Word: highnam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2005-2005
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Tony Blair emerges from a Range Rover next to the village hall in Highnam, just outside Gloucester near the Welsh border, and bounds up to a dozen locals there to greet him. His handshake is athletic: coat open, big reach, pivoting from the waist, legs spread apart. He works out in Downing Street two or three days a week and exudes vitality - no longer the boyish charm of his 1997 campaign, but still, in the words of a longtime aide, "surprisingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed" in light of how things have been going lately. His party's six-point...
...Which is why Blair takes hits in Highnam and around the country; an aide dubs it the "masochism strategy." The calculation is that people might start listening to Blair again if he sits there and responds to whatever they dish out. In Highnam, it seems to do the job. People focus mostly on concrete problems like disabled access and lousy school lunches. He's a good listener, and an aide takes down addresses to send follow-up letters. Blair gets a chance to repeat ad nauseam the themes of Labour's campaign: the Tories will cut spending, our economy...