Guardian columnist Owen Jones has been taking aim once again at the hard left’s public enemy no.1 – a certain T. Blair, natch – using his latest column to decree that “A new party would just be a Blairite tribute act, discredited from the start”. Nothing to do with the rampant entryism and anti-Semitism infesting the once-great Labour Party, of course…

As well as getting a bit too friendly some admittedly pretty unpleasant dictators, also on the charge sheet was today’s revelation that the Tony Blair Institute has been receiving funding from the Saudi Arabian regime. Blair was dismissed as “beholden to the wealthy and powerful, including the headchoppers of Riyadh”.

Let’s hope Owen wasn’t reading, er, the Guardian on March 7th this year, where there were no fewer than three giant adverts paid for by none other than… the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:

If Blair’s Saudi funding renders his political efforts “discredited from the start”, will Owen start applying the same standards to his own Guardian columns? Of course, the current leader of the Labour Party would never dream of cosying up to murderous dictators or taking funds from repressive regimes either…