PM David Cameron's early Christmas present

Similar mudslinging returns time and again in the book. The aim is to pulverise Blair's reputation. While the authors take aim, they miss their target.

When the authors investigate Blair's activities in Central Asia, where he advises a great deal to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, they belittle him for promoting a country whose democratic traditions are not as deep as those of say, the United Kingdom. Again the writers are contemptuous of Blair's motives, the company he keeps, the secrets he cherishes and the remuneration he receives.

Next is Africa.

The masters of envy peek behind the mask at Blair's activities in Libya, where he rubbed shoulders with former leader Muammar Gaddafi; in Egypt where he chinwagged with President Gen Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where he winded and dined with President Joseph Kabila.

Yes, the book is riveting as it provides a window on a life mostly hidden from view.

The book however is emblematic of the Labour Party's lurch to the left. Offering smears, accusations, claims of improper behaviour and whatever else the comrades can throw at the one man who kept Labour in power by moving it to the centre.

The book explores Blair's commercial activities as best it can without interviewing him or those close to him. Readers get a glimpse of his strategic practice, his inter-faith foundation, his charity work, and his wealth. His and his wife Cherie's very large wealth.

Blair is guilty of making money. Guilty of mixing commercial opportunities with his Rolodex of contacts. And guilty of mixing with folk, young and old, who can be of use to him.

The book's 374 pages are long on finger pointing but short on proving even one illegal act. Just boos and hisses from the peanut gallery about a man whose worth is close to £60 million.

With Jeremy Corbyn we have the candidate from central casting who best encapsulates the anti-Blair camp. Candidate Corbyn has worked hard and is gaining a strong following. So successful in getting his views "out there" that a menagerie of former and present Labour elites has in unison demonised and delegitimized him. The herd of naysayers include Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Miliband. David's brother Ed has so far kept his views to himself.

They are all determined to stop him.

If the rank and file choose Corybn, then from 12 September until the general election in 2020, a dysfunctional Labour Party will prove to be the gift that keeps on giving as far as the Tories are concerned.

Labour will be seen to be stumbling about punch drunk on its own delusions, arms outstretched, towards the edge of a cliff and in time, onto the rocks of political annihilation below.

Conservatives would be well advised to maximise the chance of such a scenario. They can do worse than donate generously to Corbyn's campaign.