Adam Boulton, Sky’s political editor, has published a book on the Blair (blah) years, Tony’s Ten Years: Memoirs of the Blair Administration, published by Simon & Schuster. Being married to Anji Hunter, the yearlong personal assistant to the Prime Minister, one would have expected more. On the other hand, one is not surprised that it is one sided and slightly boring, missing out on the major points of interest.

Throughout Tony Blair’s infamous tenancy at number 10, Boulton reported every row, revolt, reshuffle and resignation. Boulton nowadays tries to set himself up as the Walter Cronkite of Britain, just as infamously trying to make capital out of no news items.

He has written a book that pretends to take the reader behind the scenes of contemporary history by intercepting unflattering but unimportant details of the daily work in cabinet. Tony will be ever so pleased with this eulogy, a flattery so sickening treacle syrup is salty and sour in comparison. He even makes a case that only Blair could have made the Northern Ireland peace process work by his skill and temperament. He doesn’t address the real questions though, is it at an end? How much was paid to bank accounts of Northern Irish politicians to make them swallow it? Because the only cause for a freedom fight like the Irish one is always and only the enrichment of its leaders.

To make the fairytale more digestible to the less credulous reader, he sprinkles negative information into the book, well dosed not to distract from the great hero, just enough to make it believable. He reveals some of the lies, the blackmails, the bullying and the cheating of Downing Street and its inhabitant. But we knew that all before, even if some details might not have been common knowledge. He goes in great detail into the Prescott election incident. Yawn. Yes, we know.

He also writes about many other persons than only Blair Superman, for example about Lord Mandelson of Sleaze, and most come off very creditably. Which cabinet were we talking about? It is to hope that a person less hypocritically inclined will someday give us the true story of it all. Obviously, strong inducements have been brought to bear on Boulton and his wife to publish this hand tame accolade.

He analyses Blair’s press officer Campbell as a ruthless bully and a compulsive liar. Well, that was exactly why he had become press officer one is tempted to say. He had to give word of a prime minister who was a compulsive liar and a ruthless bully. So no surprise there either.

He goes into the ignorance of Blair, for example his complete ignorance of the Balfour Declaration which laid the foundation of a State Israel in the lands rightfully belonging to the people of Palestine. But we knew he was an ignorant git, anyhow, so what is new about that? To this day I am not even convinced that Blair is literate.

There are many faults in little details, not even worth mentioning, and dates, that are not really that important to warrant making a list of them. The main problem of the book is that it doesn’t address any real issues. All the meat is missing on the bone, because the writer carefully avoids going into the troublesome spots of that Prime Minister’s tenure at Downing Street.

The obvious lapse concerns world politics. He does not tell us what made the man become a war criminal, ordering and abetting the manslaughter of tens of thousands innocent people in Iraq, locals and British alike. He leaves us in the dark by what means he was convinced of the Bush game, if by flattery, by blackmail, or by pecuniary inducements, and hereby consented to kill British Boys and Girls in the friendly fire of incompetent American marksmen.

Did Blair know that Bush was lying through his teeth when telling the world about Iraqi weapons? Did he know that it had been Bush’s company which had sold chemical weapons to Iraq? Did he know that the CEO in charge of that company at that time was some Hilary Rodham Clinton? And how much was he paid for keeping quiet? How much was he paid for sending troops into a war that is and was only in the interest of the Bush family’s firms in weapons and oil?

If you are somebody who likes to read what one already knows, then fine, the style is pleasing. The news content is zero, most grievously, considering that a person in the know would have been handy to give the information necessary to tell the real truth.