17 June: so how left-wing was Tony Blair?

Andrew Murray in the Guardian and Histomat in his blog have both picked up on the news that Tony Blair recently confessed to having read Isaac Deutscher's biography of Trotsky, while a student at Oxford. 

I can add some detail to the story. Back in 1994, I was a student at Blair's old Oxford College, St. John's. Seeing that he was likely to be elected leader of the Labour Party, I went to the trouble of consulting the St. John's archives (which I understand are now closed). 

There were two political motions that Blair put to the St. John's student union (in Oxford parlance, the 'junior common room'), during his 'red' period: one was a motion calling for the JCR to subscribe to Chile Monitor, the other to An Phoblacht (Republican News).

From memory, Blair was teased mercilessly for the second motion: he had also just changed his name from Anthony to Tony.

This was at the same time that students in the university were going into occupation to call for a proper students' union building; when a number of them were victimised and a petition was circulated on their behalf, Blair scrupulously refused to sign.

He was also unsuccessful on the two times he stood for the JCR committee.

I've also written before, about Blair's residual leftism in the early 1980s.