TONY BLAIR INTERVIEW: ONE OF the most striking lines in Tony Blair's autobiography A Journeyis the almost throwaway reminder that the first and only ministerial role he ever had was as prime minister of Britain.
The war in Iraq and a degree of revisionism on the New Labour project – and its skewering of the left-right divide in Britain – have made him a controversial, divisive and, in some quarters, despised figure.
But there is no doubt that Blair’s extraordinary political skills and talents as a communicator made the transition to Downing Street a smooth one.
His reappearance in the public eye with the publication of his absorbing and candid biography – some three years after stepping down – has given a powerful reminder of the qualities and charisma that saw him win three elections.
The book charts the journey that he has taken, particularly the 13 years since 1997 that saw him change from a fresh-faced and eager prime minister to the more battle-hardened, phlegmatic and philosophical politician he became in his latter period in Downing Street.
At 700 pages, it is a doorstopper, but a compelling read nonetheless, with some very cutting descriptions of other politicians and colleagues. As one would expect there is also a very strong defence of his beliefs and conduct on Iraq, and some very candid admissions about how he and his government went about its business.
THE FORMER PRIME minister cuts a lean and relaxed figure – down to his denim jeans and denim shirt – that belies his 57 years. The delivery may be as fluid and charismatic but the sentiments he expresses – especially about the hectoring and divisive nature of modern politics and the downside of the 24/7 media cycle – are sanguine and, at times, world-weary.
In one of many of his defences of the Iraq war, he says.
“The moment you decide, you divide. Some of that division nowadays is [very] rancorous . . . “I learned this. The journey is about somebody who started trying to please all of the people all of the time and realising in the end that you couldn’t. You ended up trying to do what was right,” he says.
In the book he sets out at length his position on Iraq, describes how he deeply regrets the loss of life, but does not regret the decision he has made. Is not his argument that Saddam posed a threat to the world and to his own people a thin one?
“The only point I make is if we left Saddam there, there would have been consequences, particularly in the light of what we know now.”
What consequences? “There are two arguments about Saddam. One argument I would share is that he would have ended up as a renewed threat and a competitor to Iran. The other view is that he would have slipped into obscure old age. I doubt, with his two sons, that that would have happened.”
And has it not led to many who supported him, including reasonable people, now describing him as a warmonger? “There will be people who disagree with me – I think it’s a small minority incidentally – and want to couch it in those terms. The truth is that most people understand these are incredibly difficult decisions. Whatever way you decide there are going to be consequences.
“In politics today when you make a tough decision you will get a lot of abuse. Some people, most people even if they disagree, will say you took this decision, you took it honestly, but I profoundly disagree with it.
“Some will go into the abuse and start these types of terms. It’s what happens in politics. People call you bad things and you have to get over it.” Asked about the Shannon stopover and its significance, he says that anything the British government did in that respect was agreed with the Irish Government.
ONE OF THE paragraphs in the book that has raised eyebrows is his admission in the chapter on “Peace in Northern Ireland” that “politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand it be done.”
But is that saying that it is acceptable to lie and that the politician is the arbiter of what is a distortion and what is a lie? And if he is distorting the truth in Northern Ireland, people might say he is also doing the same in other areas?
“Or perhaps if they are more sensible and they live in the normal world, they will realise there are circumstances which, either in our personal life or in our professional life, it’s not a question of deceiving people.
“It’s a question of sometimes to achieve something that is in everyone’s interest to achieve.
“For example, in the peace process, people used sometimes say to me: ‘I want you to tell them this and tell them that’. And I knew if I passed that on, it would be deeply unhelpful to the whole process, and I didn’t.
“Now I think that most people if they are reasonable about it will say, they will think about it, and say: ‘That is what you do’.” It has left him open to criticism from detractors. Sir Reg Empey of the Official Unionists responded by saying the St Andrew’s Agreement was built on lies.
“That’s absolute nonsense,” he retorts. “One of the things I have done in the book is that I have tried to be honest. Now what people actually sometimes say is that we want a honest politician.
“They say ‘hey, you are not a saint. That’s not what we expected. It’s not what we should expect’.”
“The St Andrew’s Agreement was not actually one of the examples I would give of stretching the truth at all. We were absolutely open with people. The reason we got the deal was because of the speech that called for acts of completion, which mean that in the end we did come to a very honest position.”
He says he was determined not to dress up the book for people.
“I actually think that with normal people, when you go to them and ask: do you think a politician should ever be obliged to, you know, stretch the truth in order to achieve a greater national objective, they would look at you as if you were bonkers for asking the question . . .
“There’s no walk of professional life that you can exist in where you literally open up everything to everybody.” He agrees that the peace process was one of his finest achievements, especially because nobody gave them a chance at the beginning.
“One of the reasons I am working on the Middle East process is that I genuinely believe you can settle these things.”
HE HAS HUGE praise for Bertie Ahern, with whom he has had a close political friendship since the mid-1990s, in the book, describing him as “cunning in the best sense”. When it is put to him that the ‘cunning’ description of the former taoiseach has been used pejoratively in the south, and that Ahern’s stock has fallen because of his handling of the economy, and his personal finances, he defends him stoutly.
“I believe him to be an extraordinarily talented and far-sighted political leader, one of the best I came across.
“Even with the economy, people shouldn’t forget the enormous changes he made which put the Irish economy in a completely different place in the world, and in the Northern Irish peace process, he was vital.
“In Europe he did a great job, during Ireland’s presidency of the European Union. It’s in the nature of politics today that people get these scandals thrown at them the whole time. If you look at the big picture of what Bertie Ahern did both as a finance minister and as a taoiseach, I think he can be immensely proud.”
Is he concerned about his own legacy? No, is his short answer, but his answer sees his tone at its most animated.
“I don’t think there is anything that I can do that can affect judgement which is made by others. Secondly, I have my own belief in what we did. I also think that if you look at politics today not just here around the world . . . I am just after coming back from the White House and meeting President Obama. You go to America now and the abuse that is being hurled at Obama is unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable, but it’s the way that modern politics is today and you have got to get used to it.”
So he has no major regrets or doubts? “You always have. Any politician who says they don’t have doubts about things, they are talking nonsense.
“In the end I am satisfied that on the big things, I did what was right. It’s a matter of judgment.
“I ended up, and this is the journey – realising that ultimately that the only thing that you could, the only fixed point in the end was your own belief in what you were doing and why.
“Anything else, you find yourself in a constant swirl of dealing with the latest story or latest allegation or people calling you this or that. In the end all that passes away.”
