LONDON, July 9 (UPI) -- Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair attacked his successor Friday, saying there was little continuity between his Labor government and Gordon Brown's.
Blair recommended a middle-of-the-road course for the Labor Party in a speech in London to Progress, a New Labor think tank, The Guardian reported.
"We didn't become old Labor exactly," Blair said of the handover to Brown in June 2007. "But we lost the driving rhythm that made us different and successful. It was not a government of continuity from 1997 to 2010 pursing the same politics. It was 10 plus three."
Blair was prime minister from May 1997 to 2007 and Brown held the post from June 2007 to May 2010 when he was replaced by Conservative David Cameron.
Blair said he supports the current Labor leader, Ed Miliband. But he warned Miliband and other party leaders against too much of the "politics of protest."
He said many of his policies were unpopular in the left wing of his party but supported by people who did not vote Labor.
"In the real world of the 21st century there will be some pick and mix of policy. Sometimes it will be less left versus right than right versus wrong," Blair said. "Above all today, efficacy -- effective delivery, motivated of course by values -- matters as much if not more than ideology. Don't fear it. Embrace it."
