A JOURNEY

by Blair, Tony

  However, I was so beyond it all, and of course Kevin was such a professional and could head the ball back to where I could get it, that we did twenty-nine headers on the go, which was impressive (and probably got more publicity than the speech!).

  The worst sporting challenge was some years later when I agreed to play a charity game with Ilie Nastase, Pat Cash and the author and comedian Alistair McGowan at the Queen’s Club. Tennis is a game which you can play well, badly or, if too nervous, in a manner in which your arms refuse to obey your brain. I have played in all three styles. I was prime minister, therefore busy. I had never been to Queen’s and had not played on grass since university. I arrived feeling casual, then realised my match was straight after the annual Queen’s final, in which Tim Henman was playing, in front of a crowd of 6,000. Casual gave way to panic. Panic is the worst mindset in which to play tennis, certain to produce collapse. I was only saved from humiliation by the fact that Tim’s final went on longer than expected. Ilie Nastase kindly agreed to knock-up with me. We ended up playing for almost two hours before we got on court. By then I was so warmed up, the panic subsided and I played fine. But I swore not to take the risk again!

  Anyway, I digress. Philip’s role in my conference speeches was to help me define my message. So into the competing sounds and chaos of the orchestra tuning up would come a strong, clear note of harmony. I can’t tell you how many times he rescued the speech and gave it lift and power.

  You will see from all of the above that I was rather proud of the team. They were an unusually talented group of people. The thing I liked most about them? They defied category. They were one-offs. Very normal; but not very conventional. Very human; but with that touch of the magic potion that distinguishes those who strive from those who merely toil, those who take life as it comes from those who live life like an adventure. I was lucky indeed to have them with me.

  The first hundred days of government were in one sense remarkably productive. We were storming through the announcements, which, ultimately added up not just to a change of government, but to a change of governing culture.

  On 2 May, we announced the abolition of state-funded assistance for private schools, in order to put the money into better state provision for infants.

  On 3 May, we created the new Department for International Development, separating aid from the Foreign Office. It was not popular with the Foreign Office, who thereby lost control of the largest slice of their budget, and some of their objections gained my sympathy over time. Clare Short was the Secretary of State for the new department. Under her leadership, it led the way globally in terms of development policy, and people just queued up to work in it. It resembled a non-governmental organisation (NGO) inside government and this caused significant problems from time to time, but all things considered, I thought it worth it and it gave Britain huge reach into the developing world. Though I can see Alastair’s look of disgust as I write this (he couldn’t stand her), I did think she had real leadership talent; the trouble was she thought people who disagreed with her were wicked rather than wrong – a common failing of politicians – and when she turned sour, she could be very bitter indeed. But we should be proud of our aid record and she of her part in it.

  On 6 May, Gordon announced the independence of the Bank of England.

  On 9 May, we reformed Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) to make it one weekly half-hour session, not two sessions of fifteen minutes.

  On 11 May, we announced compensation for Gulf War veterans.

  On 12 May, we announced reforms to the National Lottery to allow the proceeds to go into health and education, and Gordon cut VAT on fuel to 5 per cent to help with heating bills.

  On 14 May, we affirmed our commitment to ban tobacco advertising.

  On 15 May, we restored trade union rights to GCHQ staff, reversing a Tory decision to deny intelligence workers – even those way down the chain – the right to join a trade union.

  On 16 May, bills for referenda on Scottish and Welsh devolution were introduced, and we announced a seven-point plan to revive the British film industry.

  In week four, we banned the production or export of landmines, and moved to a free vote for a ban on handguns, following the massacre in Dunblane in Scotland in which seventeen people were killed.

  At the end of May, Defence Secretary George Robertson set up the strategic defence review, and the following week we appointed the head of the Low Pay Commission, which was to be charged with setting Britain’s first ever minimum wage.

  By the end of week six, we had started to put in place the literacy and numeracy strategy to raise standards of performance for primary-school children in reading, writing and maths.

  On 16 June, we signed up to the European Social Chapter. For over a decade this had been a dividing line with the Tories, who thought it would hinder our competitiveness. We thought it was about basic employment rights like paid holidays and was a necessary feature of a just society. I had actually used our support for the Social Chapter to drop our support for the closed shop (the obligation in certain trades to join a designated union). When we signed it, Robin Cook, the Foreign Secretary, announced triumphantly that we had done so, and it was a cause of much jubilation among party members and unions (who by then had forgotten the closed shop).

  On 2 July, Gordon gave his first Budget, including a welfare-to-work package funded by a windfall levy on the privatised utilities. Two days later, Derry announced what became our plans for the Human Rights Act, the enactment into UK law of the European Convention on Human Rights. Tessa Jowell, a new minister in charge of public health, set out proposals to tackle health inequality. And so it went on, with actions, announcements and aspirations too many to mention.

  These were not just changes in policy; they were radical departures in the way Britain was governed, in the constitution and in attitude.

  The hundred days ended with the publication of the plan to give London a mayor for the first time in centuries. And on the hundredth day we rested. Or at least I did, fleeing first to Tuscany and then to the south of France in search of the chance to relax after the helter-skelter of the first months.

  What sort of leader was I at that point? I had a philosophy that was clear and clearly different from that of a traditional Labour politician. I was middle class, and my politics were in many ways middle class. My programme was every bit as much geared by the aspirations of the up-and-coming as the anxieties of the down-and-out. Partly for that very reason, and to emphasise to the party that I had not pulled up its roots, my first major domestic speech outside of the House of Commons was on the Aylesbury Housing Estate in south London on 2 June, a deprived estate forgotten in the Tory years. I set out my basic pitch for the mantle of one-nation politics. Very consciously I was setting out my stall as a unifier. I didn’t want class war. I didn’t like division or discord. I could see how a coalition of the well off and the less well off could establish points of common interest. I had no patience with tribal party politics, with its exaggerated differences, rancorous disputes and irrational prejudices.

  The themes underlying the philosophy were also clearly spelt out: welfare as a hand up, not a handout; responsibility accompanying opportunity; a desire to reinvent government and get it to work coherently across departments; quality public services available on the basis of need, not wealth; communities free from the pervasive fear of petty crime and antisocial behaviour. Perhaps above all, an emphasis bordering on the religious on what counts to be what works – i.e. free ourselves, left and right, from dogma and get the country moving for the commonweal.

  Rereading it now, it’s all good stuff. It echoed many of the sentiments of Bill Clinton. Funnily enough, he visited Britain in late May 1997 en route to a NATO summit. I brought him into Cabinet, where they were fairly in awe of him. He gave us a great Bill pep talk, using some of our campaign lines (like a real pro he had studied them all) and interweaving them cleverly with his own experience in office. I always remember
him saying, ‘Don’t forget: communication is fifty per cent of the battle in the information age. Say it once, say it twice and keep on saying it, and when you’ve finished, you’ll know you’ve still not said it enough.’

  I had led the Labour Party to victory. I had reshaped it. I had given it a chance to be a true party of government. All of this took a degree of political skill and courage. And I wasn’t such a fool back then to imagine that it wasn’t all going to get tougher, sharper and uglier. I knew I was enjoying a honeymoon and I had no illusions about the marriage, even if my other half did. All of this made me fearful, apprehensive and on edge, even though at that time it seemed as if I could do no wrong and no challenge was beyond me.

  What was missing? There was a naivety about my belief that merely by adopting an approach based on reason and the abstinence from ideological dogma, hard problems could be solved, complex issues unravelled, divergent positions reconciled. It is true that such an approach was an advantage, necessary even; but by a large distance, insufficient. In fact, such an attitude only bestows an open mind. It doesn’t obviate the need for analysis, in-depth examination of policy options, going right down into the bowels of a problem and, there in the messy tangle, trying to solve it. Once you get down from the Olympian heights, where you can breathe freely the air of consensus and shared values and common goals, and you descend into that morass where the problem lies, what do you find? You find it’s full of unforeseen difficulties, technical minefields, and above all vested interests that want the solution to remain buried with the problem. These interests – professional, financial, sectoral – do not take kindly to your disturbing them. Very soon, the political opposition that wants you out and themselves in, allies itself to the vested interests. They fight back.

  Here’s the thing: they don’t fight cleanly either. There are you, the leader, full of genuine desire to do good; yes, of course, to be top dog and decision-maker, but nonetheless sincere in your wish to improve the world. You think: We have a disagreement; let’s reason it out. I’ll hear you; you’ll hear me. We may even persuade each other, but if we don’t, well, reasonable people can disagree and I know we both accept that ultimately I’m the prime minister and have to decide.

  No, it’s not like that; not like that at all, in fact. They get after you. They abuse your argument; they misrepresent your motives; they deride your sincerity and your protestations of good faith and the commonweal. For progressive politicians coming into power, that is always the biggest shock. The right get after you, from the off, with a vigour, venom and vitriol that has you reeling. You’re appalled by it, offended by it, but most of all surprised by it. Criticisms become accusations. Disagreements become rows. Attempts at change become assaults on your opponents’ fundamental liberties. You think you’ve come to a debating society but suddenly find you’re in a cage with a bare-knuckle fighter and a howling mob outside laying bets on how long you’ll last.

  I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide. However, I would calculate the upset, calibrate it, understand its dimensions, assess its magnitude, ameliorate its consequences. And so I got over the surprise of the onslaught and became used to the derision, began to develop the carapace of near indifference to dispute that is so dangerous in a leader yet so necessary for survival.

  Through it all, I was slowly coming to grips with the other dimension of government for which no amount of political courage is sufficient: the technical details of getting the policy right. I could see I might have to choose between what was right and what was politic, but deciding what was right was itself complex and highly contentious. The more I investigated the facts, the closer came the understanding that changing a nation was a whole lot harder than changing a party. The risks inherent in that, and the courage to take them, were of a different order entirely.

  I was going to do my best and I was going to do it carefully; but even in those first months, even as it seemed we were masters of the political scene, I could see where the next lesson lay: what happened when you came to the risk that could not be calculated? What happened when your opponents were not the usual vested interests, and the noise was not the normal clamour aroused by anyone who tries to change anything, but came from the mainstream voices of mainstream people? What happened if the disagreement was not with the party or a limited section of the public, but with the body of the people?

  I was aware I was a very popular leader. It was a bit like a love affair with the public, on both our parts. Like newly-weds, we envisaged ourselves growing together, learning together, falling out from time to time as all couples do, but retaining something profound that made our love real and whole, always there to be retrieved. What happened if we grew apart?

  TWO

  THE APPRENTICE LEADER

  The journey from Opposition to government had taken three years. It sounds a short time. It’s not how it feels. Every day drags. Every week a fresh anxiety or event or statement disturbs the careful orchestration of the march from impotence to power. Every month your competitors, or someone in the media simply bored or irritated by your success, looks to sully the brand, cheapen it, ridicule it. Every year there is a new height to be attained so that the momentum is not lost.

  Yet I look back on the stories and commentary during those years, and I deride the feelings of difficulty I had at the time. That was tough? It was a stroll, a breeze, a gentle jog towards the finishing line. I reread the notes, remember the calls, run through the meetings, each one of which mattered so much and, in my mind, contributed so much, and I wonder at the simplicity and ease of it all.

  What never changed between Opposition and government was the intensity of the focus. Of course, back then, I was learning and reaching new levels at every important juncture; at the time it naturally felt so much harder and challenging.

  As a child you first learn about courage and fear in the playground fight, when the bully bullies and you are scared of being hurt. Finally, at some point, you turn and fight. I can still recall the exact moment for me: aged about ten, outside the gates of Durham Choristers School in the beautiful and ancient Cathedral Close where we first lived when we came to the city, with the old SPCK bookshop and the eighteenth-century houses and cottages beside the Norman splendour of the cathedral.

  He wasn’t even a very big bully. Certainly not a very frightening one. I even remember his name. He had been on at me for weeks. I hated it, and dreaded going into the class where he was, and avoided going wherever he would be. Then, for some reason or no reason, out there by the school gates when he came upon me unexpectedly and started up, I turned on him and told him I would hit him if he didn’t stop. He could tell I meant it, because I did and my eyes would have shown it – so he stopped. Silly, isn’t it, to recall that tiny moment of character development after all these years.

  Later, you learn courage in different situations: the first time onstage, when you wish you had never agreed to do it, you curse your pretensions and lament your ego, and want only to go back into the corner. But somehow you don’t; you step out. Going down to London aged eighteen on my own for the first time; spending months alone in Paris, as I did after my Bar exams in 1976; making that call; seeking that meeting; pushing and striving and driving. Each step is fearful, yet each refusal means not only remorse at an opportunity missed, but, worse, despising yourself for not even summoning up the courage to try.

  Sometimes I marvelled at the way I did indeed step forward, but more often I was aware of the constant struggle to make the choice to do so. For it is a choice. The alternative option always beckons and does so adorned with good arguments: it’s not a propitious moment; it is a risk too far; others are against it; there will be another moment. Often there isn’t, however, and in any event, deep down you know the
reason: the fear of being out there, exposed, prone to fail. If you never try to succeed, you never have to fail. So why do it?

  There are people I’ve come across who are shorn of such doubt, who have that inner courage to step out instinctively and without forethought, and for whom it is as natural as breathing. Their problem is rather different: mine is about the battle between courage and fear, while theirs is the consequence of being fearless. Fear makes you calculate and calculation can sometimes save you (though over-calculation finishes you off); for those who don’t calculate at all but go headlong, the risk can be foolhardy and lead to downfall. But I always admired that temperament, liked its swagger and absence of manipulation.

  After leaving Oxford I had joined the Labour Party. Geoff Gallop, who had left the year before me, had decided to join the Australian Labor Party. ‘It may be a sell-out,’ he said cheerfully, ‘but it’s the only way we are ever going to make change.’ His free spirit had finally rebelled against the dogma and blinkers of the far left, and I suspect he was also prodded by the vast Aussie common sense of his wife Bev.

  From 1975 to 1983 I toiled away in various parts of the party. But my views began to shift. For a start I was working, and really hard work it was. Through a girlfriend, I got an introduction to the famous Derry Irvine, then only thirty-six and regarded as one of the best and brightest junior counsels at the Bar. And so began that life-changing relationship.