Mark Steel: The politician who became a footballer's wife

Blair reserves his most sycophantic fawning for the most truly atrocious world figures

It can't be encouraging when the planet is on the verge of environmental catastrophe that the proposals to save it come from a meeting between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tony Blair. Any random pairing would be less absurd, such as a summit led by Robert Mugabe and Vanessa Feltz, with a proposed agreement that began: "Clause 1. I don't know about you, but all this global warming is making me jolly sweaty. So come on you carbon producers, jolly well cut those emissions. Now over to Robert for news of today's executions."

Instead Arnie did that thing he does, where every statement includes a reference to Terminator. "I can offer you a part in Terminator 4," he told Blair, although he'd be better in a remake of the first two, as a local official saying: "Of course we'd all like to see an end to the suffering, but I don't think it's appropriate to call on the futuristic robot to stop destroying buildings with road diggers, or turning into liquid metal and decapitating civilians until the building blocks are in place for a long-term settlement."

But there was something more disturbing: Blair's sycophantic fawning, which he reserves for the most truly atrocious world figures - a group consisting of Bush, Berlusconi, Murdoch and Cliff Richard. There's no reason to like any of these people, but like a 12-year-old addicted to Big Brother and pink magazines with a free hair brush sellotaped to the front, Blair is completely seduced by celebrity status.

Why does he stay at Cliff's Caribbean villa? Perhaps it's to save a few bob. With all the uncertainty over his job, the Blairs decided instead of a holiday they'd make do with days out, to Whipsnade zoo and the RAF museum at Duxford, but Cliff kindly stepped in and offered his villa. Or perhaps it's because Blair loves the idea of swanning about with someone stupidly, pointlessly famous.

A real music fan might go gooey at meeting Paul Weller or James Brown, but even Blair can't say: "Tell us again Cliff, the wonderful story of how you chose the chords for 'Congratulations'?"

Similarly with Berlusconi. The Blairs have become friendly with him because he's immensely rich and famous. There's no way they'd have gravitated towards him naturally, and then come home to tell their friends "We met this lovely couple in Italy, and laughed and laughed with them all day. We're trying to arrange to meet them again but he's got so many businesses - television, football, politics, corruption - so we'll probably have to leave it till Christmas."

It all fits Blair's philosophy that success is measured solely by wealth and fame. When he departs as Prime Minister, if he somehow loses his access to celebrities he'll hang around posh nightclubs until he starts going out with a footballer. He won't be happy until he's photographed with a long-range lens rubbing sun cream into Jermaine Defoe, and interviewed about his embarrassment when he turned up at the hotel wearing exactly the same swimming costume as the wife of Steven Gerrard.

Perhaps this footballers' wife attitude explains his policies. He chats with his friends about who he should go with and decides: "It's like, so obvious, like George is really really famous and he's got this mega-rich Dad who's like so minted and the Palestinians are like really minging and buried in rubble and everything and they're such losers."

Or maybe he thinks he's done the Lebanese a favour, because if they hadn't been bombed they'd never have got on the telly and now some of them have been seen all over the world wailing, so whether they seize this media opportunity or not is up to them.

The question I'd love someone to ask him is this: "What inspires you?" Because no one knows. What book actually makes him gaze into space surveying his thoughts? What music or painting, which building or film genuinely moves him every time he comes across it? What does he admire, not because it represents success or has proved a valuable asset to our exports but because it makes him reappraise the meaning of his day? Or maybe this is unfair and the answer is "Mistletoe and Wine".

And who inspires him? He's said he's inspired by Nelson Mandela, but that's because he knows that's who he's supposed to say. And if he is inspired by Mandela, does that subject crop up when he's with his friend Cliff Richard, because Cliff brazenly broke the boycott against apartheid South Africa to go and perform there, thereby undermining the movement and helping, in his own way, to keep Mandela in jail.

Blair is apparently obsessed with his legacy, and numerous commentators have offered suggestions as to how he could retrieve the situation and go down as a great Prime Minister. Usually these involve reforms of services and road maps to peace but I think the solution is much simpler.

The next time he's on the White House lawn behind those microphones, when Bush has garbled his bit and looks to "my dear friend, Tony", Blair should just say "Oh piss off George, and find someone else to lick your arse, I'm off. And tell your terminating mate I'll not be back - get it? There you go Gordon - follow that." And greatness will be assured.