Tony Blair's "I was never a passionate believer in devolution" Shocker

Someone far more intelligent and more erudite than myself informed me that Tony Blair comes across as a narcisistic lying twat (or words to that effect) in his memoirs. Based upon my previous knowledge of Tony Blair I'm prepared to take that as the definitive critique. I certainly won't be buying the book and contributing to the bastard's ego, even if the money does go to charity.

It seems as though the man who tried to be everything to everybody ended up as nothing to everybody, even his own people rejected him:

"I always thought it extraordinary; I was born in Scotland, my parents were raised there, we had lived there, I had been to school there, yet somehow - and this is the problem with nationalist sentiment unleashed - they [notice the 'they'] contrived me to feel alien."

What doesn't come as much of a surprise is Blair's confession that he was never that keen on devolution. We now have confirmation that for Blair devolution was simply a necessary evil.

"I was never a passionate devolutionist," he confessed. "It is a dangerous game to play. You can never be sure where nationalist sentiment ends and separatist sentiment begins. I supported the UK, distrusted nationalism as a concept, and looked at the history books and worried whether we could get it through.

"However, though not passionate about it, I thought it inevitable."

For Blair devolution was about the "salvation of the UK", even if the asymmetric devolution plan that he inherited from John Smith was counterintuitive to his centralising instincts and his desire to preserve the UK:

You can't have Scotland doing something different from the rest of Britain... I am beginning to see the defects in all this devolution stuff. — Tony Blair, Ashdown Diaries

It is perhaps because devolution for Blair was pragmatic, rather than based on any high principle, that he never felt it necessary to explain why the same democratic principle - namely, popular sovereignty - should not be extended to England. If English separatism doesn't threaten the UK, then why should the English be consulted? The truth is that Blair never really believed in popular sovereignty. He was famously dismissive of Scottish autonomy, fatuously likening the powers of the Scottish Parliament to those of an English town council, and he remarked that "Sovereignty remains with me as an English MP and that is the way it will stay".

Of course, on the record he paid lip-service to the concept of Scottish popular sovereignty, but lip-service was all it was.

In respect of the Claim of Right and sovereignty of the Scottish people, what could be better than giving them the sovereign right to decide in a referendum whether they want a Scottish Parliament? — Tony Blair, Hansard, 11 June 1997

Of course sovereignty does rest with the people, which is why we gave them the chance to vote in a referendum in Scotland, which personally I always thought was a good idea. — Tony Blair, Hansard, 17 Dec 1997

I trust that historians will record him as the anti-democratic shit that he was.