Normally when there's a tricky by-election contest underway, parties tend to fall in line - but Tony Blair has chosen instead to pull the pin from a grenade and hurl it at Keir Starmer10:55, 27 May 2026Updated 10:56, 27 May 2026To say Tony Blair's latest intervention is extraordinary is a huge understatement.‌Normally when there's a by-election to be fought - particularly one that could be pretty close - everyone tends to fall into line and set their differences aside, in public at least. And Keir Starmer has enough on his plate trying to keep a rowdy crop of MPs on their best behaviour without Sir Tony pulling the pin out of grenades and hurling them around.‌The former PM's decision to publish a 5,700 word essay accusing Labour of lacking a coherent plan at such a tricky time has understandably got backs up. Treasury minister Dan Tomlinson - the poor soul sent out to face broadcasters after his latest tirade - politely suggested Sir Tony was peddling 30 year old ideas.‌"Things have moved on," the youthful-looking 33-year-old insisted. He went on: "I think his essay was about whether we're New Labour or old Labour. That was a debate that was happening in the 1990s in the UK, which was pretty much around the time I was born."The current government will be keen to paint Sir Tony as an irrelevance, a retired general well past his glory years. A general, in fact, who led Britain into one of the most costly and unpopular conflicts of the modern age by falling behind George W Bush over Iraq.READ MORE: Dad of schoolgirl who took own life warns social media ban could cost more livesREAD MORE: Keir Starmer faces social media ban reckoning as bereaved families demand action‌He's also had the audacity to wade into conversations most within the Labour fold would rather not be having. Scrap net zero, reassess the triple lock and be nicer to Donald Trump, he said. Don't lurch to the left, he continued - which is somewhat at odds with the shadow leadership battle currently playing out.The Trump comments in particular are problematic. While Sir Tony turned Labour into an extraordinary electoral force, blundering into the Iraq War is widely seen as his toxic legacy. And the public likes the fact that Mr Starmer didn't jump at the current US President's bidding.Maybe some of Sir Tony's vitriol was in response to Andy Burnham's claim that the North had been on the wrong path for the last 40 years. "I mean, OK, and what, nothing good happened in that period of Thatcher with the business community, or New Labour?" Sir Tony hit back. "I don't think he really means that."‌His essay gleefully pointed out that he won three terms - the only time the party has managed to get re-elected. But despite this, he claimed, the current leadership seems to have ruled out “learning from the only time in the party’s 120-year history it has ever done so”.Is bruised pride at the bottom of this? Or does he think raising his head above the parapet will genuinely help the leadership psychodrama engulfing Westminster yet again? And either way, does it really matter?What is clear is that it is deeply unhelpful to today's Labour leadership.‌Sir Tony has long been a divisive figure, loathed by the left who will never forgive the New Labour project for shifting the party to the centre. But, as he likes to remind us, he is a proven winner. As, many argue, is Mr Burnham, who supporters see as the key to defeating Nigel Farage.And Sir Tony's sway over the Labour membership has been on the wane for some time. Veteran left-winger John McDonnell sarcastically pointed to his ill-fated intervention during the 2015 leadership race."If you recall, Blair’s attack on Jeremy Corbyn was one of the decisive factors that secured the scale of his victory in the first leadership campaign," he gloated.Article continues belowIrrelevant or not, there's no doubting Sir Tony's ability to get the blood boiling. "Tony Blair’s “coherent” plan involves backing the US war machine, privatising the NHS, sell off personal data to corporations, demonise and divide the working class and rampant wealth inequality between the super rich and everyone else," fumed backbencher Brian Leishmann."Blair represents the worst of politics."