Is he worth 2/1 to become President of Europe?

When either one of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain is formally installed as President of the United States at noon on January 20th 2009 will one of their first meetings be with the new President of Europe, one Tony Blair and former resident of Number 10 Downing Street?

For one of the most intriguing political battles during the next eleven months will be who gets the newly enhanced role of President of the EU that has been created by the Lisbon Treaty.

The job involves becoming permanent chair of the EU’s council and will surely be known as the “President of Europe”. Tony has already got an enthusiastic cheer leader in President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who in a very short time has become the EU’s leading mover and shaker.

A big obstacle could be Downing Street because it would be hard for even the energetic Sarkozy to press Blair’s case if Gordon is resolute in his opposition. Today’s Guardian front page splashes a story about Blair possibly agreeing to stand.

But could Blair’s chances have been undermined by the Tory shadow foreign secretary, William Hague? A couple of weeks ago he brought cheers and laughter from all sides of the house when he gently mocked the idea of Gordon’s reaction to Tony getting it. This is well worth looking at.

Alas there is not a betting market yet – but surely there must be soon. I think I would bet against – Gordon is not going to like it. There is now a market – Tony is the 2/1 favourite.

PBC’s second busiest month. For the fourth successive month the number of page downloads on the site exceeded the million mark and with 1,272,458 of them made January the second busiest month ever. Only October 2007, when we hit 1.54m, has this been exceeded.

Sean Fear’s Friday slot which was held over yesterday because of the MORI poll will be published this afternoon.

Mike Smithson