Tony’s Ghost

So Tony Blair is back on the election trail, this time in support of Pa Broon, who was wheeled out in 2005 to demonstrate unswerving loyalty and therefore see off Michael Howard and his Lynton Crosby inspired dog whistles: we weren’t, after all, thinking what they were.

Not helping matters this time round is former Labour supporter Robert Harris, whose novel The Ghost has been adapted by its author for the screen. The resulting film, directed by Roman Polanski, is in UK cinemas on the 16th April. Its central character is a former British Prime Minister, played by Pierce Brosnan, who is potentially in the crosshairs of a war crimes prosecution, and holed up in the USA as a result.

The twist in the tale, of course, is that Polanski was also holed up somewhere beyond potential justice, and has since been arrested, the final touches to the film being applied from behind bars. But the film is coming out in what looks as if it will be the middle of an election campaign, to Blair’s inevitable detriment.

So it’s possible that Tone won’t feature quite as heavily as might have originally been intended.