The Ceausescu moment

摘要

William Hague quips that Tony Blair has had more relaunches than Cape Canaveral. This is a bit rich from a Tory leader who has mutated from compassionate conservative to At-tila the Hun in less time than it takes to say "asylum-seeker". But he has a point. Since the arrival of baby Leo, the prime minister has been off duty for only a fortnight of paternity leave. Before taking it, he had given umpteen speeches about his aims and philosophy. Less than a month ago he devoted his weekly radio broadcast to "the strategic direction of the government". So why the need to define his philosophy all over again in this week's massively-hyped and embarrassingly awful speech to the Women's Institute?