THERE is the media-obsessed prime minister who came to power on a surge of popularity but became mired in an unwanted Middle Eastern war; the leader who shortly after retiring sets up a charitable foundation to restore his tarnished reputation; and the vanity of a man who frets excessively about make-up for his televised appearances.

The account by Robert Harris, the novelist, of a fictional politico driven by ego and conceit, is being seen in literary circles as a thinly disguised attack on Tony Blair.

Harris, at one time a leading supporter of new Labour, had unprecedented access to Blair during the 1997 election campaign and during his heady early days of government. But his support withered over the Iraq war and Blair’s relationship with George Bush.

The writer, a close friend of Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner and co-architect of new Labour, has made no secret of his belief that Blair’s success at home and in Northern Ireland has been blotted out by “colossal” foreign policy blunders.

The Ghost by Robert Harris

The real Ghost is Robert Harris. And what a jubilantly spiteful ghost he has proved to be, says Rod Liddle

BACKGROUND

• Extract: The Ghost by Robert Harris

• A short extract from The Ghost by Robert Harris

• Only the togas have changed

• Summer reading for lawyers

• Harris points pen at a leader very like Blair

BACKGROUND

• Pompeii by Robert Harris

• Trapped between wife and mistress

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• Buy The Ghost

Adam Lang, the main protagonist in Harris’s new novel, The Ghost, is enjoying an affluent retirement in the New England resort of Martha’s Vineyard - favoured by Gordon Brown. Lang has commissioned a professional ghost writer to help with his memoirs. The hired pen, a mercenary cynic more used to working with faded rock stars, discovers his predecessor died suspiciously. According to Random House, the book’s publisher, suicide bombers and an indictment for alleged war crimes then return to haunt the main character.

Lang is depicted as a virtueless shell of a man. He is driven by ambition and a relentless wife who eventually secures herself a seat in the House of Lords.

Harris, author of Enigma, Pom-peii, Fatherland, and Archangel, also appears to have adopted Blair’s political style for his hero. Lang is preoccupied with poll ratings and unconcerned with policy detail, criticisms often made of Blair in office.

Lang arrives off one flight with an orange complexion after using cosmetics. Blair was noted as having “a suspiciously orange glow” at one point during the 2005 general election campaign. He spent £1,800 on cosmetics and make-up artists from 1999 to 2005, according to a parliamentary answer.

Last night Harris insisted his character was fictional. “People are, of course, at liberty to draw parallels but the prime minister in the book is a fictional character. I don’t even specify which party he is from.”

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