I will be paying a visit to Waterstones tomorrow to buy Tony Blair’s new book ‘A Journey’.
From the newspaper reports and media reviews it is an autobiography that is well worth a read, and apparently it is the fastest selling political autobiography ever. (This may just be good spin from the Blair camp, but it’s what a Waterstones spokesman was saying on the radio this morning!)
Political pundits, commentators and those we describe as opinion formers would have us believe that the former Prime Minister is loathed by the majority in the country. They paint a picture of a guy who has to jet off around the globe to simply escape from a baying UK public.
In fact, I think that analysis is wide of the mark. Indeed, as he ended his self imposed exile from substantive media appearances this week with an hour long interview with Andrew Marr, most people I have spoken to have acknowledged that Blair was, mostly, a force for good, and that he remains the most charismatic and persuasive politician of his generation.
His critics have suggested that the book reveals someone who was weak and perhaps even cowardly. His admission that he knew Gordon Brown would not be up to the job as Prime Minister has had many pointing an accusing finger and asking ‘why didn’t you stop him getting the job then?’ The simple answer to that is, it was not in Tony Blair’s gift to stop him getting the job. The Labour Party had to elect Blair’s successor, and despite the misgivings of many in the Parliamentary party, several union leaders and party members too, no alternative candidate emerged. The ‘coward’ tag may be appropriate for some leading cabinet figures of the time, but not Blair.
The issue of Iraq has sadly come to dominate the Blair legacy. I opposed the war at the time, and I am still to be convinced that it was the right thing to do. However, it is clear even now that Blair was not acting as a ‘poodle’ to George Bush and the U.S. He avidly believes that Saddam had to be removed, and that the terrorist threat would have been greater had he not taken the action he had. He went further in his interview with Marr, suggesting that the west is going too soft on Iran.
His intervention in Kosovo was seen as a much more successful and popular mission; his role in the Northern Ireland peace process another huge achievement. On social policy, the minimum wage, child care provision, civil partnerships and the biggest ever investment in health, education and other public services that, quite frankly were on their knees in 1997, Blair and New Labour deserve great credit.
For me Blair’s greatest achievement though was his transformation of the Labour Party. Again, his critics will suggest he got lucky and was elected as leader just at the right time. But though John Smith was a well respected and very able politician, there is no way he would have achieved the landslide victory that Blair enjoyed in 1997. He certainly wouldn’t have taken on the Labour left and ditched the monolithic Clause 4; and only Blair could reach out to individuals with ambition and aspiration, ‘middle England’, and convince them that Labour was worth supporting.
Those who see the Labour Party as some sort of academic ‘think tank’ and who find opposition a much more comfortable place than government will cry ‘sell out’. But Blair delivered three consecutive Labour election victories – and Labour was set up to win elections, not to be a debating school for the middle class with a conscience.
Blair’s success forced the Conservative Party to re-consider where it had gone politically. Its euro sceptic, Thatcherite right wing had dominated the Tory party for years. Cameron has taken his party back to the centre ground, and our politics now is far more about ‘right and wrong’ than ‘left or right’. Some people will regret that fact. It’s certainly not as exciting a political environment. But it’s a healthier place for the UK to be.
