In Search of Tony Blair

what are we talking about his monsters Tony ran his life on his grin but if you're gonna be leader of a political party you've got to be a monster he was a rock band manager and he won't quite sure whether to trust him or not Margaret Thatcher was a monster you must be a real real real buck Clement Attlee was a monster he can persuade anybody he can convince anybody Helen was a monster is it remotely relevant and interesting very and tell me to monster but he appeared normal that is his incredible victory [Music] Anthony Selden is one of Britain's leading political historians he spent the last 18 months interviewing over 500 of the Prime Minister's friends enemies and colleagues for a book is writing about Tony Blair I think he's such an enigma I mean that's one of the core things that fascinates me I mean what is he what drives him it is it just the desire for power that drives him Ford why has he taken this country into the biggest war and the most divisive campaign ever in British history and I think trying to get right inside his mind and what makes it doubly fascinating is that he doesn't really know himself Seldon believes that more than any other politician Blair is the product of key people who've molded his character shaped his politics and fired his ambition if you're looking at these relationships he hopes to find the real Tony Blair [Music] the first clue to understanding the Tony Blair of today is his relationship with the woman who dominated politics during his formative years as an MP mrs. Thatcher's influence Tony Blair more than any other British politician she was not somebody to make compromises she knew her own mind she stated it very strongly and he wanted to be like her he wanted to be in that mold Selden's on his way to visit a political hostess who was at the heart of Margaret Thatcher's intimate circle and who's now a close friend of Blair call a Powell lady pal very nice to meet you lovely oh do come in thank you so much Blair started coming to Carla's salon soon after he became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 unlike previous labor leaders he was happy to hobnob with industrialists millionaires and right wing columnist like Carla's friend and neighbor Paul Johnson tell you because it's very easy first of all is directly looks at you in the eyes it doesn't find a threat being with a woman obviously you know it was extremely very easily and happily brought up and it treats them as equals oh yeah absolutely and one things that strikes you very much is his fantastic good manners their respect for Blair has grown as they've seen him become more and more like their political heroine mrs. T order to become a major statesman and real leader you have to take decisions which you know aright that which people hate you and so he's come through the fire so what else can I say you have you have here the Tony Blair admiration Inc [Laughter] [Music] in 1997 Margaret Thatcher was also enamored with Tony Blair while being deeply critical of her own successor John Major he won't let Britain down she said a Blair her closest advisor was Carla's husband Charles Powell Tony Blair chose Charles's younger brother Jonathan to be his chief of staff and soon after he became prime minister the Powell brothers arranged for Blair to meet mrs. Thatcher secretly for some advice on Foreign Affairs both of them found those discussions really quite valuable Tony Blair AdMob has strong leadership of Britain which enhanced our position in the world and our role in the world part of that of course was also a very close relationship with an American president and both of them have reached the same conclusion that Britain and America can really change the world if they stand together and act together as a young MP Blair saw mrs. Thatcher changed the face of British politics seven years after inheriting her mantle as Prime Minister she remains his model of how to carry out radical reform his even ended up sounding like her to those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase the u-turn I have only one thing to say u-turn if you want to the lady is not attorneys I believe Tony Blair does see himself very much as a radical reforming prime minister and in that concept he certainly resembles and deliberately resembles Margaret Thatcher [Music] there has been an open confrontation with parts of his own party over his determination to pursue what many see as Thatcherite policies foundation hospitals and top-up fees for students [Music] but above all it was his decision to go to war against Iraq which was supported by the Conservatives including mrs. Thatcher which has incurred the wrath of his critics he decided it was right but he gave us a series of half-truths and so on to get us there this has become a profoundly difficult issue for us Seldon wants to find out whether Blair is the Malik principal he claims to be or a deluded idealist whose ambition has blinded him to write and roll we follow Antony Selden on his search to understand Tony Blair it takes him to Durham looking for clues to the formative influences on Blairs early life his parents Leo and hazel [Music] the Blair's lived here in the late nineteen fifties when Tony went to school in the shadow of the Cathedral his mother hazel was very religious and she used to sit with him and they would pray together she was the person who most gave him Christianity and that hasn't generally been understood indeed hazel and his life has been extraordinarily underestimated she was the rock of Tony Blair's life she was the person who gave him this boundless self-confidence this ability to think that if you carry the whole world before him was because of that extraordinary constant love that this woman gave him last father Leo was a barrister who came from a working-class background by 1963 he'd made enough money to buy this brand-new house in a smart suburb outside Durham sometimes Tony Blair would say my dad's Norman Tebbit what he did was he built his way up from absolutely nothing spiring towards being a Tory Party candidate and a big player in the bar up here in the northeast of England and he aspired to much better standard of living in 1964 when Tony Blair was 11 his comfortable childhood was shattered my father became ill and he but he had a stroke and all our life changed after that really well for the first 24 hours we weren't sure whether he was going to live a lot so and then that was okay but then when he came back home he really couldn't do anything in it which is very tough in but he was a public speaker there was a good public speaker he was a barrister who's a good public speaker so all those things had to stop leo recovered but couldn't fulfill its hopes to become a Conservative MP he remained deeply ambitious for his children however and when Tony was 13 he sent him away to boarding school in Edinburgh [Music] as Prime Minister Blair has made it his mission to improve state education [Music] but Selden thinks the key to understanding him is the fact that he went to a private school can we go to fetish Betty's was one of Scotland's top public schools nice cotton rug you stand on a wondrous sight like a vast palace conspicuous everywhere say here we are [Music] Selden's come to meet Robert filp Blair's house tutor in his early years can you tell me what he was like when he first arrived here he was a very straightforward young man at that stage obviously looking forward to everything that his public school would bring him but in the latter half of his first year he was beginning a bit to say here we are having to do all these jobs and chores and why should we Blair was at fetty's in the 1960s while the rest of Britain was going through a liberal revolution the school was stuck in Victorian times it was very very claustrophobic we played hockey against them an approved school and I am a sitting after he played hockey talking to these guys and they were so it must be great for you living in a temporary and I ought to go up to the pub you can do all these things and said well no we can't and we can't do this we can't go and they turned round and said it says that you live in an F in prison now that was coming from kids in a borstal at fetty's Blair kicked against the system he showed no interest in putting the world to rights Tony Blair doing good for the world as a school boy absolutely not he would grin and pout and Lear at anybody that asked him to do something that he regarded as trivial it wasn't a rebellion with anything to replace it Tony was not a politician of any description fetty's Blair's best friend and fellow rebel at fetters was a boy called Ewan McDonald along with Nick ridin they formed the awkward squad with Tony as their spokesman well one of Tony's skills was of course and brinksmanship and he knew how far to push something and then withdraw he would not push the wall over if you like he would just see it wobbling slightly and pull back he became a master of that he was a very noticeable member of his year yes he was so what he was very noticeable well obviously for being out of line and also for being a great arguer [Music] by the time Blair was in the sixth form the authorities had grown tired of his bowl shyness and he narrowly avoided being expelled [Music] but for all is dislike a fetes at the time he's a classic product of the public school system I was very lucky in my background very lucky indeed I got a decent education that's one of the reasons I think education so important fetes nursed Blair's competitive nature and gave him intellectual confidence but in terms of politics he was still a blank page [Music] Tony Blair left school in 1971 with three a-levels and a place at Oxford Selden's been told most of the staff were glad to see the back of him his house master when he left the school said that he thought he was going to be perhaps destined for a career which was going to be a playing in a pop group or maybe an actor he thought maybe he'd be somebody who would get involved in a hippie or druggie type community but then he thought again about that and he thought no he thought Blair's just too shrewd and too keen on his own self-preservation he thought to let himself get that involved in going down the drains in that way [Music] yeah go on Blair took a year off before he went to university and spent his time in London promoting a rock band called jaded I used to walk to it's incredible really amazing that way God knows and then that's the church we used to play down here [Music] this church crypt now a drop-in center for the homeless is where the band had their gigs [Music] memory about tone in this place really is that after every end of every gig tone would come up and say well done boys you did really well so you knew remembered that even you remembered that well done boys you did really well if you've got after every gig and you've got an impression he's sort of meant it but he was slightly sleazy but at the same time he he seemed very genuine as well you know he wasn't content to be the roadie he had to be the manager you know he was the one with those sort of plans to take it on and that's what he's doing he's managing the biggest band in the country which is the country we're all in Tony Blair's back yeah speak for yourself exactly the caffeine if you want to get something you want to get something you better get it now what yeah in the autumn of 1970 to Tony Blair came to Oxford University to read law Anthony seldom was here at the same time Oxford in the early and mid 70s was dominated by public school people wearing flared trousers and wearing Afghan coats and having bear hell going to parties and drinking much tea margins staying up half the night and punting on the river getting involved in plays it was a it was an extraordinarily unreal place detached from ordinary life but immensely immensely exciting to be part of it [Music] Selden's arranged to meet one of Tony Blair's friends at Oxford the president of a drinking Society he belonged to called the archery club Andrew Byrne he was a very bright and bubbly charismatic kind of guy who I think immediately rose to the surface of what's always a very kind of frothy society most of Blair's Oxford acquaintances remember him as a likeable but unfocused young man I mean what was his his real thing where was his heart I think that's really very hard to say I couldn't say it was anyway I mean you know he added me interest in music but you know when you look back on it it's quite a dilettante interest in some way similar similarly in drama but for the rest I think it was just the kind of fairly superficial scouting about but Blair's socializing master more serious side to his character we've discovered that during his first year at university he was touched by a tragedy which marked a turning point in his life in May 1973 Blair's best friend from fetes UN McDonald killed himself jumping from a bridge in the centre of Edinburgh Tony Blair was 19 years old when you and I'd this was someone we knew this is someone we'd actually spent five years with at a boarding school so we knew you in very well I'm he's lost like a closer member of the family than our real family because of the way in which we've been at that school together for so long it really hit us it hit Tony very badly I think it was a wake-up call you know despite the long hair and stuff maybe it was time to review life and what people were doing Yoon's death coincided with Blair turning to the Christian beliefs which would later determine his politics [Music] what happens at Oxford is there's a process whereby he starts to take Christianity seriously friends noticed for example that a Bible suddenly appears by his bedside that he starts talking about Christianity he starts going to chapel he is confirmed so there's a revolution going on within him crucial to Blair's embracing of Christianity was his friendship with a fellow student called Peter Thompson Thompson was a left-wing priest and through him Blair took the first step towards defining his political outlook the idea of your beliefs being something that resulted in action was bought in a sense he he brought to my through the development of my philosophy in other words your religious belief wasn't something that shut you away from the world but something the men you had to go out and act he had this passion it was always present you know it wasn't a sort of fad or joining a club or you know being part of the debating society or whatever it was this absolute constant belief in social equality and in justice and in doing the right thing [Music] in 1975 Tony Blair left University and returned home to Durham he knew that his mother had been diagnosed with throat cancer but he didn't know how serious her condition had become [Music] he'd finished his finals at Oxford and he arrived back at Durham station and was met by his father and his father said I'm afraid to say mommy is very ill and he said she's not going to die is she and he said yes I'm afraid to say that she is and she died two weeks later [Music] my mother died when I was 21 like if you've got a sense of urgency into your life as a result of that we do never mean it you suddenly thought look it's actually quite a short time you've got to see better get on you better get things done you better do things she wrapped him in it in a blanket this incredible emotional blanket and when she died I think that blanket was suddenly stripped away from him and it was the cruelest sharpest blow that he's ever had in his life because he suddenly realized that the world was a much colder more dangerous less happy place and it was when she was there Antony seldom believes Hazel's premature death galvanized Tony Blair into making something of his life [Music] three months after she died Blaire arrived in London to start training as a barrister [Music] the next person to enter his world would push him towards embracing the Labour Party and becoming an MP but always remember Sheree being in the LinkedIn library and when everyone else would sort of go down to the pub for luggage she said eating his sandwiches in there and pulling up their books but instead of calling on a SWAT you thought she was quite interesting I did I thought and still think she's one of the most unusual and interesting people I've met shuri booth remains a powerful influence on Tony Blair to this day she comes from a completely different background to him she'd had a tough childhood in Liverpool brought up by her mother a single parent her father is the labor activist and seventies TV star Tony booth here was somebody who he met at a critical juncture in his life just after his mother had died who was telling him and showing him by her own example that you've got to make the most of your life you've got to get on life short and you've got these opportunities and if you blow this week and this month then it won't come back again and he was fascinated by her he was caught up in her web and he's never been able to not who's ever wanted to to to free himself from the sharee web after three years together Tony and Cherie got married in 1980 the young couple moved to the London borough of Hackney Hackney is showing severe signs of decline industries have gone jobs have been lost signs of prosperity are hard to find the Blair's join their local labour party which was split between left and right [Music] Tony and Cherie were part of a small group of successful middle class members John Lloyd was another he witnessed the Tony jury partnership in action I think the difference between them remains one of class so that while she was committed to her background and - if you like me a kind of general working class advanced Toni was committed to a certain moral idea a kind of Christian liberal moral attitude that someone blessed with the life chances he was should pay it back you know they should give something to the community for his luck part of the dynamic of the relationship you really became aware of that that Sheree would tend to be the more radical one and Toni would be the more considered one both were highly ambitious people they were people who had risen to the top of the system and they both were passionate to go into politics and they both felt somehow that this was their destiny and but not both of them could do it that makes life very difficult if you're gonna have children and they wanted to have a lot of children so a choice had to be made it was either gonna be him or it was gonna be her and the key question was who was gonna be the first to find that safe seat first off the blocks was Tony who secured the nomination to fight a by-election in beckons field in May 1982 Tony Blair's press secretary says that he's exactly the kind of young man that any beckons field mother would be delighted to welcome as her daughter's escort to the young conservative dance like all three main candidates he's the product of public school and Oxford University although it was a safe Tory seat the publicity of being a by-election candidate was a huge break Blair even persuaded the leader of the Labour Party to come and support him left winger Michael foot I remember my foot said to me I would like that and I said yes but he's on my wing of the party you call the right way the party no he's not said Michael I've had a long conversation with him he's on the left wing the party [Music] despite managing to appeal to both sides of the Labor Party Tony Blair failed to make an impact on the voters of beckon spirit the Tories were on a roll after winning the Falklands War and Blair lost his deposit [Music] as a 1983 election approached shuri's political career caught up with our husbands she was picked as the candidate for the constituency of Fannett on the Kent coast we realized that she was a very intelligent person in her own right and had a depth of understanding which we thought was mature she was what I call a scrubbed up girl she knew what she was about during the campaign Toni turned up to support his wife I was trying to explain to Cherie the advantaged areas to go and do some work in and people to contact afraid Tony kept butting in as though he was the candidate and it wasn't sherry and I turn round and I snapped at him well I saw what was gonna happen because I'd really let loose I said Tony come on help me do the washing up so he landed in the kitchen doing the wiping up for the life washing up the the platters from the veal well Tony Tony knows what it's like to be mrs. M piece there was about a six month period no more yeah when I was a candidate and Tony was still looking for a seat and so he had trail behind me probably didn't do any sound it probably didn't do it your hum but I certainly at the time fell didn't do me any good [Music] with only weeks to go before the election Blair got an extraordinary break he heard that the rock-solid laid the constituency of Sedgefield near his old home in Durham still hadn't picked his candidate shiri encouraged him to go for it [Music] search field was a mining constituency I and was bearing the brunt of the Thatcher government painful economic reforms the started closing the pits the steel works you know and all the heavy industry the shipbuilding around here and and you know and we didn't have a way out we didn't have anything to look forward to by an incredible stroke of luck Blair had walked into a labor constituency where a key group of local activists didn't want a run-of-the-mill left-wing MP his enthusiasm and lack of political baggage were exactly what appealed to them give tourneys Jill he said to us you get me on the shortlist and I'll win that's what he says our job was to get him on the shortlist and he said you get me on the shortlist I'll knock the socks off the man I'll win Blair was a political unknown but still he managed to persuade the rest of the local party to choose him as their candidate he was now assuring to become an MP meanwhile Sheree was soldiering on in Thanet a hopeless seat she's the sort of person that she a deal I can come over and that was what in fact came from the corner over there they knowledge that he got selected and everything was going ahead the Blair's personal and political partnership had reached a crossroads Tony not sure II would become the MP over the coming years Sheree would keep making sacrifices to support her husband on his rise to the top [Music] on the 9th of June 1983 Tony Blair became the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield with a majority of 8,000 votes nationally the election was a disaster for the Labour Party [Music] mrs. Thatcher's sale of council houses had won over Labour's traditional supporters in the working-classes labor on the other hand wanted to ban the bomb and nationalize the high street banks and the congratulations never stopped dawn mrs. Thatcher greeted almost hysterical crowds in Downing Street frantically scrambling over one another for a glimpse a touch of the Prime Minister when Blair arrived in Westminster he was just 30 years old inexperienced his political views unformed next seldom finds out who and what turned him into a formidable political operator convinced he was the best person to lead his party into power [Music] Peter says he's happy to have Peter in in now there's this fantastic office Anthony Selden's come to the House of Commons where Tony Blair arrived as a new boy in 1983 he's here to meet Peter Mandelson one of Blair's best friends in politics even though he sacked him twice Tony Blair is a genuinely nice person he's a decent person he's not somebody who has to get on in politics by pushing other people down or out of the way it's not somebody who feels that he has to advance himself but others expense he's not that sort of politician I think you can divide politicians into givers and takers in politics and he's a giver when Tony Blair came to Westminster he found a party bitterly divided between left and right as a novice MP Blair kept his head down and avoided taking sides I don't actually think it's nearly so much a matter of right/left as people make it out what I do think is but it's a matter of style like a lot of people who came at a time he didn't know what he'd let himself into because the Labor Party was like a snake pit at the time and this young man at that time would not have known how to cope with snake pits today by God he knows how to cope with snake pits the qualities that stood out were those of a clever person a clear-thinking person very articulate person some have credited Peter Mandelson as the man who schooled Blair in the dark arts of politics his eminence grise they don't understand him they don't understand the relationship that we had he was not propped up he was made more effective whilst taking advice from people who trusts when allegations are made as they are over a widespread air only 17 months after elected Blair was given his first frontbench job I think it's very very important the enthusiastic young Treasury spokesman bought it by Mandelson who was then in charge of the Labour Party's PR he'd been given the task of modernizing the party's image to make it more attractive to non labor voters the world has opened up in the most fascinating way over the last six months the personable middle-class Blair fitted the bill perfectly and he became one of Mandelson star turns on TV always saying to them is look everyone's done their bit you've got this money in circumstances where you wouldn't have got it but for the famine and but for the work that's been done to try and aid that he would take an issue and present his in the party's views in what always seemed to be an entirely fresh original rather persuasive way and that's what marked him out and marked the party out there for two which is why we would use them so much Peter Mandelson didn't create Tony Blair what he did was to give him a huge leg up he gave him the the know-how about how to to play this a very subtle game of presenting yourself to you not just the media but to your colleagues in the Labor Party which is almost as tricky so he was like a midwife I think Peter exerts a sort of emotionally controlling influence on Blair there's a story about a pre-election rally in 97 Blair was desperately desperately nervous all through that election campaign I think more than anybody realizes and he was pacing up and down but behind backstage before this rally rehearsing his speech rehearsing his speech and Peter Madison came into the room and said hi Tony Tai you know and started adjusting his tie and it was almost like he was so deliberately puncturing blares train of thought but also at the same time wanting Blair to realize oh thank god somebody's noticed my tie was wrong but where would I be without Peter you know so at the same time he's undermining his confidence but also making Blair feel dependent on him Mandelson gave Blair support and reassurance but Blair would never have become leader without the intellectual input of his roommate since his early days in Westminster Gordon Brown I think that the relationship between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair was for quite some time that of Master and apprentice Tony Blair recognized that it was unequal but he was I've heard him say that I learned so much from God but Gordon is a political genius unlike Blair Brown had been a Labour politician since he was a student in personality the two men could not have been more different Brown lived and breathed politics Blair had the human touch he's able to make you believe that you really matter to him you would walk down the corridor and if one of them came out Tony would his eyes would light up and he'd say you know hey how are you doing you know and this was not just me it was everybody you know that he met you know the the tea lady anyone you know and for that split second you felt that you were the center of Tony Blair's world now Gordon would try he'd come out of his office and he'd be barreling down with all his papers and everything and he'd sort of go you know how you doing and the doors would crash behind him and you you knew that you could have been standing there naked and he wouldn't have noticed or cared the Labour Party say government neglect has created a polluted congested and rundown country Gordon Brown Labour's Treasury spokesman itemized the opposition's case Gordon Brown was talked up as the future leader of his generation when he performed brilliantly standing in for the shadow Chancellor John Smith [Music] but Tony Blair was catching up in 1988 he followed Braun into the senior ranks of the party when he got elected to Labour's Shadow Cabinet we got all these questions with Mandelson's blessing the BBC made a profile of Labour's hot young star four other people are intimately affected by the rise and rise of Tony Blair his young sons Niki and Ewan his wife Cherie and baby Catherine Blair believed that to appeal to upwardly mobile families like his own labour had to recognize that people wanted better public services not union power the most important insight that Blair had in the 1980s was that labour had side with parents and pupils not teachers with patience rather than doctors or nurses or Hospital unions it's very strongly diverged from the party policy at the time it was very radical I mean people like Blair and Brown were seen as traitors really in December 1989 Blair got his first chance to put his ideas into action from factories and all of us have suffered failures and defeats and his plans were modernizing the party meant distancing labour from the trade unions and he did it through the dark art of spin Blair wanted to drop the party's historic support for the clothes shop a policy which obliged all workers to join a union and a sacred cow of the left I tell you to ditch principal in that way is a recipe for disaster and should be rejected by this Congress before acting he turned to Peter Mandelson for advice what he always does he has say to those closest to him am i right is it a good idea is it doable would I get away with it and what would be the consequences if I doubt he construct an argument which is when he delivers it incontestable Blair's plan was to exploit the contradiction between the closed shop and a new European ruling that said people should be free to join a union or not the social charter would represent an important advance for British employees journalists were briefed that this statement meant that in effect blair was going to drop the closed shop bill a better future came out of the blue we had no preparation of any sort and then all of us got a series of calls first of all from Peter Mandelson then from Tony himself explaining how he had to do it we understood surely that this was a big negative to take it any further to make a row about it means of course damaging the party's electoral chances in a major way having bounced the union's into a corner Blair toward the TV studio spelling out the end of the clothes shop whilst anonymous sources brief the papers that Tony had taken on the Union Barons and won Blair would use these tactics again and again exploiting the party's fear of a public split to force through the changes he wanted it's surprising rather brave and I think that it was in that period we see the beginnings of those views forming in people's minds that perhaps the only is he different but he's gonna wind up at the top I remember Tony sitting in that chair there an excellent chair I'm sitting in now because he as I say he used to pop in for chance with me not again and I said to Tony you've got to stop this Gordon and turn this stuff it's always Gordon and Tony with you coming second and you're gonna be lead of the Labour Party and Gordon isn't so you've got to put a stop to it and Tony said but Gordon's my friend and I should it's great that Gordon's your friend because friends in this place are very very rare but just take into account that you're gonna be leader of the Labour Party and he isn't and What did he say to that not much Blair's leadership ambitions were fueled by his frustration at his colleagues and ability to force through the changes necessary to gain power peter has the battleground going when I David there is Kanak in its old colors and here is the whole battleground his old colors nearly all of it blue these were the seats mr. Couric had to turn when he was devastated when in 1992 the party suffered its fourth consecutive election defeat you can see the measure of Labour's failure and let's open the door of Downing Street now and there is John Major forecaster B once said he did the best speech in the world and he was seven yards or two swordsman's whatever it is aware from this person he'll just laughed at you because they were in government and you couldn't do anything about it and that was so destroying after 1992 something happened something changed the iron entered his soul he wanted power and was impatient for power and if the Labour Party is an instrument could not attain power than the Labour Party would simply have to be changed it couldn't have been more clear and he was not going to hang around labour is the party of law and order in Britain today Blair became shadow home secretary his public profile soared when he made labour tough on criminals for the first time the place for these people is out of society until they learn to behave like human beings our society his star had reached new heights just as the Labour Party was to be turned upside down [Applause] ten years ago on the 12th of May 1994 John Smith suffered a heart attack and died his death left his colleagues profoundly shocked I think that he will be more not just by his family and his close friends and the Labour Party but throughout the whole of the country because he would have been a great great Prime Minister but almost immediately mps and journalists started to speculate about who Smith's replacement would be and this is a cruel place John hadn't been dead more than a couple of hours but we moved on already to talk about the succession and joke paternity Bevin said to me Gerald who's it gonna be I said Tony you'll know who it's gonna be and he said Tony Blair [Music] [Music] for years Gordon Brown had considered himself Smith's heir apparent but Blair's friends were determined that he should stand i knew the big organized battalions around gordon would try to heavy amounts of it try and talk him out of it come up with a million reasons why gordon was a better candidate I remember very clearly saying to Tony don't let them talk you out of it you've got to be the candidate you're the best guy to leaders at the next election to maximize our chances of winning so go for it and he said I'm going to on the afternoon of John Smith's death Blair went to see Peter Mandelson who had assumed that Blair would be loyally supporting their friend Gordon Brown he asked me of what my attitude would be to his desire to stand for the leadership to be honest I was rather taken aback by his determination to stand by the sense that it was the right thing for him to do and not to allow anyone or anything to stand in his way dan I'll talk to you about Gordon Brown very good new thinking about Gordon Brown and the way to do that chapter after the meeting with Mandelson his assistant Derick Draper was asked to drive Tony Blair home and he turned to me and said you know I always said you know Gordon couldn't be leader without a wife and family I've told him that I've told him that before you know and and I was very surprised to hear him say it and it was at that moment that I realized wow wow you know this this is a guy who's talking clearly about you know putting the boot in and he's convincing and I realized that it wasn't about convincing me you know he'd started the task of convincing himself to do something someone who is very close to you know and had learned a lot from but he was thinking of reasons why you know what he was about to do and him that begun to do was not really a betrayal but something that had had to be had to be done and they hid him fat Warren Gordon you know that Gordon could only be leader if he had wife and kids [Music] his years in Parliament had schooled Blair in the necessary cruelty of politics but at the same time he had to square his actions with the idea he had of himself as a fundamentally good man if he's gonna take the crown it means they've got to be bodies on the floor principally Gordon Brown's but he somehow reconciles this because he feels there's a higher purpose and that higher purpose is me Tony Blair going on a leaving the Labour Party on leading them to victory and there's no one else on earth who can do it as well as I can the first polls showed that Blair's fellow Labour MPs desperate after years in the wilderness saw him as the candidate most likely to win over middle England reluctantly Gordon Brown agreed to stand down was an agonizing one for mr. Brown as the closeness in their ages means it's unlikely he will ever achieve his own ambition of becoming Labour leader Tony Blair was now the runaway candidate [Music] on the 21st of July 1994 Tony Blair became the youngest labor leader ever for many in his party he was an unknown quantity they had chosen him for one reason and one reason alone he was the man most likely to end Labour's long exile from power you have put your trust in me and I vow to you I shall repay that trust with unstinting service and dedication to our party and our country and I shall not rest until once again the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general but Blair seizing of the crown would destroy forever the close friendship between him and his fellow moderniser Gordon Brown [Music] the rift first became obvious when Blair summoned him to a country house hotel to plan Labour's route into power [Music] Selden's come to tootin Glenn the place where they met to talk to the man who arranged the secret strategy planning weekend [Music] hello how I [Music] very well how is George a pollster Colin Fischer had been a close ally of the modernizers since the mid 80s he's never spoken publicly about this night before the most I think the most significant thing was the atmosphere was completely enough to be different from every previous dinner it was much tenser what happened and did Gordon Brown produce some thoughts yes but again as I said that's not unusual that's what you'd expect Gordon to do but he was more determined and more dogmatic than he had been it was more it was less but that sort of relaxed let's let's talk about stuff and argue about stuff meeting that thought we'd had before and much more like a business meeting in that sense well during their fraught negotiations over the leadership Blair had promised a hand control over economic policy to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair at that time was quite happy to cede all these great areas of policy to Gordon Brown yes yeah I don't have any doubts about maybe it's been rewritten it subsequently but I don't at the time I had no doubt that Tony felt that Gordon knew more understood nor had a clearer view of those things that he had himself but Tony Blair had only temporarily bought off Gordon Brown the powers he had given his friend and rival would cause him lasting frustrations in the following years Blair would turn to new allies to help him transform the Labour Party and a system in his drive towards power well I'll see you later bye [Music] one of Blair's most controversial relationships was with his chief spin-doctor Alastair Campbell Campbell became so close to Blair he was dubbed the real Deputy Prime Minister but Campbell's determination to control the press and fierce defense of his master's integrity turned him into a liability I think Campbell is there somebody who is very aggressive and abrasive mistrusting of the world out there the press they're all bastards they're all there to try and screw this government screw Tony Blair inflation of two things you said correct yourself correct yourself it is not the same he said non-drinking unconventional obsessive in many ways he's the much stronger more forceful decisive personality I'm gonna try and get behind all that and see if that really is true see this all-powerful rather sinister manipulative figure that he's often betrayed as has he been worth all the trouble all the allegations of spin that Blair has never been able to throw us is that a little Campbell's has he been a net benefit to Tony Blair has he been a detractor would he have been better off without him Seldon is meeting some of the people who had ringside seats on the relationship hello happy sir how are you journalist Peter Stoddard spent a month in Downing Street shadowing Tony Blair what was your sense having known Alistair for a long time allister's relationship with the PM important thing which is most neglected its extent to which you know when everybody's tired and a bit sort of down or even sometimes women are you know Alistair was the kind of battery in the radio the relationship between them was often is based on humor that both they're both very funny guys they didn't take the mickey out of each other a lot very often if the Prime Minister was in a meeting with journalists Alistair cam will be sitting there with his feet up he'd be chewing he'd be doodling he'd be raising his eyebrows he'd be sending notes or texting notes to some of the journalists there he made it quite clear there was no sense of awe about the office of Prime Minister that his friend Tony Blair had of course the press secretary is important for the Prime Minister we didn't beyond affirm that he wasn't I think yeah well you know I like to think I've had the best in the business over anyway so yeah yeah of course but you know a lot of titles talked about it as well Campbell had known Blair since the 1980s as political editor of The Daily Mirror he saw the cruelty of the media from the inside he watched it's relentless attacks on his close friend Neil Kinnock during the 1992 election he was as desperate as Blair for a Labour victory first a combo is very very partisan he's recently said I'm labour I'm tribal on Campbell he is a very tribal man he interviewed Blair during the 1994 Labour leadership campaign do you think it was tough enough to cope with the sort of media onslaught that Neil Kinnock for example had to endure I think it comes with the territory and I'm entirely prepared for it and did expect it two months after Blair became leader he persuaded a reluctant Campbell to become his press secretary [Music] Blair decided that Campbell was the tough man he needed to help him deal with that media onslaught Campbell set out to win over the tabloid press particularly the Sun gearing his stories to their readership but there was another side of Campbell that Blair exploited Tony Blair delegates nastiness and so he is prepared to have people round to him whether it's Peter Mandelson or Alastair Campbell who were prepared to do really quite devious things in his name and he thinks that because he hasn't done them himself he can carry on being a pretty straight kind of guy I think Campbell played the bad cop I think he played it very well I think he played it perfectly willingly I think he was he liked fights I'd like to take people on now if you want to get fight you tell me what you're saying about the FT story a story had nothing to do with any of the people who were Tony Blair Blair is not naturally a fighter he's actually naturally a conciliator he is probably he does see the sort of the nicer side of things and I maybe look at the darker side of things I think that may be true but I don't accept that I was doing the dirty work that he wouldn't do I didn't do anything that he didn't want me to do Blair would do what it took to ensure a labor victory in 1995 the party desperately needed money so Blair enlisted the help of millionaire author Ken Follett what then happened to followed shows Blair's willingness to use and discard those around him while Blair was battling to reform the Labour Party journalists ran a story that he'd been to dinner with followed his wooing of the rich and famous wasn't popular with the unions whose votes he needed to push his reforms through so there you've got in the middle of all of this high politics you've got a story appearing at Bambi in Louisville and at Ken Follett's house so they decided to nuke him stories appeared in the press distancing Blair from the lovers and Ken Follett in particular Follette was furious and went to see Blair and he said well it's not coming from this office I was gobsmacked of course it was coming from the office I know how the press works a story like that wouldn't be credited if it didn't come from Tony's office it was a ludicrous lie and I said him I can't believe you're saying this to me and he said I just realized I've got another meeting to go to we were in his office he got up out of his seat and he walked out of his own office leaving me sitting there in his office so I mean that was what else could I do Follette resigned his post as fundraiser that was the most expensive political briefing in history because when Ken walked away from the party esteemed Reza they lost a very very valuable asset I was astonished gates showed that Blair was capable of extreme ruthlessness if necessary ken was just got rid of on the day the 1997 election was called Campbell delivered what Blair wanted the backing of the Sun newspaper which had so undermined Kinnick at the last election labor was way ahead in the opinion polls but Blair was pessimistic she still feared defeat journalist Robert Harris was with Blair as the results came in 10 o'clock and the exit polls came over BBC and ITV both forecasting a Labour landslide and to Tony Blair said I don't believe it what's going on and he was wandering in and out of the room and he said this can't be real [Applause] Blair won a huge majority and with it an extraordinary opportunity to change Britain but from the moment of victory he was obsessed with the next election so he'll Campbell took the same approach to the pressing government that they'd used in opposition nothing was left to chance use their man Tony Blair and Cherie Princess up number 10 apparently being welcomed by all these people delirious that they finally got a Labour government after 18 years in fact these people are all party workers or their relatives and friends and they'd all been issued with special tickets for this event the original plan was to have the more waving Labour Party flags in Downing Street and the civil service kicked up a bit about this and said that wouldn't really do and so they then moved to an alternative plan which was to have them waiting Union Jack's instead who was in many ways a genius at managing the press and understanding the mindset of journalists over all the influence on Blair was to reinforce Tony Blair's own weakness for tomorrow's headlines for the way that what he was doing and saying was going to play in the press and with the public and not allowing Tony Blair the quality time to sit down and think what's his Premiership really going to be about and I think he should have done more to plan out in detail what he was gonna do once he stepped through that door and he didn't and he paid for it Blair may have been short on detail but he was big on vision his vision came from the most important relationship in his life a relationship Campbell decreed off-limits because it didn't play well with the voters Blair's relationship with God it shall be a government rooted in strong values the values of justice and progress and community the values that have guided me all my political life the values Blair set out on the steps of Downing Street came not from Marx or the founders of the welfare state but from a much older Authority Almighty God [Music] Blair is a deeply religious man he has said he finds solace in prayer religion is the most important single factor I think in trying to understand Tony Blair and what he's done as Prime Minister this idea that he has of God he first came across the university and it made him interested in politics he hadn't been interested in in it at all before and it was the idea of religion with a social purpose in life that to be fully human meant that you had to exist in relationship to other human beings with some kind of vision or mission to build a better and a more harmonious community socialism for me it is a moral purpose to life a set of values I'm worth no more than anyone else I am my brother's keeper I will not walk by on the other side that we aren't simply people set in isolation from one another face the face with eternity but members of the same family same community same human race [Applause] Tony Blair sees Christianity as a tough religion that it's about hard choices that we all have to make in our lives and it's ultimately about a choice between doing good or doing evil Blair gave His only in-depth interview about his faith in 1996 - Matthew d'Ancona of The Sunday Telegraph it was clear almost immediately that this was something that was very very dear to him and about which he had thought very deeply and for a very long time remember this is only two years after he become leader this was a time when it was routinely claimed that he was someone who had no ideas who was obsessed by focus groups who chopped and changed with political winds and basically would say anything to get into power so to discover in the course of an afternoon but in fact that he had a sort of hinterland of ideas and beliefs about which he was incredibly passionate and about which he had thought very very hard over the years Anthony Selden thinks this goes to the heart of one of the many mysteries surrounding tony blair how can such a devout christian committed to a fairer society also be the ruthless politician who had ridden roughshod over those who stood in his way Seldon believes it is all about the end justifying the means if the tough decisions have to be taken nasty decisions he doesn't really want to know about them but he will sanction them for the sake of the greater end the end is Labor winning the general election victory and retaining power and out of that will come the Tory Party which is corrupt and and self-serving being thrown by the wayside it will mean labour continuing in power he sees that that it's in a sense or a struggle between good and evil he comes close to saying that the Tories are an evil self-serving party now he'd finally won power Blair wanted to restore people's faith in politics after years of Tory sleaze the Prime Minister in 97 came to power on the back of an extremely high trust rating like trust and the trust the British people put in him he considered to be a fundamental feature of what he had achieved in 97 and building on that trust and not betraying that trust was very much at the heart of what he was trying to do in the early days six months after gaining office Blair's own integrity came under fire the press discovered the Labour Party had received a million pounds from Formula worn boss Bernie Ecclestone soon after the donation Blair reversed a ban on tobacco advertising for the sport he was adamant that the two were not connected remember him the heart of the Eccleston thing saying it should the truth is I absolutely hate having to know I loathe and detest the idea we have to go and ask you asking for money frankly you know to be chased around by a bunch of conservators who've never disclosed any of their donations and who never returned a donation in their lives is ridic but are you personally again how do you explain Bernie Eccleston's denial today that he offered a second donation he doesn't believe that he could act with based motives he may be deluding himself I mean maybe subconsciously there are base motives that he doesn't want to recognize but he genuinely sincerely doesn't believe that he acts from base motives and therefore terribly hurts when people impugn him impugn his integrity I think he was he was clear in his own mind that the policy was changed for the right reasons then it was the right policy and that in his own mind it was not linked to any donation so I don't think we felt that he needed a sort of huge Mia culpa to the country on that basis good afternoon from checkers the Prime Minister's country home I'll be talking to Tony Blair but in order to kill off the story Campbell insisted Blair must admit he had made a mistake I read in the newspapers this morning that you're going to apologize during this interview because you got it all wrong is that right well I didn't get it all wrong in relation to the original decision as I even be very happy to explain but it hasn't been handled well and for that I take full responsibility and I apologize for that but I have honestly done what I thought was best for the country all the way through I'll carry on doing that and in the end I have to stand at the bar of British public opinion at the next election and I will do so not just with a clean conscience but I will do so if I've got anything to do with it at all having delivered and kept every single promise I made because I said I would deliver something different and I can do it I can do it [Music] Blair faced one huge stumbling block the man who believed Blair had cheated him out of the top job the rupture in the relationship and the animosity between Blair and Braun is even in the most lurid accounts that surface actually understated he's doing a bit underlying the sort of silence and the false bonhomie there is a complete breakdown I mean there was no trust but Blair needed Brown who he still believed was a political genius he had handed him control of the economy and Brown took full advantage once they got into government things like the independence the Bank of England you know all those sort of major early milestones were things which Gordon basically constructed and landed on Tony Blair's desk not the attorney disagreed with them but he had no say over them you know so no it's it's worked very well actually because it gives you the chance this cohabitation could only work so long as Blair could control Brown's resentment at not being Prime Minister over the following years a huge amount of Tony Blair's time and energy would be spent managing that rose if an increasingly difficult relationship with Gordon Brown things got so bad that at one point I've been told Gordon Brown stormed into Tony Blair study and said when are you going to off I want your job and I want it now all Blair's policy initiatives seem to involve a painful negotiation with Gordon Brown what he did the Tony Blair was in fact to detract from a lot of what Tony Blair would have wanted to do as Prime Minister take the country into the euro Brown blocked it improve public services and modernize them Brown blocked it but almost every corner and turn there was Gordon Brown who was unsympathetic resisting and positively blocking what Tony Blair had become Prime Minister to achieve but I think was one reason why Tony Blair spent so much of his time on Foreign Affairs in that area at least there was no Gordon Brown [Music] in 1999 two years after becoming Prime Minister Blair was to find a new mission abroad opposing the ethnic cleansing of kosovo albanians by serbian dictator slobodan milosevic NATO launched a bombing campaign but the expulsion continued Blair saw the pictures on TV and was horrified but what should he do it was the kind of dilemma he'd discussed long ago with Peter Thompson's Christian group in Oxford I mean part of what we asked ourselves whenever again and certainly Tony Blair more than thought most of us but in this situation given this second even these conditions we are seeing and describing what is the right thing to do what are we called upon to the world our responsibility in this situation he asked this question of another again bless and his International Development Secretary to the Balkans to see what could be done and I came back and said to Tony I'd got to talk to him and that we really got to make a stand and we couldn't allow a partition and this was very important and he agreed I was kind of surprised because he used to be mr. pragmatic can go you know the easy way but he did strongly agree and I was pleased about that Fleur travel to America for a NATO summit he was now convinced the only way to make Milosevic back down was to threaten ground troops but most within NATO opposed him even his friend Bill Clinton bleurgh set out to change the president's mind this is simply the right thing to do Tony Blair was concerned that he had taken a very forward-leaning position on this a very forward-leaning position on Kosovo this had to be dealt with it was an offense to all our ideals the very purpose which NATO existed and we had to deal with it it was on our continent and he was out there on the branch if you like and Clinton was somewhere back here and I think he felt exposed I think he felt exposed Anthony seldom is following in Blair's footsteps during the crucial summit Blair traveled to Chicago to make a speech on foreign policy the Chicago speech is extraordinarily important but if it comes in the middle of the crisis Kosovo that engages him in a way that nothing domestically had engaged him I mean is his heart and soul stories were right in America's and he's taken huge risks and out of this comes a notion that is it ever legitimate for a sovereign state to intervene in the affairs of another sovereign state and he puzzled this out in his mind he comes up with the notion of the doctrine of the international community now this is really interesting because of course community is one of the big blare buzzwords it goes back to Peter Thomas and an Oxford and here it's being extended to the international arena it provides a legitimization in poor countries to interview in others for humane reasons this is I believe a just war based not on any territorial ambitions but on good decent values if we let an evil dictator range unchallenged we will have to spill infinitely more blood and more treasure to stop him later in the speech blasts singled out to evil dictators the world must stand up to slobodan milosevic and Saddam Hussein Blair knew what he wanted to do in Kosovo but he had to find a way to get Clinton to back ground troops a familiar technique was resurrected in pursuit of a noble end story started to appear in Britain in America that Blair was tough and brave and that Clinton was a wimp Clinton was furious and shouted at Blair for an hour over the hotline [Music] Alastair was tired with this accusation maybe it was him maybe it was somebody else when a combination of briefers you know he you know you never know but the British had been briefing quite aggressively on this both before the meeting and after the meeting and I think in the end it got to it got to the White House so we had the great explosion and III was only aware of because I was tipped off on the phone by Downing Street saying we you know we've had a slightly bumpy route and then the record came in almost immediately afterwards and you could see he could see you know as they say [ __ ] had hit the fan Blair finally won his argument who Clinton committed himself to ground troops Milosevic backed down and agreed to let the Albanians home a victorious blur was fated as a hero by the refugees in a scene choreographed by Campbell and his press department they'd already chosen the tents chosen the family they were sort of photogenic the angle was right totally changed his clothes put on a red top the being the Albanian colours he never wears red and the picture duly appeared now it went all over the world and the people of Kosovo were fantastic the saw Tony as the great friend I mean they used to chant NATO NATO told me Dhoni and you know a lot of them called their children Tony because they were in desperate straits and he made a stand for them and that is great but he milked it and maybe that's okay I mean that's Tony Blair Kosovo had a great impact on Tony Blair because he stood alone within the British government even with a number 10 a lot of people thought that he was foolish and national there planty have gone through that solitary experience when he thought at one time his whole Premiership could be over because of this and to have come through it and to have seen himself vindicated I think gave him a huge heart and boosted his self-confidence in a most extraordinary way did you not spend the whole social service budget per night on bombing Kosovo Blair was now under fire for not delivering at home but he was much more confident in facing up to his critics [Applause] took the whole the social services budget and Bloor on Kosovo first of all the figures are nonsense secondly I want to tell you this about Kosovo I think the day that this movement with its values when we could do something about it would walk away from the worst case of ethnic cleansing and racial genocide since world war two we'd have something to be ashamed of Blair's belief that military might can be harnessed for the greater good was delete him to forge one of the strangest relationships of his Premiership with Clinton's successor the right-wing insular Republican George Bush and to place his career at risk once again Antonis Alden is in America to discover why Tony Blair took the biggest gamble of his political life joining george w bush in battle against saddam hussein was Blair just Bush's poodle or did he really believe in the cause back at the end of 2000 the big question was Howard bush and Blair get on I think there were many when President Bush was first elected who thought that we might see a disengagement by America from the international community that you might see a an American isolationism rather than an American intervention ISM growing and he of course wanted to avoid that he wanted to engage the president he wanted to use and harness American strength and power for the good of the rest of the world George Walker Bush do solemnly swear I think Tony Blair from the beginning was viewed with some suspicion simply because anyone who got along that well with Bill Clinton for some people was uh at least under something of a cloud I don't know anybody who was expecting or predicting the sort of close almost intimate political partnership that he and President Bush have developed Blair has this belief has his huge self belief that he can he can persuade anybody he can convince anybody oh he's charmed me many a time and he can be very persuasive with me when he's sort of been in difficult and he wants me to stick with him he just becomes very friendly human person and I sort of almost feel a bit protective you know but he knows how to play people my view was is all down to bush and Blair if the chemistry works everything else will work chemistry doesn't work it's gonna be gonna be a problem and in the end as we saw the chemistry worked from the first first five minutes it has been a lot said about how different you are as people have you already in your talks found something maybe that you some personal interests that you have in common maybe in religion or sport or music we both use Colgate toothpaste they're gonna wonder hein when two men in such important positions are groping together to find some bonds they're gonna have to do better than Colgate toothpaste and religion was one of the ways when you when you talked to President Bush as one of the ways that you form your connection with him because it is so important to him as well then on September the 11th 2001 an event happened that was to take the relationship on to a totally new level the planes came from over there and smacked into the twin towers here that day the 11th of September 2001 was the defining day of Tony Blair's Premiership it didn't only change him it changed the whole history of Great Britain he uniquely understood what it meant in terms of a war against terrorism but also what it would mean to the American people his great fear was of an immediate sudden disproportionate retaliation he knew that he had to be right up close to America that he had to guide and shape this young and inexperienced President George Bush the whole moment for him was like like for Winston Churchill in May 1940 it was as if Tony Blair felt that everything in his life had been leading up to this moment that he was uniquely qualified to lead Great Britain Ford and table right decisions for our country a week after 9/11 Tony Blair traveled to America to give moral support to George Bush but first he came to this New York Church for service to remember the dead I'm Anton how do you do welcome to some Thomas Church fourth Avenue it's a pleasure to have you with us too well thank you it's lovely to be here would you like to see some of the church I'd love to yes yeah his office made it exceedingly clear to us at some thomases that this was to be a religious service it was not to be a political and never it was absolutely to be a religious service and we were very pleased with that because that's what we're about around the whole of the world there is the most profound solidarity there is the determination to build hope after tragedy there is the surging of the human spirit did you think that you were listening to the words of a religious man or just politician he was moved I did not feel I was listening to just a politician the clergy have some sense about people at worship we are blessed here to see world leaders with some frequency and I sit there where I can could see the Prime Minister and I had the feeling that he was at worship you're lost we counted our loss you'll struggle we take as our struggle and I think the spirit has been showing here but your city is just something remarkable and it's that spirit that should inspire us to do what we now need to do Blair made an emotional gesture to the United States it made an enormous impact both on public opinion and on President Bush and a lot of blares later subsequent influence on the policy process I think originated in that moment where he was so quick off the mark to say I'm with you and I'm with you in I'm offering more than just sympathy to the dead I'm offering the promise of cooperation in action [Music] we free Capitol Hill later that day Bush offered Blair the rare honor of joining him in Congress [Music] America has no truer friend then Great Britain [Applause] [Music] so honored the British Prime Minister's cross an ocean to show his unity with America thank you for coming friend after 9/11 he felt that there was a lesson to be learnt and the lesson was if you can see a potentially really dangerous issue coming up on the horizon you didn't wait for it to whack you in the face and then deal with it you needed to act preemptively but preemption for Blair was about more than military action this is a moment to seize the Kaleidoscope has been shaken the pieces are in flux soon they will settle again before they do let us reorder this world around us they saw an opportunity to galvanize the international community to deal with the injustice 'as of the world from the Middle East to Africa the state of Africa is a scar on the conscience of the world but if the world as a community focused on it we could heal it and if we don't that scar will become deeper and angrier still Bush was surrounded by right-wing Hawks who weren't interested in saving the world they wanted to hit out at those they saw as threatening America specifically involved America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's security will be deliberate yet time is not on our side I will not wait on events while dangerous gather [Music] Blair became locked in a battle with the Hawks to influence the president prime minister by the summer of 2002 Bush had told Blair that he was determined to topple Saddam Husein Blair just did not want America to go in and do it on his own he thought somehow with his unique confidence in his ability to persuade and guide people that he could ensure that if America did it they'd do it well there go in they do it in a humane way they would rebuild a better Iraq after it and that it would be done far better if he was part of it that's what he was about Blair made a secret deal with Bush if Bush launched a Middle East peace process and asked the UN to back his fight with Saddam Hussein Blair would be there by his side if it came to war Blair's job was to persuade the UN it was because of Tony Blair's belief in the United Nations the decision was made to put so much emphasis on the weapons of mass destruction argument for the necessity of overthrowing Saddam to the exclusion of almost all the other arguments that from the point of view of any people here in Washington by February 2003 Blair had failed to convince the UN and he was under siege at home and approved his MPs were in revolt the most popular prime minister since poles began suffered the largest demonstration in the history of this country Blair net an old schoolfriend the night before the March he was very worried is what was going on outside really was pressure at its worst you could not go anywhere the protests were everywhere and you know life was really pretty bad but he was clear in his views and clear in his mind and was able to drop discussing that or not discussing any great detail but we were able to have a perfectly normal conversation about numerous other things that you know they're not sort of frazzled him - only greatest end okay he was worried he was not sleeping very well as we know you know he was looking Haggard and tired but anybody would in that situation I do not seek unpopularity as a badge of honor but sometimes it is the price of leadership and it is the cost of conviction ridding the world of sedan would be an act of humanity it is leaving him there that is inhumane my name is Selden Anthony Selden now believed that Blair was utterly certain he was morally right he was convinced that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction no doubt at all in his mind about that he saw Saddam Hussein as an evil person evil Blair toward the TV studios trying to persuade the public of the rightness of his cause I lost my only child in the World Trade Center now for the last 18 months my pain has been unbearable I can't I can't describe to you how I feel and now I will filter the rest of my life and as far as I'm concerned mr. Blair you're what you are your attack in Iraq with George Bush and it's not dissimilar to what bin Laden Audio Qaeda Network done to America they killed 3,000 or more innocent victims how many you need some victims are you gonna kill and how many people it's gonna suffer like Ike suffered but on the side mr. Blair don't do it when we took action in respect of al-qaeda and Afghanistan whenever you take military action it is true that innocent people die as well as guilty ones but sometimes you have to take that action if it's the only way of dealing with a threat that is there journalist Peter Stoddard spent 30 days inside Downing Street in the run-up to the Iraq war I asked him you know how do you feel morally about the the children who are dying as a result of your actions regardless of where those actions are right or wrong or well or badly conceived nonetheless if you order a bomb to be dropped and it kills someone you have some more responsibility for that however good an end you're trying to achieve by that bomb and he said yes that he was prepared to meet his maker to justify his actions and I think it does give a high degree of personal strength to someone the two to face up to the extraordinary pressure that he was under to say that there was a judge for him beyond Alastair Campbell and the bet gang beyond Labour MPs beyond the country at large that he was prepared to be judged by his maker blared promise Parliament a vote on military action if he couldn't get a majority of Labour MPs to back him he decided to resign then the negotiations in the UN finally collapsed and Blair was facing disaster Bush even offered him an escape route as he confided to an old friend and [ __ ] said to him I mean I don't think many people realize this and I think it's the Bush's credit in one way but she said if you think it's not worth losing everything we'll do it ourselves and Tony said you don't change you feels like nothing in two seconds it's either right or Hertz wrong and it's right for us to be involved in this against her former bush advisers believe if Blair had spoken out then against the president the war might never have happened he is a very large figure in American life at American politics and certainly a lot of your power in politics is your potential power we just say what would happen if you were ever to go public with a disagreement and Tony Blair's potential power is huge why do Americans admire any less today they're friends and they really love them and I do too I think he's a great person well I would say he just sort of has a charming persona and the American people well I think of Tony Blair as someone who actually is very articulate and very intelligent the most popular Prime Minister with Americans since mrs. Thatcher more than mrs. Thatcher is he like Churchill the Maserati if Tony Blair had gone public and said there's no longer a reason to go to war I think that may well have put George Bush in an untenable position so there by what he didn't do if you will he may have had a tremendous or fundamental impact on the course of history back in Britain Blair still had to win the vote in the Commons the most striking thing to me was that the Labour MP is for instance who are coming in to be lobbied about the war they had a view of tony blair which was several years out-of-date I mean they just saw him it's election winning machine you know they don't like him very much did agree with him a load of things but he well elections form that was his job that was his purpose he saw that was his purpose thank you very much along the way Tony Blair and made some decisions you've been reckless Prime Minister about the world even before 9/11 about himself know what he wanted to do to that world and that he was in a hurry to do it which which nobody had really noticed but when I was there being with him all the time it was absolutely clear you had a tougher skin generally harder man when Blair finally spoke to the Commons on March the 18th he was fighting for his political life he had asked his civil servants to prepare his resignation papers this is the time for this house not just this government or indeed this Prime Minister but for this house to give a leave to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk to show at the moment of decision that we have the courage to do the right thing I beg to move the Mojo [Music] [Applause] Blair won the day but in so many ways his victory has turned to ashes and the scouts of Baghdad American there will now be an inquiry into why no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iran police advantage confer dr. Kelly's death had been suicide [Music] politicians are now openly questioning whether Blair can hold on as Prime Minister time's running out for Selden - as he tries to work out what Blair has become what's happened Tony Blair he was just this very ambitious but human mass and that the people he met along the way have shaped him shaped his thinking they helped inform his Christianity everything and the one-by-one and he's gone throughout his career he's dropped those people as they no longer have had any further useful purpose to him at the end of the day here in 2004 at the end or close to it is left with just two core relationships one with Sheree his wife and the other with God his maker Blair's Christianity guided him into politics to help build a fairer society these are the vows that I make to my country I vow that we will have cut the numbers of long term unemployed I vow that the promises that we make contacts we will keep I bow that we will have built a new and constructive relationship in Europe but in recent months he's barely been able to get his policies past his own party and may have permanently lost the public's trust there's a big job of work still to do and my appetite for doing it is undiminished he Seldon believes blair has squandered his opportunity to bring about the radical change he longed for I think the tragedy of Tony Blair is that it was when he thought that he was being his most morally right but he made his fundament which shows undone his second term in politics and when the epitaph is written on Tony Blair's grave there'll be the word Iraq [Music] in the end I have to stand at the bar of British public opinion at the next election and I will do so not just with a clean conscience but I will do so if I've got anything to do with it at all having delivered and kept every single promise I made because I said I would deliver something different and I can do it [Music]

Channel: Developing Professionals International Limited

Views: 43,922

Rating: 4.46594 out of 5

Keywords: Tony Blair, Prime Minister, George Bush, Political Leadership, Politics, Margaret Thatcher, Unions, Labour Party

Id: qHptAaACtD8

Length: 102min 14sec (6134 seconds)

Published: Mon May 28 2018