Blair’s farewell tour: are they waving or drowning?

published 12 June 2007

Tony Blair has used Africa as a "convenient backdrop" for the "glorified photo-shoot that is his farewell tour", says The Daily Telegraph. It's hard to think of a "tackier" exit. Blair has "cherry-picked" a couple of states where he can claim that his policies have made a difference: in Libya he was instrumental in persuading Gaddafi to abandon weapons of mass destruction and his dispatch of British forces to Sierra Leone in 2000 proved decisive in preventing a rebel takeover. But elsewhere in Africa from Darfur, to Congo, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia and Uganda it would be hard for his chartered jet "to touch down with a clear conscience". Indeed, it would be, agrees The Independent. Blair has done some good, but he deserves criticism for his lack of progress in "breaking the shackles of international trade protectionism", which continues to penalise African farmers.

Snide comments are "ill deserved", says The Times. Few Western leaders have put as much effort into helping Africa as Blair. He made Africa the focus of Britain's 2005 presidency of the G8 and his Commission for Africa paved the way for a "serious aid and debt-relief deal" at Gleneagles. True, says Michael White in The Guardian. Britain's aid budget has tripled and 18 African countries have benefited from debt cancellation. In Ghana and Malawi, this has made a "real difference".

We shouldn't criticise Blair for limiting his tour to countries where his legacy endures, says The Times. As he points out, the West's challenge is to support the good; Africa's is to eliminate the bad, "setting aside old habits" of repression and electoral fraud. Africa may not need more aid, but it does need "more trade and better government." Blair has done a "final service to the continent in using his farewell tour to underline these home truths".