Everyone says it to someone: “You will miss me when I’m gone.” But they rarely
say it to an entire nation. Will we miss Tony Blair? We may have hated him,
we may have loved him, but we got to know him. Will we not miss him?
Like many commentators, I must have written more than a million words on this
man. Their objective was to scrutinise and criticise power, not act as its
cheerleader. Power does that for itself and at our expense. As a result,
precious few of those million words have been complimentary. To me, Blair
was a remarkable politician but not a good prime minister, a skilful
operator but not a great man. But then “the evil that men do lives after
them. The good is oft interred with their bones”, so Blair is entitled to
his Mark Antony moment. Let us find something to praise in Blair, even as we
bury him.
I shall certainly miss the incessant cheerfulness. It is not a quality much
given to modern politics. Margaret Thatcher was rarely a happy bunny and
John Major whinged incessantly. Blair, the chap with the impish grin, always
seemed happy in his skin. Being prime minister is both the most rewarding
and most difficult job a country has to offer. I prefer leaders who
acknowledge their good fortune and take the hard knocks as they come, which
Blair did until his final ridiculous “feral beast” speech.
Blair was master of the new politics. This requires a leader to project
himself over the head of his party and over the institutions meant to curb
his power, to conduct a “running conversation with the people”. The
political scientist, the late J H Grain-ger, assessed Blair as the “ideal
leadership type” of German charismatic romanticism, who falls in love with
his own personality and portrays himself as “the political wing of the whole
nation”. He was a chameleon, able constantly to reflect the colouring of the
public mood, an outsider with no hinterland, no destination and no friends.
Such a figure never discusses policies or programmes, only values,
convictions, beliefs, pledging himself to a perpetually vague covenant with
the people.
There is nothing new in what is now called celebrity politics. It was
practised by Gladstone, Lloyd George and Churchill among others. Their mass
appeal was, if anything, greater than Blair’s, if only because they
materially altered the condition of the people. Blair modernised this
romanticism. His was the charisma of the television sofa, the pseudo-friend
to millions. He was the nation’s kid brother and favourite son-in-law. He
turned the aloofness of office into the virtual acquaintance of the
television studio.
On the rare occasions when Blair was not smiling, he contrived exquisite pain
(mourning Diana), innocent entrapment (sleaze) and a sort of ecclesiastic
sincerity over Iraq. His original motto came with the notorious Bernie
Ecclestone affair: “People think I’m a pretty straight sort of guy – and I
am.” The accompanying smile was that of a rueful schoolboy caught smoking
behind the bike shed. When he reduced the 2005 European summit to a fiasco,
he treated it as a dropped catch that cost the team the game, but “I did my
best”.
Even when Blair was at his most hyper-ventilating, as when “turning 1,000 days
into 1,000 years”, his phraseology seemed to make Britain feel bigger and
grander. Iraq, involving mendacity and error that would have forced many men
from office, was explained away much as a priest discussing the horrors of
wars and famine. It was God’s doing and it seemed right at the time.
Besides, Blair meant it and what could be more sincere than that?
He may have sent hundreds of soldiers to a pointless death, but he correctly
judged the country’s mood. Blair is what political historians call an
“occasionalist”. He could grab any passing incident and turn it to account.
Where Major was constantly floored by events, Blair contrived to capitalise
on them. Any reverse, over Iraq, Europe, prison numbers or hospital
closures, was somehow a platform for renewal. To maintain such optimism in
the face of disaster is a real talent in a leader.
Blair thus enabled the nation to relax under the scourge of Gordon Brown’s
Treasury turbo-Thatcherism. Even as he was destroying everything for which
his party had once stood, he seemed sympathetic, liberal, compassionate, in
tune with an ageing country that wanted to be told it was still young.
Immigrants flooded into London, which “swung” as never before. Britons
benefited from cheap flights, broadband access, soaring house values and
colossal debt. Gay couples married. In all Europe, Britain was among the
most tolerant of foreigners. Wealth was celebrated as never under a Tory
government. Labour was no longer the killjoy party of envy but the
hedonistic party of excess. Under Blair, anything seemed to go, even if it
meant the mild tap of an Asbo. Blair really did give Thatcherism the human
face that Major professed.
However dazzled by spin, the world came to see Blair’s Britain as a place
confident in itself. It had a leader unashamed to declare his commitment to
bettering his nation and the world. So what if it was mostly talk? It was
better talk than the moody aloofness of a Chirac, the naive malapropism of a
Bush or the sinister Putin. Blair’s last words to his party were: “I’ve been
very lucky and very blessed: this country is a blessed nation.”
You can jeer, but you can also shed a tear of recognition. It was a remark
inconceivable in 1979 and would have rung odd in 1997. To give it
plausibility was no mean quality in a leader. We shall miss it.
That said, there is a difference between missing someone and auditing his
account. Blair’s achievements in office were mostly a hangover from those of
opposition, of the Labour “modernisation” drive of 1992-6. The era of “the
project”, of the clause 4 moment and Harry Enfield’s “new improved newness”
served the job in hand, disembowelling the Labour party.
The savage assault of Peter Mandelson and Alastair Campbell left Major’s
Conservative government floundering. “Team Blair” behaved like masters of
the universe, strutting, crowing, bullying, buoyed up by astonishing opinion
polls of a nation that in truth simply wanted the Tories out.
Guided by adviser Philip Gould’s work as a student of American presidential
campaigns, Blair recognised a turning point in politics. The days of the
Westminster club were over. Parties should be converted into machines for
the election of the leader. This involved not harnessing a movement to a
cause, but generating a familiar relationship with the electorate. This
required charm and sincerity, not policy commitments and pledges. The
success with which Blair pursued this strategy greatly influenced the
Conservatives in their choice of David Cameron to succeed the “four clubmen”
of Major, William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard.
Blair craved presidentialism, embodied in his longing for a palace and a
private jet, but he was not wrong in seeing that such individualism held the
key to the future of democracy. (Hence his support for directly elected
mayors.) He also knew that Britain’s parliament was a vulnerable flank that
had to be covered.
It was he, not the Social Democrats of 1981, who “broke the mould” of British
politics by flirting promiscuously with the Liberal Democrats’ Roy Jenkins
and Paddy Ashdown before the 1997 election. Brown is doing likewise, laying
the groundwork for a possible hung parliament coalition and a realignment of
the British left away from a reliance on the organised remnants of trade
unionism and public housing.
With a vast floating electorate, a party cannot rely on its traditional bases
of support. They may be vote-gatherers at election time, the poor bloody
infantry who need massaging with power and patronage. But a new leader needs
wider appeal than that. Blair understood this. It is a lesson that Cameron’s
Tories have learnt but have yet to implement.
Blair also understood, if largely by instinct, what such personalised
leadership meant for his office. By pursuing a Napoleonic style of
government, with a cabal of potent aides, he focused every decision on
himself. Such elected monarchy accepted an immense burden of decision and of
blame on the leader directly, which is why it is a form of government rarely
imitated. It left Blair visibly aged and exhausted. While he was only
extending a centralism practised by many of his predecessors, he all but
completed it. As such, his rule was a milestone on the road of
constitutional change.
Blair was the boy who pointed at the naked emperor of the British constitution
and said it had no clothes. Rather than treat its informal disciplines with
respect, Blair simply disregarded them, indeed probably never understood
them. He once regretted to Jenkins that he had never studied history – and
it showed.
He reluctantly devolved power to Scotland and Wales in what was the only
serious decentralisation of his administration. He spent 10 years of trial
and often grievous error restoring home rule to Northern Ireland, which has
yet to prove itself durable. He tried and failed to reform the Lords. But he
was right that it should not become an elected superannuated House of
Commons. He gave London at least a properly elected mayor and, although he
lacked the commitment to follow it through, took it beyond a
headline-grabbing initiative. No leader after Blair could complain that “the
constitution” stopped him doing what he wanted to do.
Blair never understood why he ended his term in office with so little achieved
and so many “scars on my back” from failed reform. Time and again he had
sought to refashion the public services along lines soon lost in the
numerology of his delivery units and target-meisters. Abstract nouns such as
choice, empower-ment, stakeholder, joined-up, sus-tainability and
partnership polluted public debate and left the booming civil service
disoriented and confused. Everything was ceaselessly reorganised.
Where Thatcher battled for and delivered reform to the culture of private
enterprise in Britain, Blair failed to do the same in the public realm. The
reason was that under Thatcher the government machine knew what she wanted.
Blair never appreciated the difference between public and private
administration. His love of consult-ants, his conviction that tycoons might
make ideal reformers of hospitals and schools, his appeasement of Brown’s
Treasury, destroyed what the civil service under Thatcher showed it could
do, which is to take a clear lead from the top. Nobody knew what Blair
wanted other than a feelgood headline. Like a music hall magician, he
thought that a frown of concern and a smile of reassurance would cut the
lady in half.
Blair never shirked responsibility for the increasingly formless and chaotic
outcome of his rule. Shielded from the internal wrangling of Downing Street,
the nation believed that he was in control. He never shirked the burden of
his centralisation. He behaved throughout his term of office as if he were
foreign secretary, home secretary and lord chancellor. He behaved as if he
ran every health district and every school, was responsible for every
waiting list and every league table result. He was mayor of England. He
regulated every train service, jailed every criminal, censored every mullah.
He stripped his cabinet colleagues of power and tolerated for too long the
nastiness of Campbell’s influence over the government machine and similar
bullying by Brown’s Treasury.
Campbell’s role as the snarling teeth behind the Blair smile worked in
opposition, when negativity was all. But when the boot was on the other foot
Campbell could not hack it. Blair paid the price in a public sector that
simply would not respond when he pulled the levers. The much-cited slogan
“Tony wants it” did not make it happen.
It was abroad, in a world of red carpets, fine residences, guards of honour
and glittering occasions, that Blair found his comfort zone.
He led Britain back into the top league. From the start he sensed that what
worked at home might work abroad. His boyish charm, cycling through the
streets of Copenhagen, seemed a refreshing contrast with the starchy elites
of Europe. Yet, like all British leaders, Blair soon found Europe only
trouble, a tedious parade of conferences that stirred a nest of vipers back
home.
Blair was a better rhetorician of war than of diplomacy and by the end he was
wearing his Euro-scepticism on his sleeve. He failed to get a reform of the
common agricultural policy, outflanked by France at every turn, and was
finally browbeaten to compromise on a competition policy that did not suit
Britain’s interests. He was forced to play Major at Maastricht, taking
Britain to the brink and then partly capitulating. In the process he
destroyed his one-time ambition to be “president” of Europe – which in
itself must stand to his credit.
Blair’s infatuation with America was more emphatic and devastating. His love
for Bill Clinton was not just with a man whose rise he had studied and
imitated, but also with a man who could command a room with the flash of a
smile. Subsequent disillusionment over the (Monica) Lewinsky affair was
assuaged by Blair finding a role for himself, under Thatcher’s tutelage, as
the “nonwobbly” element in the western alliance. He put himself ahead of
Clinton in demanding intervention in Kosovo, hugging George W Bush close
over Afghanistan and Iraq and accepting that, in return, he must abandon
putting himself “at the heart of Europe”.
He rightly sensed that Britain’s position was at America’s side, even if he
chose rotten issues on which to do it.
As a result, for a brief period after 9/11 Blair could fantasise that he ruled
the world. His hyperbolic oratory would vanish into the Cheshire cat’s smile
under the slightest analysis. It was never more hyperbolic than at his 2001
party conference when he promised “our victory, not theirs” and pledged
America, “we will stay with you to the last”.
Nor was ambition confined to fighting shoulder to shoulder with Washington.
Africa, too, was “a blot on the conscience of the world”. He, and thus the
British people, were responsible for the remaking of the world “from the
slums of Gaza to the mountains of Afghanistan. This is a moment to seize . .
.”
Such grandiloquence was bound to end in tears. Obsequies enough have been
recited over Blair’s moral imperialism and it has met its nemesis in the
impending retreat from Iraq and the murderous shambles in Afghanistan. But
Blair never pretended that his wars were not his doing, not meant or not
sincere.
If he deluded himself over Saddam Hussein’s threat or what is feasible in
Afghanistan, it was because he sought a role for Britain. Despite the
millions who demonstrated against the war, Blair was responding to a desire
for global involvement deep in the British political DNA. This undoubtedly
helped the third election victory in 2005, even with Iraq a prominent
campaign issue. In last week’s Mori poll, Blair was still thought to have
been a good thing for Britain by a majority of 48% over 39%, remarkable for
an outgoing prime minister.
While Blair’s greatest achievement was the reform of Labour, his greatest
contribution to political history probably lies in the banality of what he
did not do. He did not wind back the clock of history. He did not, like
every previous Labour leader, wreck the economy. Lacking a personal ideology
– young Blair on union reform, privatisation, CND and Europe is a
hilarious insult to consistency – he adopted Thatcherism with the fanaticism
of an uncritical convert. What he most admired in Thatcher, an admiration
that was intense and personal, was what he sensed he most lacked: the
capacity to make things happen.
In truth there was nothing particular that needed to happen. For all his
adrenalin-pumped headline-induced hyperactivity, Blair let Britain live and
breathe the new Thatcherism. The nation somehow cut through the red tape of
targets and regulation in which he tried to smother it. If he went on
meaning-less wars, Britain felt some ancient imperial honour was satisfied.
Even in departing, his final bequest was the gloomy visage of Brown,
cleverly maximising his greatest asset.
Britain under Blair was, above all, a smiling place. We shall miss that.
Blair was the ultimate "charming psychopath". I have worked in the NHS since 1966 and he used it as his personal "executive toy" and did the same for education. I have been a labour supporter all my life,and never voted Conservative in my life but will must certainly do so next time I wait,hopfully not to long, for the opportunity
M.Rowan, Worcester,
I'm actually surprised by how much I haven't missed Blair. I feel like there's been a breath of fresh air since his departure.
It's funny that the people who you would think of as being most hostile to Blair (Conservatives, critical journalists) are the ones who actually admired him more than anyone.
Finally, how can you say that, under Blair, Britain was a smiling place. The war in Iraq, 167 soldiers dead, Britain's worst terrorist attack, foot and mouth epidemic. I'm sure most Britons weren't smiling then.
Will H, London, UK
Classic English wingeing. Despite most indicators showing that we are noticeably better off now than when he first arrived, miserable doomsayers tend to forget that it was not always the 'good old days'.
Pathetic.
Mark Borthwick, London, UK
Congratulations on your article Mr Jenkins. I was expecting to think "damned with false praise" but I have to hand it to you. Much of it is accurate. However, it won't be until the passing of time that we can clearly see Blair's legacy. I expect it to be praiseworthy. And Iraq? That too. I believe Blair was held back from making domestic changes which might have reduced terrorist threats years ago. The left of his party, political correctness, the fear of our losing 'civil rights', and the feral press (sorry I don't think it is a ridiculous phrase) have a lot to answer for. He tried to warn us in speeches about "multiculturalism" but we weren't listening. Or the press weren't - Mr J - and we read the press more than we listen to politicians.
I sincerely hope that he will make a success of his Middle East job. With his unarguable diplomatic and persuasive skills, who knows? Even Mr Jenkins might come round to working out why exactly we'll miss him.
Google - keeptonyblairforpm
BlairSupporter, London, UK
Its easy to criticise as a armchair spectator/journalist. One man cannot be held responsible for public services which have been a complete waste of money for the last 20 years. As for Iraq - what do you expect of War? Better that a dictator was eliminated. As a British Asian may I remind everyone that the British have a persistent habit of either interfering in other nations' affairs or as it has done for centuries - invading them. Dont be so smug about the rights and wrongs of the Iraq war.
Bela, LONDON,
Lapadoodle to a brainless wonder. That is Blair's true legacy. The last thing the world needed, in this age, was yet another leader who relied more on his pr machine than his cabinet; thereby making decisions based on such - albeit, his handling of Diana's tragedy was impressive and the praise well deserved. Yes, the great mother-country stood by it's runaway daughter but at what cost? Great Britain will ultimately be penalized historically (shame you couldnt fly under the radar on this one as other smaller countries did) so please, enjoy the economic fruits of your war-resulted prosperity!
Joaquim, Los Angeles, USA
An outstanding article from Simon Jenkins. As an activist who strongly supported Blair, but who became disillusioned when Blair's words never seemed to be converted into actions, I fully concur with the Jenkins analysis. When it came to sentiment, Blair was king. But the apparent gravitas was betrayed by Blair's near-complete lack of achievement in reforming the public services. Blair spoke, Brown threw in money but nothing really happened. The army of pubic employees grew ever larger but achieved ever less. Blair's domestic legacy is a bloated and ineffective bureaucracy that does little but costs an awful amount of money. His other legacy is of course Iraq.
Tony Polson, Aylesbury, UK
Politics of smile - but with lots of teeth. Apart from Iraq war - that was initially supported by an overwhelming majority in Britain - Blair was a force for modernisation, change, hope and confidence. Inspirational figure - beyond the borders of the island. Let's just hope his magic works for Middle East as it did for Northern Ireland.
Pavlos, Athens, Greece
Congratulations to Simon Jenkins for this superb article. I was living in London between 1996 and 2000 and I have a vivid impression of the change Blair embodied. It is regrettable and unfortunate that Iraq happened and trapped Blair. But apart from that Blair was a force of change, determination, modernisation and optimism for Britain. Politics of smile - but with lots of teeth. That's what Blair decade was for Britain. Let's hope his magic works for Middle East as it did for Northern Ireland.
Pavlos, Athens, Greece
Tony Blair will be toasted more in years to come. I think he sincerely did his best at a difficult time (dealing with terrorism, Iraq, the U.S.). UK is solid economically. Britons like to complain way too much.
Thomas, London,
Expectations in 1997 were unrealistically high, but Blair has achieved a lot. Britain did get better.
Sophie, London,
It's ironic that Blairs last engagement was a meeting with Arnie another second rate actor.
Neil S, Devon,
"He may have sent hundreds of soldiers to a pointless death.." and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis too.
One fifth of the 2003 population of Iraq is now displaced /exiled /dead.
Who will "shed a tear of recognition"??
sam m, london,
Britain a 'smiling place' for the last 10 years? - I do not think so.
You dismiss Iraq with that one meagre sentence: "He may have sent hundreds of soldiers to a pointless death, but he correctly judged the country’s mood."
Well, he did not judge my mood correctly. At the time, I was appalled by the spectacle of Rumsfeld announcing 'Operation Shock and Awe' with such obvious relish. Surely it was inconceivable that Britain could and would be party to such a reckless act? I was wrong - and so was Blair.
It has been an era of unfulfilled expectations - of squandered opportunities and superficial meddling.
No, I am not smiling.
Tony, Bridgend, UK
<<< Toasting Tony >>>
Open fire or under a grill?
Aan, Edinburgh, UK
The sooner we can get rid of him the better. A one way ticket to Basra perhaps? Good riddance.
Nathan, London,
Jeremy London, is a closet rabbit.
Perhaps he should take a lorryload of incontinence pants and stay in Baghdad in Iraq, or perhaps he might prefer Gaza.
We'll get his stay there sponsored since he thinks its so much improved there.
Conditions inclde that he must stay there for at five years and live with the ordinary people.
K. Urban, London, UK
Tony who?
Ian Burgess, Bristol,
Many, many sweet words; most of them untrue. Few will miss Blair, even fewer will miss his cheshire-cat-like grin.
For the first time in ten years, people will be able to go to bed at night, put their heads on their pillows, and not have to worry about which freedom is going to be taken away frrom them tomorrow!
Perhaps Brown might now be kind enough to seal the borders, something which Blair was incapable of doing.
Blair was what he looked: An overgrown schoolboy, out of his depth!
Richard Lewis, London, UK
If there ever was integrity in UK politics in recent times, it was buried with a third class funeral in the Blair years. Bypassing Parliament, leaking to the press, sofa government, cash for honours, carnage on a biblical scale in an illegal foreign war, spinning the shambles in the health service. And that's leaving the incompetence (prisons, immigration policy etc.) to the side. But he did keep smiling, as you say. It's a bit like saying that Stalin, for all his faults, had a nice singing voice.
Mike, Glasgow, Scotland
Just a sentence in your article..'He may have sent hundreds of soldiers to a pointless death,' He DID sent them to a pointless death, you journalists seem to think thats ok then?? Foot and mouth????desecration of the countryside, hunting ban.Do you think the rest of the country is as shallow as you in London. No I wont miss Blair, good riddance to him and his wife.
Maxine Sarjant, atherington, devon
Hon Tony Blair is one of the finest prime ministers that this country has seen. He has worked hard to fight terrorism and has improved the economy. It is a great shame that Gordon Brown will be PM - but he won't last long - he is too weak.
Hats off to Mr. Blair - I hope that he continues to remain involved in politics and in helping the Middle East situation(s).
Jeremy, London,
Tony's time as a PM will be fondly remembered..He straddled the world stage like no other, and made a moribund economy into a world leader. I think the Brits don't quite realise what a good deal they had in the Blair-Brown double act. It was brilliant. Britain punches way above its weight class in the world and the credit is due to Blair's vision.
Good show Tony & Thank You.
Rahul Kalla, London,
It seems to go on forever because it's been posted twice...!
This almost convinced me, but I just can't agree with the view that, "Blair’s achievements in office were mostly a hangover from those of opposition, of the Labour “modernisation†drive of 1992-6". That's a popular opinion, but it seems a last-ditch effort engineered solely to suck whatever credit was due to Tony Blair.
Forget the 'benefit' of the 'smiling image' he projected onto the country; the man deserves credit for the more visible beneficial changes to this country that did not involve the hand of Gordon Brown or the Labour “modernisation†drive of 1992-6
S. Gore, Liverpool, UK
Sorry? Miss who?
Bob T, London, UK
Interesting article but, like Blair, it seems to go on and on and on and on......
Roger Sykes, Christchurch, New Zealand