by Blair, Tony
As 1 May approached, we started, unbelievably, to get that message out, and by the time of the anniversary itself, we had narrowed the polls almost to evens. Given we were now absolutely midterm, and given the wretched ‘cash for honours’ inquiry, it was quite something.
I decided to go and campaign vigorously in Scotland. There was a feeling I shouldn’t, but I was equally clear I should go and put real credibility on the line. The Scottish local elections were also being held, all of which gave me an opportunity to get out there and remind people what I could do.
The Scottish Labour Party responded brilliantly, whatever they might have felt privately. Lesley Quinn, the organiser and General Secretary, was a real trouper, tirelessly flogging them all on. I did a mixture of visits, speeches and Q & A sessions, some planned – as with a well-prepared speech on devolution – and others more of the stump variety. The audiences had to be fairly carefully selected, however. By then it was clear that anyone who disrupted anything could wipe off any other news, and the media were in a state of constant vigilance to get such a moment of destruction. I also did some more light-hearted media, which involved fairly quick-fire repartee rather than gravitas; but it was all pretty good-natured.
I even got to visit the street in the Govan district of Glasgow where my dad used to live. It was odd to think of him in that poor part of the city all those years ago, collecting his lemonade bottles for cinema money, living in a corporation tenement, a wee Glasgow laddie whose son would one day become prime minister.
The election result came and we nearly won it, losing by only one seat. As the count drifted into recounts and the whole thing hung in the balance, I thought for a short while that Jack McConnell might pull it off. But no; by the narrowest of margins, the Scottish National Party and their leader Alex Salmond were in. Had we had greater belief in ourselves – the assumption being we couldn’t win – I think we might have done it.
I was concerned about my own position in respect of both the Scottish and the Welsh campaigns. I wanted to complete Northern Ireland and set out the forward policy agenda, but I knew some people, with understandable feeling, thought I was being selfish in staying on through these campaigns. With a new leader we could have done better, and in particular it is possible with Gordon we would have won in Scotland. Jack McConnell was loyal and decent enough to deny this to me, but I wasn’t sure he meant it. On the other hand, people knew change was happening, so it was hardly sensible to vote against someone who wasn’t going to be there in a few weeks anyway. It was very frustrating. I knew once Alex Salmond got his feet under the table he could play off against the Westminster government and embed himself. It would be far harder to remove him than to stop him in the first place.
The speeches were going well – not in the sense that they were getting big coverage, but they were well received by those who received them, as it were, and they did amount to a serious corpus of argument about what we had done and why in the ten years in power. Throughout those final months, I was still charging forward with decisions.
I visited Wales a few times also. I could tell the Welsh First Minister Rhodri Morgan, who was a Gordon supporter, was not wildly enthusiastic about my participation in his election, but he handled the visits with good grace.
The news from Iraq continued to be worrying, but as a result of the decision to surge it was clear it could be turned. I made a visit to Baghdad and Basra, thanking the troops for what they had done. Down in Basra they were continuing to be mortared almost daily. As we sat in the compound, one landed nearby, and I knew it must be hellish to be living with the constant fear. Amazingly, the troops themselves stayed in good heart; but I could tell that the senior officers thought our utility in Iraq had ended and they chafed at the bit to get stuck into Afghanistan, which was just beginning to be a bigger problem.
Late in April, I met the family of one of the soldiers who had died on a very difficult and risky mission. I brought them into the den in Downing Street. These are emotional, highly charged meetings. Families deal with grief in different ways. Some grieve as if what has happened is an inevitable risk, especially in the life of a combat soldier. They are honest enough with themselves to know that we have a volunteer not a conscripted army, and that their loved ones died doing what they wanted to do. Others feel the injustice of a young life ended and want someone to blame. Others still are a mixture of sentiments, some of grieving, some of grievance.
On this occasion, the wife of the soldier had her two young children with her, both toddlers, neither of whom would ever know their father except from snatches of their mother’s memory. The parents and parents-in-law both had military backgrounds and so understood, but it was uneasy nonetheless. I didn’t justify any decisions or make a case. I just let them ask questions and then I asked them about him, and they painted a picture of him with pride.
After about forty minutes, I asked to spend some time alone with the widow. We talked for a bit and suddenly I was overcome with tears. When you meet such people and realise what effect your decision has had on someone’s life, and by extension the life of a whole family, something changes within you. You have to have the sensibility to feel it; and then, without ever losing that sensibility, the courage to overcome it, take the decision and move on despite it.
Of course, much of this reflects the impact made by the person before you, the real-life reminder, the physical manifestation of a decision. In more objective and detached moments, you can reflect on other decisions where you may never meet or even appreciate the real-life consequences of a decision because those affected never stand before you: the millions helped in Africa, including, incidentally, those helped by the Bush PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief) programme; those walking the streets in Northern Ireland; even those saved by the NHS. Or those who have been casualties of decisions delayed or mistaken, whom you never hear about and can never know.
Whether the decisions’ consequences are before our eyes or not, ultimately you have to go on living, go on working, go on striving. But you do so conscious of the duty born of the impact your decisions have had; and with an imperative urgency that in my case I know will not leave me until the day I die.
In the run-up to the European Council, I was also visiting capitals – Paris, Berlin, Warsaw and elsewhere – trying to drum up support for a strong resolution on climate change. I saw Nicolas Sarkozy in early May straight after his election victory. He was in great form, vitality in every sinew, ambition and determination in lockstep, full of enthusiasm for the challenge ahead.
I recalled seeing him at Downing Street just before the campaign began and he was as bouncy and confident as ever. He had vast plans for France, for Europe, for the world. ‘God,’ I said to him after twenty minutes of this, ‘you sound like Napoleon.’
‘Thank you,’ he replied straight-faced; then I looked closely, and saw with relief that twinkle in his eye.
This time in Paris, first over drinks and then over dinner in a restaurant near the Elysée Palace which he walked to greeting startled onlookers as if he were still fighting for every last vote, he repeated his desire for me to be president of Europe when the Lisbon Treaty was agreed. I, a little self-consciously, went along with it and could see its attractions; but I also knew (as it turned out indeed) that it was going to be incredibly difficult to get someone like me into that job. I had respect in Europe; I had a lot of enemies too, people I had crossed, people to whom I had paid insufficient attention. I was a big figure, not someone easy to have around if you were worried about your share of the limelight. I thought Nicolas himself had a relaxed view of big figures around him because of his self-confidence. Others would not see my presence as European president in that way.
He was fascinating company – engaging, energetic and with that captivating French bravado around women, life and laughter that I loved. I liked too the fact that he was a ‘my way or no way’ person. He had the spirit certainly to demand change, and to get it or go. And
I was very sure that was the only way to get the necessary reforms fast. But, as ever, it is one thing to propose in theory; another to execute in practice. In that first flush of limitless possibility which characterises the new incumbent, I saw something of my own feeling ten years before. ‘It will get tougher,’ I warned him.
‘Of course, I know that,’ he replied, in exactly the way I would have done, when you think you know; but until you have the experience, knowledge is deeply imperfect.
I saw Angela Merkel around the same time, and was rather chagrined to be leaving just as she and Nicolas were arriving. She had been Chancellor for almost two years, but it was clear she was only now establishing herself fully. By this time I was getting on with her really well and liked her immensely.
On 8 May, Northern Ireland came good, with power-sharing restored. On 9 May, I told the Queen I would announce the next day when I was to stand down. On 10 May, I travelled to Sedgefield as prime minister and as their MP for the last time. It was there that the journey had started, and there that it should end. I gave my valedictory speech and announced that I would leave on 27 June, just after the European Council. That left six weeks for a leadership contest or process and then handover for the summer break so that Gordon could play himself in.
Finally, I did a bit of a farewell tour to highlight things we had done and try to bolt it all down. I went to Sierra Leone; to Libya; to South Africa, to emphasise the importance of governance as well as aid to Africa’s future. We held the first government-sponsored, high-level interfaith conference. There was the G8 at Heiligendamm in June; a NATO session at Rostock; and then of course the EU Council. I had seen George for the last time in May. I saw the Pope at the Vatican in the middle of June. And, as it sounds, it all passed in a bit of a blur.
The policy documents from the ‘Pathways to the Future’ programme were coming out, but Gordon had rather lost interest and the country was looking forward to the new man. The deputy leadership contest for the party had several contenders. It was clear that the GB camp was backing Harriet Harman, who went on to win. Alan Johnson never quite got lift-off, though he made it to the last round and by rights he should have won. Jon Cruddas did well. As the out-and-out moderniser, Hazel Blears scored only moderately, but fought a good campaign.
There was no contest for the leadership. John Reid could have stood, but the Murdoch papers, I fear at Rupert’s instigation, just wrote him off, though John was obviously more in tune with Sun readers than Gordon. This was where Gordon’s strategy of tying up Rupert and Dacre really paid off – any likely contenders didn’t get a look-in; they got squashed.
David Miliband came to see me. Two years later he would be a different calibre of politician, with clear leadership qualities; back then in May 2007, as he sought my advice, he was hesitant and I felt fundamentally uncertain as to whether he wanted it. And that is not a job to be half-hearted about. He asked me if I thought he should stand and I said I couldn’t make that decision for him. ‘What would happen if I did?’ he asked.
‘I think you might win, not obviously but very possibly,’ I replied.
David thought, with good cause, that Gordon had it sewn up. I didn’t think so actually, and I also thought the moment there is a campaign and people start to flush him out, the ambiguities in his position, the gaps in hard thinking and also the trading off to the left, would become apparent. Played correctly, it would put full square the choice of New Labour or not.
But David was unconvinced. Some then and later criticised him for being too cautious. Personally, I really sympathised. This wasn’t like me in 1994. This was a wholly different order of calculation of risk. I didn’t blame him at all, but I did say he should be prepared in case the issue arose again, sooner than we might think. I thought by then that a) it was going to be a mess, not quite New Labour, not quite not; and b) as a result, Gordon’s self-evident personal drawbacks would very quickly mean he was under pretty brutal attack for which he was not psychologically wired. With a strong clear programme he could have come through. Without it, he would be running on his personality and that was never going to work.
Man to man, as it were, we got on fine; I just totally disagreed with what I knew he was going to do. But I had realised the impossibility of changing it. I wrote him one last memo in February 2007, though not with any confidence it would persuade. I can’t say I can hold it against him. From his point of view, he had waited ten years for the damn job. He could be forgiven for thinking: Why doesn’t he just clear off and let me get on with it? So we talked through some issues, gauged our thinking on the up-and-comers for promotion and it was all perfectly amicable.
In the memo I explained that there were only two ways that Labour could win the election. One was a decisive rupture with my time in office, what I called ‘Clean Break’. But that would require a new and credible agenda. The other was ‘Continuity New Labour’, i.e. keeping to New Labour but using it to address the new challenges. I told him, however, that he could only win on the second, as he was part of the previous ten years. Any distancing and he would drift off slightly to the left, just enough to destroy the New Labour coalition. I laid out a plan for us to coordinate and cooperate in the months before I left so that he was seen as authentic New Labour, and not a traditional Labour leader.
In conversation after conversation, I tried to explain that he didn’t need to worry about separating out from me. That was obvious; he was a completely different personality. The contrast in character would be sharp. But if he attempted to switch the basic track of policy, he would end up shunted off in a siding that led nowhere.
I reread the note now and I’m afraid it is precisely what he should have done and didn’t. The Budget was a great chance to bind in a joint legacy, and to consolidate the fiscal position, but the people he felt closest to didn’t really agree. He could talk to me and at one level respect me, as I did him, but the intimacy was broken. As with me, so with Alastair. And Peter. And Philip. He could absorb what we said and see its force, but deep down he didn’t feel the same in the guts, as it were; and those with whom he was intimate actually disagreed with it in their guts. It was never going to work.
It’s really hard to say all this, and I have thought long about it. There’s nothing worse than ‘oh if only he had listened to me’ rubbish, and so, after trying valiantly not to fall into self-justifying mode – a bane of political memoirs, I fear – it’s a pity I have. Yet I look at those policy papers now – the work on social exclusion, on the use of social security budgets, on structural financial savings, on tax reform, on the next phases of crime, health and education reform – and I do think how different it would have been if we had done it. If we had struck out to a new level of New Labour and not wandered into a cul-de-sac of mixed messages and indecision, we would have been so much better placed for the economic crisis; and so far ahead of the Conservatives in thinking. But there it is. It didn’t happen, and that is that. The milk was spilt. The weeping and gnashing of teeth is pointless.
So we come to the final few days.
It was strange to be bowing out. I was at the height of my powers, if not my power. I knew I was a much better prime minister in May 2007 than in May 1997. I still felt highly motivated and energised. I was convinced that the policy agenda I had been working on was the only viable one for Britain’s future. It probably had support in the country too, if explained effectively. Yet I was leaving.
My constituency in the media had evaporated. They admired the showmanship and political skills, but they had ceased listening to the political argument. They were bored. They were cynical. Iraq still caused too much bitterness and obstructed sensible analysis of the broader picture. They had bought the GB package, though I felt their motives were very mixed in doing so. Some on the left genuinely thought he would deliver a leftist programme. I had a hunch those on the right principally thought he would deliver a Tory government.
For my part, I thought I had gone as far as I could at that momen
t in time with that constellation of political circumstances. Gordon had me hemmed in. Many senior members of the Cabinet had no real sense of the policy divide between us, with notable exceptions like John Reid and Tessa Jowell. Many of the others could see which way the wind was blowing and thought: Let’s get on with it.
I had toyed with the idea of staying in Parliament. I knew pretty soon the problems with Gordon would emerge and the party would not know what to do; but I also knew that although there would be a clamour for me to return from some, fiercely rejected by others, there would be the most frightful falling-out and the pitch would be queered for anyone else. Neither could I engage in the political debate while he was leader. If I did and said even one word that was a millimetre out of place, there would be accusations of disloyalty and disunity. So I decided I had little option but to leave the UK political scene, at least for now.
As for the country, they too, or at least a large proportion of them, had stopped listening and were irritated with the manner in which I continued to press policies they had decided they didn’t agree with. They didn’t buy the foreign policy, which they thought far too close to the US. They didn’t like Europe and I seemed to. They were persuaded there were easier, less confrontational ways to reform public services. They were confused over the law and order agenda, supporting its basic message but unconvinced we were actually enforcing it.
Most of all, they were being bombarded, deluged even, with stories about ‘cash for honours’, ‘lies’ over Iraq, this corruption, that scandal, the other shortcomings of government. We were like two people standing either side of a thick pane of glass trying to have a conversation. I thought, and still think, that they could be persuaded, but when I spoke they couldn’t hear me; and after a time they stopped trying to.
When I ventured out and met people, which in those last months I did very frequently, the people I met would not have the pane of glass in the way. We would converse very well and both found the experience interesting. Right up to the last moment, I was really learning from those encounters, but they can never be with more than a tiny fraction of the people. The rest can only engage indirectly, and for them, the pane of glass swiftly becomes a pain in the neck.