Bono Could Be 'President or Prime Minister' Says Tony Blair

Theo Wargo, WireImage

With his memoirs hitting the shelves among a blaze of controversy, former Prime Minister Tony Blair has revealed how much he thought his successor Gordon Brown was a massive failure. So who does he think could have succeeded him? Step forward U2 frontman Bono.

A passage on page 555 of 'A Journey', Blair writes that Bono "could have been a president or prime minister standing on his head. He had an absolutely natural gift for politicking, was great with people, very smart and an inspirational speaker ... motivated by an abundant desire to keep on improving, never really content or relaxed. I knew he would work with George [W. Bush] well, and with none of the prissy disdain of most of his ilk".

But if Blair's ideal choice of successor seems iffy, his music tastes back in the 1980s caused a rumpus within the party. Writing of that turbulent decade when pop stars came out against then-prime minister Margaret Thatcher, Blair writes, "Back in the late 1980s there was a group of musicians called Red Wedge, fronted by people like Paul Weller and Billy Bragg, who came out and campaigned for us. It was great. But I remember saying after one of their gigs ... 'We need to reach the people listening to Duran Duran and Madonna.'"

The reaction "went down like a cup of sick." Still, what to expect from the man who once notoriously praised the music output of Wheeler 18 instead if 18 Wheeler? Then again, we eagerly await Gordon Brown's memoirs where the former chancellor will doubtless lay bare his famed admiration for Arctic Monkeys.