A farewell tour with appearances on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise and Chris Evans's radio show are part of secret Downing Street plans to let Tony Blair step down in a blaze of glory, it was claimed today.
Mr Blair’s supposed exit strategy from No 10 has been spelled out in what purports to be a secret memo written by some of his closest advisers, leaked to a newspaper.
The memo describes how Mr Blair should leave office in a whirlwind of television and radio appearances, city visits and photo opportunities outside hospitals and schools to remind the public of his legacy, according to the Daily Mirror.
The five-page memo says Mr Blair needs to go "with the crowds wanting more".
Called Reconnecting with the public - a new relationship with the media, the memo was supposedly written earlier this year by party guru Philip Gould and others including Mr Blair’s director of communications David Hill, the newspaper says.
Meanwhile there are separate claims today that a letter is being circulated among Labour MPs urging Mr Blair to resign.
Today’s Guardian newspaper says that the letter has been approved by a majority of the 38 Labour MPs elected for the first time in 2001, and was co-ordinated by two former Blair loyalists, Sion Simon and Chris Bryant.
The newspaper claims that the MPs decided to draft the letter after Mr Blair said in an interview with The Times last week that he would not set a date for his departure, either now or at the Labour party conference at the end of the month, despite increasingly audible calls from backbenchers for him to outline an exit timetable.
In public Mr Blair continues to say that naming a date would disable government, but the Mirror's leaked memo acknowledges the pressure and warns: "Time is not an unlimited commodity."
It seeks to groom the Prime Minister as a future elder statesman, saying: "As TB enters his final phase he needs to be focusing way beyond the finishing line, not looking at it.
"He needs to go with the crowds wanting more. He should be the star who won’t even play that last encore. In moving towards the end he must focus on the future."
It refers to the last month of his premiership, saying: "Needs a daily grid, planned to the last detail. As much as possible a farewell tour, looking to the future, making sure the party is in the right place and the public remember him as he should be."
Under a section labelled "threats and opportunities", it refers to the possible angry reaction of Gordon Brown, Mr Blair's most likely successor. It says: "There are specific issues which can provide opportunities and threats. They are: GB’s reaction ... the more successful we are the more it will agitate and possibly destabilise him, we need to consider how to deal."
The memo acknowledges that the thorny issue of Iraq continues to cast a long shadow over Mr Blair’s record in office. It says: "We need to incorporate this into our media plan. It’s the elephant in the room, let’s face up to it. Most importantly, are we up for it? Is TB up for it?"
Summing up Mr Blair’s legacy, it says: "His genuine legacy is not the delivery, important though that is, but the dominance of new Labour ideas... the triumph of Blairism."
It is said in the memo that Mr Blair will appear on Blue Peter and, according to the Mirror, negotiations are believed to under way for him to go on Songs Of Praise.
The memo also says invitations are being sought to appear on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 slot plus six other popular programmes.
Other suggestions include spending a day then an overnight stay in half a dozen cities across the country; visiting the 20 most striking buildings opened or redeveloped since 1997; increasing the number of high-profile tours of schools and hospitals; and avoiding discussing Mr Blair’s job offers.
It suggests that Mr Blair travel to Wales and Scotland to argue devolution is a success ahead of next spring’s elections, gives set-piece interviews once a month to foreign newspapers to boost his international standing and proposes "careful" handling how he also quits as MP for Sedgefield in County Durham.
Meanwhile, the contents of the letter reportedly drafted by the Labour MPs have not been disclosed and it is not clear whether it has been sent yet, said the Guardian.
Today the Prime Minister is on the second day of a two day focus on social exclusion, and delivered a keynote speech to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation in York. No 10 has outlined a packed agenda for him over the coming weeks, on domestic policy, Northern Ireland and the Middle East.
In an interview for GMTV this morning, Mr Blair refused to be drawn on his plans for the future. He said: "I hope the National Health Service is going to be there in 50 years’ time but I’m not going to be. The business of government carries on."
David Miliband, the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said that Mr Blair would probably go within the next 12 months.
Speaking to the BBC Radio 4 Today programme about Mr Blair’s interview in The Times last week, he said: "I think the Prime Minister has been clearer than any other Prime Minister in his position.
"He is not consumed by some great sense that the longer he stays the better. He is committed to make sure he does the right thing by the country and the party. I have known him long enough to believe that to be the case...
"He is not consumed with this idea of a great imperial procession or whatever it was... We do need a transition that is stable and orderly, a transition that gives energy and ideas and idealism to the Government and the party, and that does give ample time, as the Prime Minister has said."
Later, Mr Blair's spokesman claimed that the Prime Minister had not seen the memo reported in the Guardian, and was not interested in his image.
"He did not see this memo. I didn’t see the memo. Other senior staff in Number 10 didn’t see the memo," said the spokesman. "What he has told people like me is what he’s interested in is the issues and addressing the issues."
The spokesman came close to endorsing Mr Miliband’s comments. He said: "The Prime Minister set out his position in The Times, David Miliband has said what he believes the conventional wisdom is and what that means.
"So be it, that’s his right. We have nothing more to say. Cabinet ministers will say what Cabinet ministers want to say."
Sir Jeremy Beecham, chair of Labour’s National Executive Committee, agreed that the Prime Minister would be gone within a year, and said that he was entitled to leave with a degree of dignity.
"I am confident that, by this time next year, there will be a new leader who will make his first and big speech at the next party conference," he told BBC Radio 4’s World At One.
