TONY BLAIR remains completely unmoved by the frenetic speculation about his future in the political and media worlds. Talking in the calm of Chequers yesterday lunchtime, he brushed aside the queue of Labour MPs and commentators angrily calling for his resignation and the demands by union leaders for sweeping changes in policy.
He still believes he has much to do in 10 Downing Street. For him, it is still “new Labour or bust”.
He does not deny the existence or breadth of these calls, but, underlinng the gap with his critics, Mr Blair portrays himself as the reasonable man outlining the way to a fourth Labour victory — and the risk of defeat if the party abandons the new Laobur path.
His aim in the interview with The Times, his first significant one since returning from holiday, is to “strike a balance” in trying to end speculation about what he will say about his future before or at the Labour conference in four weeks.
He says he has done what no previous Prime Minister has done in saying that he would not fight another election, while giving “ample time” for his successor. He noted that, before he became leader, “we’d lost four elections in a row, now we’ve won three”.
The Blair camp hopes that his repeated promise that, unlike Margaret Thatcher in 1990, he was not seeking to “go on and on” will offer reassurance and divide his critics.
“I think I have said enough for anyone reasonable to know I will do my best for the country and the party to make sure that when I do depart it is done in a stable and sensible and orderly way, but, in the meantime, to get on with the job of Prime Minister.”
However, his words will not end demands for him to set out a firm timetable for this departure, a question that we posed in eight or nine different ways during the 50-minute interview.
For all his robustness and defiance, Mr Blair is fully aware of what his critics are saying, both about Lebanon and his own future. “I really think it is absurd for people who say we must stop this continual speculation about the leadership continuing to speculate about it. I’m not the one who keeps raising this issue. I think if it is speculation that people are worried about, there is a simple answer — stop speculating. If what they are really worried about is timing, I think most of you can look at what I have said and draw conclusions about that.”
Asked if he would change his position if it damaged the party, Mr Blair said: “I have said all I am going to say.” After returning from holiday a week ago, he is busy preparing for a hectic autumn. Our interview was in between a meeting with the Sri Lankan Prime Minister, a phone call from King Abdullah of Jordan and a session with Labour MPs worried about his Lebanon policy, including Mike Gapes, Phyllis Starkey and Ian Wright.
Mr Blair looked tanned and less tired around the eyes after his truncated holiday in Barbados. When there, he even managed to join in a scratch game of football, as well as reading about the early Christan Church and a book on the origins of the jihad. The first week was interrupted by constant phone calls but he managed to relax in the second week. He thought of returning after the arrests of the suspects in the alleged terrorist plot, but was persuaded that there was nothing he could do.
Apart from seeking to dampen talk about his departure date, Mr Blair’s main theme was the need for Labour to renew itself, to demonstrate “we are not paralysed or run out of steam. The Government is pursuing a programme of NHS reform which is revolutionary; we have trust schools and city academies which we have to get a critical mass on; we have pensions and energy policy which we have now secured policy for and now have consequent legislation.”
Mr Blair dismissed out of hand the call by union leaders for the repeal of the Conservative trade union laws and an extension of worker rights. “They know the answer they will get. It is not a great surprise.” For him, “the danger for the Labour Party is not that it goes back to being being militant, Arthur Scargill, Tony Benn and all the rest. That’s absurd. Well, there may be people who want this, but they are a tiny, tiny number. The danger for Labour is actually stasis: in other words the party doesn’t realise that 2007 new Labour is not 1997 new Labour.”
He drew a comparison with the failures of the American Democrats in the post-Clinton years since 2000. He believes that Labour must show that it is the party of change, otherwise the Conservatives will be given an opening.
“The perennial delusion of all political parties in government is that you have a moderate, progressive government that becomes unpopular for all sorts of reasons and people who want something more fundamentalist use that unpopularity to pull the party into a position where it simply can’t win an election.”
Mr Blair denied that he was trying to bind the hands of his successor. “When you get a new leader, the last thing I’m going to be doing, I can assure you, is making mischief for whoever comes afterwards. I think that’s the worst form of vanity that anyone can ever have after they leave the job, is thinking that anyone is interested in what you say afterwards, other than causing trouble for your successor.”
Meanwhile, he said, he was working closely with Gordon Brown — “we work together the entire time”.
He divided the critics into three groups: “those who are worried about the polls, those who are worried about me going on and on; and those — probably the largest part — who don’t simply want a change of leader but a change of direction”.
Admitting that the polls were “difficult for us at the moment”, he said: “The trouble is that the Labour Party has no similar experience to draw on because it has never had two full terms, let alone three.
“So Labour has never been in its tenth year of government in its hundred years of history. But the Conservative Party has been in that position reasonably frequently. Once you get into your tenth year of government, people are fed up, you disappoint people, you’ve got people impatient for change. The most foolish thing you can do is have an internal debate which obsesses the governing party rather than an external debate about the policies which are good for the country. If your policies are correct and you believe in them, then stand by them and fight for them and have the confidence and self-belief that you will see it through.”
On the second group, “those who say you are just going on and on, I’ve done what no other Prime Minister has ever done in a similar situation. I’ve said I won’t fight another election. I’ve also said, on the record, that I will give ample time to my successor.” That, he said, should be enough for “anyone reasonable”. The important thing is that “if people want stable and orderly change, they should not keep obsessing about it in the meantime but, instead, get on with the business of government.
“What will increase our problem in the polls is if people think that we’re either paralysed as a government or have run out of steam because we are debating this issue continually.” The third group, a “very significant number”, including some former ministers, want a change of direction. “They don’t believe in the NHS reforms, the trust schools and the energy policy. We only won because were were a different type of Labour Party. We must maintain that, new Labour is simply the name we gave to what was a different idea, which is a Labour Party which is able to appeal to business as well as the unions, that stood for aspiration and ambition as well as simply compassion.”
As shown by his later meeting with backbench Labour MPs, Mr Blair recognises the importance of explaining his controversial stand on the Lebanon war. “I totally understand what people are worried about, particularly when our position on the Lebanon was parodied as saying that we really don’t care if Israel carries on doing whatever it wants and we’ve given them carte blanche. That’s not what we were saying at all. What we were saying, however, is that you could not talk about a meaningful ceasefire unless it was one that was agreed in the political framework.”
He was unapologetic about his close alliance with Washington and standing “shoulder to shoulder” with President Bush.
Mr Blair argued that large parts of the Western world, including in Britain, still do not appreciate the seriousness of the global terrorist threat. It is not just a matter of tough new laws, but, rather, of challenging the “unjustified” sense of grievance felt by many Muslims.
He said there was one exception, the urgent need to tackle the Palestine issue, which he wants to pursue on his visit to the Middle East. Citing his conversations with the Lebanese Prime Minister and other leaders in the region, he denied that his stance on Lebanon had lost him influence in the Arab world.
Mr Blair would not be drawn on the police investigation into loans to Labour and peerages, apart from saying that “once that is done and dusted, I will have a lot to say, but for the moment I will not”. He did not sound optimistic about longer-term solutions on party funding. “I don’t think an issue like party funding is very easy to sort out without a consensus. All I’ll say is that there is no easy way of resolving this question.”
However, he firmly resisted any suggestion of a return to depedence on the unions. “We musn’t. If you’re talking about renewal of the Labour Party, you’ve got to talk about a different way for a party working and you can’t go back to the situation where 90 per cent of the funding is provided by trade unions.”
At the end of the interview, we returned, more in hope than expectation, to his future. Should we pencil in the end of August for a Chequers interview in a year’s time? Mr Blair laughed — “that was unsubtle of you”. He knows that he faces many similar questions over the coming weeks and months.
THE QUESTIONS OF TIMING
TIMES: Can we ask you categorically, will you — before the conference or during the conference — set out any clearer picture on timing than you have given us today? Or is that the formula that you intend to stay with during the autumn?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I believe I have said enough on this.
TIMES: And if that provokes charges that you are in denial, that you are failing to face up to your party’s plight?
PRIME MINISTER: I think I would just go back to the answer I gave, which is to say that I think if people are reasonably worried that I may go on and on, or that I may not leave ample time for my successor, I have already said on the record that neither of those two things will happen . . .
If you want my real view about this, I think that if it is the speculation people worry about, there is a very simple answer, which is to stop speculating. If what they are really worried about is timing, I think most of you can look at what I have said and draw conclusions about that. Now that is all I am going to say. And I actually think if people carry on, and carry on, it is for another reason, which is that what they actually want to do is to change direction.
TIMES: But if you became convinced personally that the speculation was impossible to contain and that you thought it was damaging the party, going to make the conference a fiasco, would you change your position on that and say more?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I think I have said all I am going to say, to be absolutely frank.
TROUBLES AHEAD
OCTOBER 9 Commons returns, with more controversial legislation expected on pensions
