Noel On.. Tony Blair

It was the image which defined the Cool Britannia era... Noel Gallagher sipping red wine with Tony Blair at Downing Street prior to the 1997 general election.

But has the superstar lived to regret pinning his colours so firmly to the New Labour mast?

The answer appears to be definitely ... maybe.

Noel told me: "I didn't want to meet Tony Blair - he wanted to meet ME! I was the king of London. Looking back, it was a cynical ploy by his spin doctor Alistair Campbell.

"I was in a euphoric state of mind thinking: 'Of course Blair wants to meet me. I'm ******* amazing. Who wouldn't?'

"But I don't feel conned or used. As trivial as it sounds now, the fact that a guy who'd been in a band, owned an electric guitar and has probably had a spliff was Prime Minister really meant something at the time.

"It felt like it might be important after years of John Major and Margaret Thatcher. He just MIGHT be one of us.

"In hindsight, it turned out he was just a politician like all the rest. Initially, we all thought something was gonna change... it didn't.

"I was brought up as a Labour voter. I come from a working class family and was on the dole for seven years.

"I admit I got carried away by the whole Britpop-Cool Britannia thing. It was euphoric when the Labour Party got into power. I didn't realise it wasn't New Labour at all - it was the Tories dressed in red.

"History has shown it's really the Bank of England who got into power."What does Noel think of those calling for Blair to resign and pull our troops out of Iraq?

He said: "What a lot of people fail to grasp is it doesn't matter who was in No. 10, Britain would still have gone to war. We're in America's a*** pocket and that's the end of that."

"We have this big inferiority complex because we're this tiny little island in the middle of nowhere. If there's something going on in Turkmanistan WE need to be involved. Why?

"We're a nation built on war. We still Troop the Colour... like anybodygivesa ****."

But Noel did have some words of praise for the PM.

"If you were to take the Iraq thing out of the equation, Labour do seem to have made a difference with things like the minimum wage.

"They also made education and health a priority."

Source: www.sundaymail.co.uk