats on Durham County Council, which it had run almost without interruption for more than a century.

North Durham seems to be crying out for some Mamdani magic. Wise up and invite him over, Luke.