by Blair, Tony
Nothing seemed set to disturb the mood of buoyancy. A bit of pushing and the G8 would come together, which would be a landmark in summitry. I knew the risks on making it about what the big and powerful nations could do for the world and abandoning its traditional economic role. I knew it was the right gamble to take. I felt confidence surging back through me, in my own judgement, in my self-belief and in my destiny.
I walked the few steps to the little press briefing room, where I was to meet President Hu of China. He tended to be very formal, but very much on top of his brief and, I think, quintessentially decent. We began our session with my asking him to appoint someone we could liaise with more informally so that UK/China relations, radically improved since the return of Hong Kong, could move to a new level. He made a suggestion, we agreed and started to move on to the G8 agenda.
China was very reluctant to move on climate change because it was wary of being bound into obligations inappropriate to its stage of economic development. The Chinese were terrified of being pushed to accept something that was inimical to their number-one priority: growth. They had over 60 per cent of the population still earning a living from agriculture (the US and the EU had around 3 per cent) and wanted to move vast millions of people from the land to cities. Without strong economic and industrial growth – and hence greater energy consumption – it was an impossible task. The Chinese doubled their coal consumption between 2000 and 2006. They knew that consenting to be part of a dialogue with the aim of an agreement at the end was a lot less innocuous than it appeared, so they were understandably cautious, yet were also feeling their power; sensing the responsibilities that went with it; recognising that they couldn’t be outside and inside the power club at the same time. I thought I could get them to come on board, provided I didn’t overegg it or ascribe to them positions they weren’t ready for.
Fifteen minutes in, Jonathan passed me a note. It simply said that there had been an incident on the Tube. Possible casualties. Might be an accident, might not. Instinct said it wasn’t.
Suddenly Jonathan left the room and then came back in looking agitated. I apologised to President Hu, explained the note and asked Jonathan if we knew anything further.
‘There is more than one explosion,’ he said.
Oh God, don’t let it be a terrorist attack, not that, not here. What I always feared, so obvious for them, so divisive for us. Right now, at this moment, there are people I don’t know whose lives have just changed forever, perhaps ended forever, the world forgotten in the extinction of one human being’s hopes, dreams and ambitions, all ended for reasons they will never know, nor understand, nor can ever argue about. Terrorism is the ultimate injustice: the targeting of the innocent precisely because they are innocent.
I got up and asked the president’s indulgence but I had to go and check it all out. On the way up to my room, clutching the mobile Jonathan gave me and getting the barest details, I bumped into George. He had heard already, of course. ‘Terrorist attack?’ he queried.
‘Could be an accident,’ I said. But we looked at each other and knew that it wasn’t.
By now it was clear there had been three attacks, all on the London Underground, all at peak rush hour. I spoke to Charles Clarke, who was as I expected: focused, not panicking, and trying to think through the logistics of the response. Shut the networks, train stations of course, but what other precautions? What help would the emergency services want?
‘How many casualties?’ I asked.
‘I can’t tell,’ he said.
‘Deaths?’
‘Bound to be, I’m afraid.’
‘How many?’
‘Don’t know.’
Pointless questions and pointless answers; no one knew.
At first, we thought it might be a handful of people, each one a tragedy but less than the worst case. The worst case would be very bad at that time of day, between Aldgate and Liverpool Street, Russell Square and King’s Cross, Edgware Road and Paddington – all very busy commuter journeys.
Around 10 a.m., news came through of a fourth explosion. This time it was on a bus at Tavistock Square just south of Upper Woburn Place, somewhere I used to go regularly as a barrister, where the old industrial tribunal used to be. I thought inconsequentially of all the times I had been there, and pictured it now in my mind, the bus with the roof blown off, limbs, bones and blood strewn everywhere. And for what? In the name of God?
Anger, pity and determination jostled like queue-jumpers barging into each other. I took a deep breath. Cut out the emotion, just think. Get a sense of the magnitude, work out the emotions of the country but do so in a way that leaves you free to describe them, but not to share them except for the purpose of description, so as to leave your mind clear. Do I leave the G8? Do we cancel it? How can I chair it waiting for news? Do we hand the enemy a victory by altering our arrangements? Do we show insensitivity to the victims by carrying on?
I know it sounds callous but calculations have to be made. There will be a time for me to weep later. Now you are the leader, so lead.
Slowly, by the odd Socratic process that takes place in a crisis, we put a plan together. The magnitude was plain: not the worst case, but fifty-two dead and many more injured, and heaven only knows how many more traumatised. Fifty-two dead people. Fifty-two people with families, friends, girlfriends, boyfriends, children. Fifty-two people who used to engage in all of life’s fullness and variety. Fifty-two people who had got up that morning not knowing it was the last time they would ever wake up or kiss someone goodbye.
I called the other leaders together and explained the situation. I was in a genuine quandary as to whether to leave the summit. In hindsight it was obvious; I should return to London. It didn’t seem like it then. It was Jacques who was most emphatic: you have to go back, the British people will expect it. What about the summit? I asked. We agreed it would be chaired by Sir Michael Jay.
I did some very brief media, after telling them I would do a statement later in Downing Street once I knew the facts. Charles would take care of the House. I boarded an RAF helicopter, and from Dundee airport we flew to Northolt and thence to Downing Street.
Even at moments of the highest tragedy, there can be moments of absurdity. The French ambassador Gerard Errera asked if he could come back with us on the plane. We naturally assented. As we flew down, the steward asked us if we wanted anything to eat as we had all missed lunch and were hungry. Having no time to prepare anything, lunch consisted of a bowl of stale crisps, some forlorn old salted peanuts and a few sandwiches which would have been rejected by British Rail in its heyday. Errera momentarily caught my eye and his face twitched. Had we brought a libel case against Jacques for his attack on British cuisine, Errera would have been the first witness for the defence.
Back in Downing Street we assembled the facts as best we could, and convened the emergency Cabinet Office Briefing Room (COBR) meeting. The worst thing was not knowing what else was out there. Was that it? Who and why? It was obviously part of the al-Qaeda network, but who was it specifically, here or abroad? It was some time before all these answers could be given. In the aftermath, we had several weeks in which there were calls threatening new attacks, or intelligence of such an intent. It was a nightmare. Each call could be a reason for shutting down the airport or transport infrastructure, or closing down city centres. We had the tragic killing of the Brazilian student Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July, which turned out to be a terrible error but where I also felt desperately sorry for the officers involved who were acting in good faith trying to keep the country safe. On one occasion we had a COBR meeting about the latest threat that had been made, although the intelligence seemed flimsy. Ignoring it was hard. Acting on it was also hard. Yet again we would have to shut down the Underground. So: act or ignore? I looked round the table and finally asked Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police commissioner who had done an excellent job through the attacks and after, what to do. ‘I’m afraid this is your call,’ he said. I dec
ided not to act, but I passed a very restless and anxious night when the time of the threatened attack came.
All the way down in the plane from Scotland, I had thought carefully about how we should respond as a nation. Jonathan, Charles and others could take care of the detailed, immediate response; what I had to focus on was how to express our thoughts as a country. This wasn’t about ‘emoting’ or ‘empathising’, as people often stupidly and cynically say. At times like these, it is about defining the feeling so the reaction can be shaped and the consequences managed. Because there would be consequences from fifty-two totally innocent people dying, the worst ever terrorist attack in the UK, worse than any Irish Republican attack in forty years of the Troubles.
People could react in any number of ways: there would be the anti-Muslim brigade; and there would be a response that said it’s really all the fault of Blair and Bush (I could see this coming the moment parts of the media thought it safe); but most of all there would be the sense of despair and tragedy. How could this be done, and in London, the embodiment of a multicultural city, the place just lauded by the award of the Olympic Games, no less; and precisely because of its open, friendly and unprejudiced character? Unbelievable. First triumph, then tragedy.
I formed the view that the first good instinct of the British people – Muslims, Christians, all of us – would be to unite and close ranks against the extremists, to reject prejudice in favour of solidarity. I knew that after a while there would be a second emotion: anger and a demand for action to prevent the possibility of this happening again, by tough measures, including legislation. By this point of my premiership, the iron had entered my soul on the issue of liberty versus anti-terror laws. When Lord Hoffmann had described the anti-terror laws as more of a threat to the country than the terrorists, I just couldn’t believe it, couldn’t credit how a sensible person could say anything quite so grossly stupid. So I knew there would be a battle to come.
But I knew the first thing was to unify, so I gave the Downing Street statement which tried to do that and I think by and large did do it. Specifically, I paid tribute to the Muslim population of Britain. I had real doubts about some of the leaders of the community and how they were confronting – or rather not confronting – this extremism, but it wasn’t the time to entertain such doubts. It was the time to let the Olympic spirit flow, through the tragedy as well as the triumph.
Late that night, I went back to Gleneagles. We had done what was necessary to show proper sensitivity to the victims of the appalling act of terror. Now we had to show that the G8 was our way of doing politics, and that also mattered. The contrast between our way and the terrorists’ way was essential. We had to fight terror not just through police, intelligence and security services, but as I constantly reiterated, it was a battle of ideas. I didn’t know if they had timed the attack for the G8, but that’s when it happened; so we had to paint the contrast in the boldest letters imaginable. Good politics and evil. Stark. Simple. Undeniable to all but the deranged.
By the time I got back, it was clear that the consequence of the terrorism on the leaders was to bring out the best in them. They had reacted brilliantly, and with total solidarity. There was an implicit collective decision to support the G8 agenda and get a result. The African numbers came together. The G8+5 dialogue was agreed. Michael Jay was performing with great skill, but they were getting there through political instinct and a genuine revulsion at the horror. We weren’t going to get everything we wanted, but as Michael said, it’s eight or nine out of ten. And believe me, for a summit, any summit but particularly G8, that is a real result. In the end, it set a new standard for such summits and rightly was regarded as historic.
We assembled the next day for the final session and communiqué. I had the idea of doing a statement setting out our achievements and contrasting that with terror, doing it all together, leaders of the world united, and symbolically signing the communiqué to give it added resonance and credibility. That’s what we did, forty-eight hours after I had heard the Olympic result, two days of the most extraordinary turbulence I had lived through in my time in politics.
On Africa, we agreed a comprehensive plan of action, based on the Africa Commission. We got the $50 billion uplift in aid, debt cancellation, commitments on Aids treatment, on malaria, on governance and corruption.
On climate change, we agreed to begin the G8+5 dialogue with the express aim of reaching a new global deal that would first slow down emissions and then cut them.
For good measure, we also agreed a package of support for the Palestinian Authority.
But most of all we stood up for proper politics. Even with all the suits, the paraphernalia of summitry, the flat words of the communiqué, the grand surroundings all looking like politics as usual, there was something felt by us all – hardbitten and inured to most political emotions though we were – that was true and real about what we were doing.
I did the press conference in the garden of the hotel. There was the usual nonsense from some NGO bloke about how we had all let Africa down, and the unusual riposte from Bob who basically tore the bloke’s head off for being so negative and followed him down the path from the press area, shouting abuse as only an irate Irishman can.
I recorded an interview with Jim Naughtie for the Today programme. I like Jim, but I knew already where it was heading: if we hadn’t gone to Iraq, we might have been spared this. It’s a nightmare of an argument to deal with because, of course, at one level, if you don’t fight these people, it’s possible you don’t feature so much on their hate list. But what does that say about how your foreign policy is determined? And you know that if you give even a sliver of credence to the argument, then suddenly it’s our fault, not theirs, which is, naturally, the very thing they want.
At that moment I was content simply to walk around it and not confront it. However angry it made me feel, at this point there was no point. But I could feel this whole debate moving to a new place, one where I was going to be very isolated, falling out not with the party but with the people. I felt it at a profound level, about us as a country, about our character. I felt it not with any fear of political mortality – though I could sense that coming, but in a way that was both less frantic and more painful.
I had a vision for Britain. All the way I had believed I could and would persuade the country it was the right choice, the modern way, New Britain going along with New Labour. It was about something bigger than Iraq, bigger than the American alliance, bigger than any one thing; a complete vision of where we should be in the early twenty-first century; about how we finally overcome the greatness of our history to discover the full potential of our future.
But now I wasn’t sure I could do it. I wasn’t sure people were really persuadable any more. The forces aligned against me were so many. If
I fought back too hard, there would be so much division and bitterness – and yes, be honest, personal pain – when I could so easily be released.
All of this I felt, but put to one side. There would be a later reckoning. For now, I was just relieved that the week had finally come to a close. It had begun in triumph, was enveloped in tragedy and ended in some sort of truth about the best politics could be.
I thought of how the week would be viewed in retrospect. For some families as a moment of supreme bereavement. For others in Africa, unconscious of the efforts made to free them from poverty, hunger, conflict and disease, maybe life instead of death measured not in tens of people, but in millions.
As I staggered through the flat door that Friday night, I looked in on Leo sleeping up in his room, poured myself a drink, decided on a movie – something utterly escapist – tried to focus on the family things Cherie was asking me about, and tried to put it all out of my mind; tried to free myself of the worry of what comes next, of the next call, the next slip of paper, the next confrontation, the next frisson of fear.
I reflected on the awesome nature of the weight on my shoulders; the pain and the excitement. Poli
tics: noble causes, ignoble means; the plans you make and the events that turn them upside down; the untold misery and the imperfect attempts to alleviate it.
I went back upstairs and looked in on Leo again, still sound asleep. A life ahead of him.
How much triumph, how much tragedy, how much happiness and sorrow would he accumulate? How many tears, and to what purpose? I remembered my mum. At fifty-two, I had just passed the age she had been when she died. So young, I thought now. When she was already ill and knew she might die soon, I once asked whether she would go back to being my age, then twenty, and live it all again if she could. ‘No,’ she said, ‘no, too much pain. Wouldn’t like to go through it all again.’
‘But you were happy, Mum, in life, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. But no, I wouldn’t repeat it all, no, definitely not.’
I knew what she meant now: not that it’s better to be dead – of course it isn’t – but going through it all again, the anxiety, the ambitions that have to be fulfilled, the dreams you know will be dashed, so much striving . . . That’s the purpose of life: to strive.
Leo could have been on that Tube train, on that bus. Oh God, don’t let my children die before me. I think of the grief of it, of the fathers and mothers of the soldiers who died in Iraq, in Afghanistan, of the other people, buried in the rubble of Baghdad or Kandahar.
Think of the horror. My responsibility.
I quietly closed the door to Leo’s room and paused for a moment to throw it all off me. Let me forget for a while. Till the time comes to put it back on.
NINETEEN
TOUGHING IT OUT
The last two years in office were, in many ways, the best of years and the worst of years. The best because by this time I felt liberated, strong and up for anything. The worst because it was just as well I felt like that. For these two years, the party was revolting; Gordon was in a perpetual state of machination; the anti-Blair media (i.e. most of it) had given up any pretence at objectivity; Iraq teetered on the brink; and when all else failed, there was a police inquiry into me and my staff that very nearly toppled the government without a charge ever being laid. I look back on it now and think: How did you survive it?