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Has Tony Blair already quit Labour’s campaign?

Reports emerge that Blair has taken his family on safari after just one election appearance

BY JACK BREMER

LAST UPDATED 8:41 AM, APRIL 7, 2010

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eports are emerging that only days after making his debut in the election campaign with a speech at Trimdon Labour Clubbacking his successor Gordon Brown, Tony Blair has taken himself and his family off on holiday. They may even have gone on safari, prompting one Labour MP, Stephen Pound, to say he would be happier if Blair was "hunting down the big beasts in the marginal seats" rather than watching the migrating wildebeest.

A spokesman for Blair refused to comment on the former prime minister's travel plans. "Tony Blair made clear last week his full support for Gordon Brown and Labour's campaign and he will certainly be back on the campaign trail before polling day," he said.

But how soon before polling day? Early enough to make a difference? Given the Blairs' well-known penchant for freebies, the assumption on the blogosphere this morning is that he is making the most of his business contacts in Africa and could be stopping off for break en route to Kuala Lumpur for the first conference of the National Achievers Congress, starting on 23 April.

There is another theory beginning to do the rounds: that his 'dry run'

appearance at Trimdon did not go down well with the electorate and that, to be frank, his presence on the election stump is no longer required.

"Wheeling out the former PM was a high-risk strategy," said The First Post's Westminster commentator, the Mole, this morning. "For every Labour hand who believes he could be helpful in winning back swing voters in the marginals, there are two others who say he stands for everything that has driven Labour supporters away - especially, of course, his eagerness to back George Bush's war on terror."