‘My tears over Iraq’ (From The Northern Echo)

‘My tears over Iraq’

10:47am Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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Political Editor Chris Lloyd picks out a few of the topics covered by Tony Blair in A Journey, his memoir which was published yesterday.

GORDON BROWN

THE most extraordinary aspect of the book is how Tony Blair lays bare his terrible relationship with Gordon Brown. The pairing between Prime Minister and Chancellor should be the driving force of a government, but this was a love that turned horribly sour and the resultant hatred must have been sapping.

It was setting in as early as October 1994. “I’m afraid distrust was already present, like a shadow between us,” he says.

He talks of the coterie of advisors surrounding Mr Brown as being members of a “cult”, and he concludes: “I could see Gordon’s enormous ability, extraordinary grasp and unyielding energy, and realised those were all big qualities in a leader. Unfortunately, what I had also come to realise was that those qualities needed to be combined with a sure political instinct in order to be fully effective. And that instinct comes from knowing what you truly believe.

“And at this utterly crucial epicentre of political destiny, I discovered there was a lacuna – not the wrong instinct, but no instinct at the human, gut level. Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely.

Emotional intelligence, zero. Gordon is a strange guy.”

AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ

THE book is designed to remind the reader that his domestic successes mean there is far more to Mr Blair’s ten years as Prime Minister than Iraq. But it is also his chance, in his own words, to justify his actions.

“If I had known then that a decade later we would still be fighting in Afghanistan, I would have been profoundly perturbed and alarmed. I hope I would have still taken the same decision, both there and in respect of Iraq. To have tried to escape the confrontation would have been a terrible error, an act of political cowardice.”

Of his feelings about the loss of life, he says: “Tears, though there have been many, do not encompass it. I feel desperately sorry for them, sorry for the lives cut short, sorry for the families whose bereavement is made worse by the controversy over why their loved ones died, sorry for the utterly unfair selection that the loss should be theirs.”

DRINK

THERE are several strange excursions in the book which, with hindsight, might have been best left out. The electrifying passion for his first girlfriend, for instance, and the revelation: “I like to have time and comfort in the loo.”

The four paragraphs in the 718 pages concerning his alcohol intake have become front page news. Mr Blair unwound with a whisky and then wine. “Not excessively excessive. I had a limit. But I was aware it had become a prop.”

ALONE

THE book provides fascinating insights into the vulnerability of being PM and Mr Blair, who can turn a phrase, wrings emotion with his descriptions of Christmas at Chequers, baby Leo sleeping and him grappling, all alone, with whether to invade Iraq.

In fact, the book opens with this theme. His first election victory – May 1, 1997 – was a time of great exuberance and huge expectations, but he reveals that as he travelled from the count at Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, he was scared “about how I personally would react when the mood turned against me, as I knew it would”.

SEDGEFIELD

AS well as the story of how he was “utterly and publicly humiliated” by firebrand left-winger Dennis Skinner at a meeting in Spennymoor Town Hall shortly after he was first elected in 1983, a sense of how profoundly his County Durham constituency shaped his early New Labour views comes through. In Tudhoe, he gave his stock left-wing anti-death penalty answer that proved popular in Islington, but he was shocked that the elderly questioner, Hannah Ferguson, was so in favour. That led to his soundbite “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” that also accommodated the views of people like Hannah.

HEALTH REFORM

HE acknowledges how the 1999 death of Ian Weir, 38, who had been waiting eight months for a heart bypass operation, forced him to grasp the nettle on NHS reform. “I received a letter from a woman whose husband had been a Northern Echo photographer whom I had worked with,” he says. “I felt it horribly, felt the responsibility…”

Mr Weir’s death led to an Echo campaign, A Chance to Live, which was taken up by Darlington MP Alan Milburn, who Mr Blair subsequently made Health Secretary.

Mr Blair is effusive in his praise for Mr Milburn, who clearly also had a tense relationship with Mr Brown over health spending. Of Mr Milburn’s surprise decision to step down from the Cabinet in 2003, Mr Blair says: “Alan was the first person who, in my time, just left because they wanted to. He no longer enjoyed it and wanted out.”

JOHN PRESCOTT

THERE are some great Prescott anecdotes, most notably Prince Charles’ description of the Deputy Prime Minister drinking tea. “When he’s sitting opposite you, he slides down the seat with his legs apart, his crotch pointing a little menacingly, and balances his teacup and saucer on his tummy,” said the Prince. “It’s very odd.”

Mr Blair also reveals how Sedgefield saved Mr Prescott’s career when he thumped an eggthrower in Rhyll. To gauge reaction, Mr Blair phoned his agent, John Burton. “‘I think it’s great,’ said John. I rate his judgement very, very highly. What’s more, he told me the women were of the same view up North. When the news had come on in the Trimdon Labour Club, everyone had cheered as JP hit the guy.”

NEWCASTLE UNITED

IN 2005, while campaigning for Britain to win the 2012 Olympics, Mr Blair tried to tap up one of the world’s greatest forwards. “I met the Spanish footballer Raul and tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade him of the merits of moving to Newcastle United over Real Madrid.”

REGRETS

MR BLAIR has two surprising regrets. He despairs at himself for passing the Freedom of Information Act which, he feels, gives journalists a mallet with which to bash politicians. “You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible, nincompoop.

I quake at the imbecility of it.”

And he regrets attempting to ban fox-hunting because, once he investigated it, “it wasn’t a small clique of weirdo inbreds delighting in cruelty”.

It was too late to go back, so he fudged it.

“It’s banned and not quite banned at the same time. Hmmm,” he says. “Not an episode of policy-making I look back on with pride.”

SELF-PORTRAIT

“IT is true that my head can sometimes think conservatively, especially on economics and security; but my heart always beats progressive, and my soul is and always will be that of a rebel.”