Post PM Blair

From Newsweek:

In recent months, Blair’s speeches and actions have been filled with clues
as to what the future holds. At last autumn’s annual Labour Party conference,
Blair said, “Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham. This is
the moment to bring the faiths closer together in understanding of our common
values and heritage, a source of unity and strength.” Out of office, Blair will continue to press the theme of mutual understanding as a key to alleviating what he calls the “clash about civilization,” as opposed to the “clash of civilizations” that thinkers like Samuel Huntington have written about.

As a politician in a resolutely secular country, Blair has always kept his religiosity to himself. It’s one of the few things he has trouble talking about in public or in interviews. Blair is an Anglican, but he has long attended Roman Catholic mass with his Catholic wife and their four children. One of the sturdiest and oldest rumors in London political circles is that, out of office, he would convert to Catholicism. That may be true, but Blair has never deigned to talk about such matters openly.

Blair’s other great cause will be addressing climate change, something that he has been hammering home for several years now. Whatever Blair is going to preach, he will need a soapbox. Blair is expected to launch a Blair Foundation, or something like it. A Web domain name—www.blairfoundation.org—has reportedly been registered on his behalf. It’s likely to be closely watched in the weeks ahead.

I like the phrase clash about civilization over clash of civilizations. Gets more the sense of the vertical value system clash involved than the horizontal inevitably at war model of the clash of civilizations.

I hope he does in fact work on the religious theme. He is as bright as Clinton but as devout as a Bush.