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the tony blair story s01e01
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00:00:04some say you were his Lady Macbeth if anyone thinks Tony's my puppet they
00:00:09just don't understand the nature of the man
00:00:17he could always we say at home he could always talk an owl out of a tree when
00:00:25you think of Tony Blair what words spring to mind I think he's a man in denial actually
00:00:34Tony Blair a prime minister who never lost a general election he is without doubt both one
00:00:43of the most successful and one of the most controversial leaders Britain has ever had
00:00:50one way of looking at him is of thinking of him as an explorer his whole story the life story
00:01:00of
00:01:00Tony Blair is one of exploration of the world to see how far he can get
00:01:07so
00:04:03We were inside those railings, and we were pretty well cut off.
00:04:09At Fetty's, there was fagging, there was beating, there was the church.
00:04:18There was still that feeling you were being prepared to run an empire,
00:04:23to be sent off to Burma or to India or somewhere to run a tea plantation.
00:04:32Tony was very self-confident.
00:04:35He was very clever too, and I think he knew he was clever.
00:04:39Tony arrived at Fetty's on the back of a family tragedy.
00:04:44His father had a massive stroke, from which he never fully recovered.
00:04:49And any dreams his father had of being Prime Minister were over.
00:04:55I want to take you back to July 1964.
00:04:59You will remember that that's when your dad had a stroke.
00:05:03Tell me what happened.
00:05:06Well, I guess I was 10, 11 years old.
00:05:08How did it impact you, do you think?
00:05:12I don't spend a lot of time psychoanalyzing myself, but I think when I look back on it,
00:05:19it must have had an impact on my thinking about the world and life.
00:05:22You know, it was such a traumatic event.
00:05:25I remember the event of that night and that day and the next day and the days that followed so
00:05:30vividly that I get,
00:05:32of course, it makes an impact in your life and I guess it teaches you that life is fragile.
00:05:42Tony's father's speech never fully recovered.
00:05:46But at school, Tony kept this to himself.
00:05:51You never had any sense of how his father's stroke might have affected him?
00:05:57No, not really. No, we never really discussed it. It's bizarre, yeah.
00:06:03What do you think Fetis taught Tony Blair about himself?
00:06:08The school teaches you to survive.
00:06:11It knocks a lot of the emotion out of you.
00:06:14You become very insular.
00:06:17He was strong.
00:06:19And didn't really show much in the way of emotion.
00:06:21I never saw it.
00:06:22It was a bad thing to show emotion when you were at these schools.
00:06:40After Fetis, Blair goes up to Oxford.
00:06:45He studies law and sings in a rock band.
00:06:50Also in Oxford is his childhood friend Angie Hunter,
00:06:54who would go on to become one of his closest political advisers.
00:07:03So he arrived fresh-faced, fun.
00:07:06He was good-looking.
00:07:08He was fun to be with, articulate.
00:07:13And he looked like every other guy that came to Oxford in 1972,
00:07:17which basically was long hair and he had a big fur coat.
00:07:22We just became great friends.
00:07:27I want to touch on something else that happened while you were at university,
00:07:31which is a good friend of yours, took his own life.
00:07:35Ewan.
00:07:38Yes.
00:07:40So Ewan had been my dearest friend at school.
00:07:49It was a group of us.
00:07:50And he was a great guy.
00:07:51He was a wonderful, wonderful young man.
00:07:58And unfortunately, he got into drugs, I think.
00:08:04And he became sort of mentally unstable and then took his own life.
00:08:08And it had a big impact on me.
00:08:11Because he, first of all, because obviously he was a very, very dear friend.
00:08:14And secondly, because I, you know, I just felt what a waste it was,
00:08:22because he had such talent.
00:08:24He was such a clever young man with such a strong personality.
00:08:30Um, he would have done great things.
00:08:33And, er, when I, when my first son was born, you know, I, I named him after him.
00:08:44Ewan's suicide had a big impact on Tony.
00:08:47And he came back, it was at the end of the summer term,
00:08:50and I remember he came back the following term with his haircut.
00:08:55And he wasn't wearing the fur coat.
00:08:58He straightened up a lot after that.
00:09:08Tony makes his way at Oxford, doing well enough to plan for a career as a lawyer.
00:09:18In those days, of course, you made a telephone call from a telephone box
00:09:23with putting the coins in the box.
00:09:24And therefore you, you weren't every day in contact with your, your, your family as you are today.
00:09:29My mother had been ill.
00:09:30I, I knew she had cancer.
00:09:33And the family didn't want to tell me because I was doing my final exams at, at Oxford.
00:09:37They didn't want to tell me how serious it was.
00:09:43But I remember when I got off the train and my dad picked me up at the station.
00:09:48He said to me, look, you know, you should just prepare yourself for this.
00:09:53And I said, but you're not seriously telling me she's going to die.
00:09:56And he said, well, no, I'm telling you that.
00:09:58She is.
00:09:59She's in hospital and she's going to die soon.
00:10:01So that was, you know, yeah, of course.
00:10:07The thing that experience teaches you when you have an experience like this and your,
00:10:11and your parent dies when you're very young is you just realize, well,
00:10:15if, if you've got something to do with your life, you better go and do it.
00:10:18Because who knows what happens?
00:10:20You're just starting to, I'm sorry.
00:10:28Hey, everybody, take a look at me.
00:10:31I've got street creativity.
00:10:32I may not have a job, but I have a good time with the boys that I meet down on
00:10:36the line.
00:10:37It's D-H-S-S.
00:10:39Manorhythm of forgiven is the very best.
00:10:43Hallelujah.
00:10:44I said B-1-B-2.
00:10:47Make acclaims on your names, all you have to do, H-S-S.
00:10:52Mrs Thatcher is in power.
00:10:58And the Falklands War is raging.
00:11:04The Conservatives have captured the mood of the 80s.
00:11:10Meanwhile, the Labour Party is in the doldrums.
00:11:14We've had a very long day.
00:11:20OK, you get annoyed if you like, but I need a credential to get to the conference.
00:11:27And this is their leader.
00:11:31How have you found your day here at the Begginsfield by-election?
00:11:34Well, I think it's been a pretty good day.
00:11:36First of all, we've got a wonderful candidate.
00:11:38Everybody agrees that Tony Blair is one of the very best possible candidates there could be.
00:11:44Rather a large majority, isn't it?
00:11:46Well, it's quite a job, you know.
00:11:48After leaving Oxford, Blair became a barrister.
00:11:52But now he has political ambitions.
00:11:56Running to be a Labour MP in a seat he can't win.
00:12:01Oh, that's good.
00:12:02Nice smile, isn't it?
00:12:06Anthony Charles Linton.
00:12:093,886.
00:12:12He's left his deposit.
00:12:16As expected, Blair loses.
00:12:28When I first met Tony, we were co-publes and rivals.
00:12:33We then became friends and we were vaguely flirting with each other.
00:12:38It was about 18 months after his mother had died.
00:12:42And I think he was still very much coming to terms with that.
00:12:47The first thing we really sort of talked about was religion.
00:12:52Both of us in different ways had a religious faith.
00:12:57Was he romantic in his courtship?
00:13:00Er, no, not very.
00:13:02Tony's not very romantic.
00:13:03Really?
00:13:05He's never bought me flowers, for example.
00:13:07And now he says, well, if I bought you flowers, you'd be very suspicious.
00:13:11Which is probably true.
00:13:15Tony is desperate to become a Labour MP, but first he has to be chosen as a candidate by a
00:13:22constituency Labour Party.
00:13:25He travels up and down the country, telling them all what they don't want to hear,
00:13:31that the Labour Party needs radical reform.
00:13:36He tries ten constituencies.
00:13:39All say no.
00:13:40And Tony's on the brink of giving up.
00:13:45I've always been interested in politics.
00:13:48I was interested in politics when I was 14 and, er, in class.
00:13:52I'd announced that I was going to be the first female Prime Minister.
00:13:57Cherie does get selected to fight a seat for Labour.
00:14:00So how did he cope with that?
00:14:02Er, badly.
00:14:05He felt that he had missed his chance.
00:14:08I was going to go and fight a hopeless seat, but at least I was fighting his seat.
00:14:13And there was one seat left in the country.
00:14:22With just four weeks to go before the general election,
00:14:27Sedgefield in County Durham is the only seat not yet to have selected its Labour candidate.
00:14:37I remember sitting in my house in Hackney and Cherie saying to me,
00:14:43I mean, you might as well go, I mean, why not?
00:14:46There's nothing you can lose.
00:14:58The members of the Sedgefield Labour Party will have to be convinced.
00:15:18I was very nervous, but by then I got quite used to the process of rejection.
00:15:28I've been in many constituencies, tried many different things.
00:15:31You know, usually I get a long way and the moment I showed my colours I would be out.
00:15:43John said, oh, there's a guy from London coming up.
00:15:46He wants to be our next MP.
00:15:48Yeah, our champion, but we're watching the football.
00:15:51Of course, there's a long, long way to go yet, but it is a night where there will be a
00:15:57positive result,
00:15:58because at the end of 90 minutes of its level, we have extra time.
00:16:02Well, of course, the trouble was, this match went on forever. Extra time was paid, it was a draw.
00:16:10By which time we were quite happy and merry, you know.
00:16:16So after that we said, right, we're going to ask you some questions.
00:16:19We gave him the best drilling that we could.
00:16:22He spoke with an awfully posh voice.
00:16:25I mean, we'd always had a miners' union MP.
00:16:30And here we had this public schoolboy who went to Oxford and was a barrister.
00:16:39But we knew that night. I said to the lads, I said, you know, you can never say somebody will
00:16:46be prime minister,
00:16:47but you can say somebody is cabinet material.
00:16:50And I said, he's cabinet material.
00:16:53And Paul agreed, they all agreed.
00:16:56Well, I saw he was different.
00:16:58You know, I was young, I wanted someone younger than your average Labour MP.
00:17:02I wanted someone with a bit of go about them. And there he was sitting on the set, Eddie.
00:17:06So why not give the young lad a go?
00:17:09Wow. Tony jumped up.
00:17:14And, you know, had a couple more drinks.
00:17:21Blair successfully charms the Sedgefield Labour Party and becomes their MP.
00:17:33But nationally, Labour suffer a devastating defeat.
00:17:39Still, by entering Parliament, Blair fulfils his father's dream.
00:17:49Westminster's best known watering places were opening up for some new customers this evening.
00:17:54At one of them, I met some of the 150 new commons faces.
00:17:58The image of the Labour Party's got to be an image that's more dynamic, more modern, more suited to the
00:18:031980s.
00:18:04I don't actually think it's nearly so much a matter of right and left as people make it out.
00:18:09What I do think is that it's a matter of style.
00:18:12The truth is, we live in a different world now.
00:18:14We live in a world where over 50% of the population in this country are owner-occupiers.
00:18:21We live in a population where there are large numbers of people now employed for service industries rather than manufacturing
00:18:28industries.
00:18:29And that means a change in attitude and a change in attitude that we've got to catch up to.
00:18:36The party elects a new leader, Neil Kinnock.
00:18:39OK, thanks for coming in.
00:18:42Who spots the potential of the new backbench MP for Sedgefield.
00:18:48I asked him if he would fulfil this role in the Treasury team.
00:18:53He was ecstatically pleased and made no secret of it.
00:19:00Do you really mean it? Do you really mean it?
00:19:02I don't think I'd ever encountered, before or afterwards, anyone who was so manifestly delighted at what he saw as
00:19:13a promotion.
00:19:20Blair befriends Gordon Brown.
00:19:22They share a room at the House of Commons.
00:19:25Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, didn't they do well? He did even better.
00:19:29He got 50,000 votes more, didn't you, than he got.
00:19:32But both of you did extremely well indeed.
00:19:34They become a pair with contrasting personalities.
00:19:38I want to see a wider membership.
00:19:40I want to see better attention to the regional organisation.
00:19:42And I want to give more attention to the policy-making process.
00:19:45So these are things that we want to see happen.
00:19:48Did you have to...
00:19:49He talked of a platform once he stood, made it sound like a real election.
00:19:52Did you have to scheme, organise, assemble votes for this?
00:19:55No, because it's done in a fairly democratic way with one member...
00:19:58Well, a fairly democratic way.
00:20:00I mean very democratic. I'm just being unusually modest.
00:20:06Gordon made a huge impression on Tony, because he was a much more experienced political creature.
00:20:17And I think Gordon got used to the idea that Tony was there to support him.
00:20:26By bouncing ideas off him, by discussing ideas, yes, helping him develop.
00:20:31But at the same time, the fact was that Tony was also learning from Gordon and developing his ideas.
00:20:42And they weren't always the same as Gordon's ideas.
00:20:55By 1992, almost everyone expects Labour to win the upcoming election of that year.
00:21:03We're all ready! We're all ready!
00:21:10I first met Tony Blair in March 1992, just before the general election of that year.
00:21:17I got a call from his office saying, Tony would like to meet you.
00:21:20It's the only time, I think, that a politician's actually asked to see me.
00:21:24So I booked a restaurant and we met.
00:21:26Of course, like everyone, I was overwhelmed by his charm.
00:21:32Blair was a radical, transformative politician, there's no doubt about that.
00:21:37The Labour equivalent of Margaret Thatcher and his determination to pull the Labour Party into a completely different mode of
00:21:43thinking.
00:21:44I said, well, anyway, it looks like you'll be in government in a couple of months, because that's what everyone
00:21:48thought.
00:21:48And he said, oh, no, no, no, we're going to lose.
00:21:54Labour do in fact lose, and Tony now hopes that Gordon will put his hat into the ring to be
00:22:01the new leader.
00:22:02But Gordon throws his support behind his fellow Scot, John Smith.
00:22:08I therefore declare that John Smith is elected the leader of the Labour Party.
00:22:16And Tony's hopes that he and Gordon will transform the party are derailed.
00:22:22That was a crucial moment for Blair.
00:22:25That was the moment when the iron entered his soul.
00:22:29John Smith looks like a Labour leader who can win power.
00:22:32He's a popular and skilled political operator.
00:22:35But he has a heart condition.
00:22:41In April 1994, Tony and his wife Cherie go for a weekend in Paris.
00:22:50And it's here that Blair wakes suddenly with a premonition that John Smith is about to die.
00:23:08Well, it was a rather extraordinary thing.
00:23:11I actually did wake up in the morning.
00:23:15And I remember I woke up and I thought, you've got to prepare yourself for this.
00:23:19I think it's going to happen.
00:23:21I remember saying to Cherie, I feel it's possible this heart condition could come back.
00:23:28And I've got to think then about what happens if it does.
00:23:36And whether it really is the moment that I would go for the leadership if that did happen.
00:23:42And that was the first time we'd really properly discussed it.
00:23:45You said to her, if John dies, I will be leader, not Gordon.
00:23:52And somehow I think this will happen.
00:23:54I just think it will.
00:23:57Yeah, I just, I felt this strong premonition.
00:24:01And I don't quite know, who knows how these things come into your mind like that.
00:24:05But it came into my mind with a degree of certainty that both surprised me and made me think,
00:24:11okay, who knows whether it's right or wrong, but you're going to have to think now.
00:24:16And you're going to have to think about the decision,
00:24:18because you know in your own mind you want to do it.
00:24:21And you're going to have to think how you handle Gordon,
00:24:23because there's going to be, you know, a huge problem for you and your relationship.
00:24:26And I hadn't really discussed it with him, because I was thinking, well, what's the point?
00:24:31You know, it may never happen, and therefore there's no point in ending up,
00:24:36because I knew it would be a difficult conversation,
00:24:38because it had always been assumed that he would be the leader.
00:24:41But I thought, no, you've got to prepare yourself for this
00:24:44and for the conversation that will come.
00:24:59Good evening.
00:25:01The leader of the Labour Party, John Smith, died this morning in hospital
00:25:04after suffering a massive heart attack at his London home.
00:25:18It was a very extraordinary situation at the funeral,
00:25:22because you got the absolute grief of his family
00:25:27and then the grief of the party.
00:25:30And then on the other hand, there was the inevitable thoughts of,
00:25:36well, what's going to happen to the party now?
00:26:15It was an incredibly intense day.
00:26:19Everybody was thinking about the succession.
00:26:33Everybody's looking around thinking, is he going to run for it?
00:26:37Who's going to support him?
00:26:39Is it going to be Gordon?
00:26:40Or is it going to be Tony?
00:26:50I was determined that he wasn't going to let his decency,
00:26:57thinking that he should defer to Gordon,
00:27:00get in the way of what I thought was best for him
00:27:04and best for the country.
00:27:05I said to him, you've got to go for it.
00:27:09It's got to be you.
00:27:15When I met Tony, I said, of course, we'd have to think about this very carefully
00:27:20and work out which of them would gather the most support.
00:27:23You know, who would be the best modernisers candidate?
00:27:27He just looked at me and said, Peter, I'm going to do this.
00:27:31I said, oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, but we'll consider how, you know.
00:27:35No, he said, I'm going to do this.
00:27:39It really was as if his time had come.
00:27:44He had a sense of destiny.
00:27:52Blair and Brown engage in a series of fraught negotiations
00:27:56over which one of them will run for leader.
00:28:01They were such close, good, intimate friends.
00:28:05It was like a married couple deciding whose career should come first.
00:28:11I mean, Gordon would have been thinking,
00:28:12I've been betrayed by my best friend.
00:28:15I was always going to be the leader.
00:28:17I thought that was the deal.
00:28:19I'm only talking about the European...
00:28:20OK.
00:28:21Is that OK?
00:28:22Can I just put one question to you about the leadership?
00:28:24No, not at all.
00:28:25We're talking about the European elections today.
00:28:26OK.
00:28:27What are you planning to do today, sir?
00:28:31Tony was feeling absolutely 100% determined.
00:28:34I'm going to persuade him.
00:28:38I'm going to persuade him.
00:28:39I'm going to persuade him.
00:28:44I'm going to persuade him.
00:28:44As they try to thrash out a deal,
00:28:46they have at least ten secret meetings
00:28:49that culminate in a dinner
00:28:50at a North London restaurant called Grenita.
00:28:58What's your understanding of his agreement with Gordon?
00:29:02Well, first of all, there was never an agreement.
00:29:07And there were a number of meetings.
00:29:10Some of them were in my sister's house.
00:29:12And really, the deed was done before they had that meal in...
00:29:16..the granola or what it was called.
00:29:18Grenita?
00:29:18Yes, the granola.
00:29:20That's right.
00:29:21It became a thing of legends,
00:29:22it was all sorted out there,
00:29:23but it was much more drawn out than that.
00:29:28But what was it, in essence?
00:29:31That Gordon would stand down for Tony,
00:29:33that Gordon would be Chancellor
00:29:36and he would have control over the economic policy.
00:29:43And that at some point, when Tony stood down,
00:29:49he would support Gordon to be his successor.
00:29:54The details of what was agreed are contested to this day.
00:29:59Many in Brown's camp claim Blair set a limit
00:30:03on the time he would serve as leader.
00:30:08But there was never, to my mind, in fact, I said to him before he went,
00:30:15and don't promise to set any kind of date.
00:30:19But Tony, being a very charming person, I think,
00:30:23can often make people think they hear what they want to hear.
00:30:28So I think that Gordon may well have spoken of a time limit,
00:30:35and Tony may not have strongly disabused him of that.
00:30:39Did any part of you feel a little bit sorry for Gordon?
00:30:42No.
00:30:47It's that in politics there comes a point when you have to make a choice.
00:30:59I don't love having a confrontation.
00:31:02It's not my natural way.
00:31:03Contrary to, I think, sometimes the image of sort of, you know,
00:31:07he's messianic and all of that.
00:31:08No, I'm not like that.
00:31:10If I can avoid having a big fight and row, I'll happily avoid it.
00:31:14But I always know there comes a point when, you know,
00:31:18if it's something that really, really matters,
00:31:19you're going to have to, you know, you've got to confront it.
00:31:24If I thought he was going to do the things I thought were necessary
00:31:27for the Labour Party, I really would have been happy to have been number two.
00:31:32But I think he found that incredibly difficult for understandable reasons.
00:31:37And we resolved it in the end.
00:31:40But when something like that happens, it changes the nature of the relationship.
00:31:45And, you know, to be honest, you never fully resolve it.
00:31:47So it had to be done.
00:31:59This morning, I'm announcing my candidature for the position of leader of the Labour Party.
00:32:16Well, Tony was always a smoothie.
00:32:20His weakness was the lack of deep thinking, knowledge of history.
00:32:26And I think he wants to be a big thinker.
00:32:30But that's not what he is.
00:32:32I mean, maybe we're all the same, you know, whatever our strength is,
00:32:35we want the other strength.
00:32:37His strength was certainly the personal charm and the communications.
00:32:42I don't think he's a great leader.
00:32:47Mr Blair, good morning.
00:32:48Good morning.
00:32:49The other two contenders for the leadership are prepared to serve as deputy.
00:32:53Why aren't you?
00:32:54Because I don't wish to be deputy.
00:32:55Why not? You're the youngest of the three with the least experience.
00:32:59Because I don't desire to be deputy leader.
00:33:01It's a very, very good post.
00:33:03I think that both of my colleagues will make excellent deputy leaders,
00:33:07but it's not a post I desire for myself.
00:33:09Have you really thought through the effect of the job you're about to take on,
00:33:14assuming you get it, upon yourself and your family?
00:33:17I've reflected upon it a great deal.
00:33:20And you've decided that the effect is worth living with, assuming that you can become prime minister?
00:33:26Yes, I have.
00:33:29It is not an easy decision and I am well aware of what is about to fall upon me.
00:33:36He was steely, clear.
00:33:39He had real energy and restlessness.
00:33:43It was, you know, politically exciting.
00:33:44I do remember asking him whether he thought he was really tough enough for what was coming.
00:33:51Do you think you were tough enough to cope with the sort of media onslaught that Neil Kinnock, for example,
00:33:55had to endure?
00:33:56I think it comes with the territory and I am entirely prepared for it, indeed expected.
00:34:06Blair wins.
00:34:08And now he's leader of the Labour Party.
00:34:14The blueprint for new Labour, he had it in his head right from the start.
00:34:18The idea that he was just some sort of, you know, line of least resistance, pretty front guy, could not
00:34:25be further from the truth.
00:34:28He assembles a formidable team of political operators and spin doctors.
00:34:34Well, this curious combination of Tony being Mr. Good Guy, and then around him, you have these absolutely ruthless bastards.
00:34:44Richard, you want anything tomorrow, any other day?
00:34:47I was being quite robust.
00:34:53And I remember Tony looking, ooh.
00:34:57And I think part of him thinking, am I going over the top?
00:35:02But part of him thinking, that's what we need to do from time to time.
00:35:09Tony was quite smart in leaving the brutality to others.
00:35:13Together, they set about rebranding the party.
00:35:17Let me do it. Tony Blair.
00:35:19And in the face of staunch resistance, they rip up decades of Labour Party convention.
00:35:24The historic goal of another Labour government.
00:35:28Our party, New Labour.
00:35:30Our mission, New Britain.
00:35:32New Labour, New Britain.
00:35:37Blair was the revolution in his own person.
00:35:40It was like he was laying the party at his father's feet.
00:35:44He'd changed it so much that his father would now vote for it.
00:36:14It's July 1995.
00:36:17And Blair's just flown 10,000 miles to a tropical island in Australia to meet the most powerful man in
00:36:25the British media.
00:36:27Rupert Murdoch.
00:36:33We knew there would be terrible controversy.
00:36:35We were accused of supping with the devil.
00:36:39You know, take a long spoon with you.
00:36:41That was the sort of general gist from our colleagues.
00:36:44We're having friends on ABC television.
00:36:47How are you going?
00:36:47You've come halfway around the world to talk to Rupert Murdoch and his men.
00:36:51Why is that?
00:36:52You're impersonating Dame Adder, aren't you?
00:36:55Do you expect Mr Rupert Murdoch's papers to support you in the upcoming election?
00:37:00No, I mean, I've made it clear right from the very start.
00:37:03I'm not here to trade policy for an editorial sport.
00:37:06What Mr Murdoch's papers do is up to him.
00:37:08What the Labour Party does is up to us.
00:37:10Okay, thank you.
00:37:11Okay.
00:37:11Thank you very much.
00:37:12Thank you very much.
00:37:13Okay, thanks.
00:37:14Nice to meet you.
00:37:15Bye-bye.
00:37:22Quite a lot of people, Jeremy Corbyn, in the Labour Party,
00:37:24I mean, people like Roy Hattersley would say this is the move of a shrewd political operator.
00:37:29I think this smacks too much to me of an endorsement,
00:37:32and almost a craven endorsement, of the Murdoch Empire.
00:37:36I think it's a great mistake.
00:37:37My point was that he was therefore accepting the way in which Murdoch ran his papers.
00:37:45There was no sense of standing up to what Murdoch was doing to our media.
00:37:50Blair had this ability to separate himself from the political philosophical debate around an issue and go into it in
00:38:03a totally transactional way.
00:38:10Tony Blair said to me, how we treat Rupert Murdoch in power will depend on how he treats Labour in
00:38:19the run-up to the election.
00:38:20It's pretty simple, you know, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
00:38:26That's what it came down to.
00:38:31Having charmed the media mogul, Blair seems equally at ease getting gushing endorsements from rock stars.
00:38:40There are seven people in this room tonight who are giving a little bit of hope to young people in
00:38:47this country.
00:38:47That is me, our kid, Bonehead, Quigsey, Alan White, Alan McGee and Tony Blair.
00:38:55And if you've all got anything about you, you get up there and you take Tony Blair's hand, man.
00:39:00Power to the people!
00:39:03I like you, Tony, and I like you for a very specific reason, which is that you seem to me
00:39:08to be like a real person.
00:39:10But if it's not an overly pretentious question, I mean, are you as real as you appear?
00:39:14Because it seems to me that people worry, they see you surrounded by what they call spin doctors
00:39:19and they think that perhaps this realness is kind of manufactured.
00:39:23What do you think?
00:39:25Well, you can't manufacture the realness in the end. I mean, people have got to make a judgement on it.
00:39:29But we run a professional show in the Labour Party today.
00:39:33Yeah.
00:39:34We do things in a professional way, but it doesn't mean to say you're not real or you can't be
00:39:37a human being at the same time.
00:39:41Dad! Dad!
00:39:45Dad!
00:39:48If you don't make the time for your family, then I think your politics actually becomes much less effective.
00:39:54Because they keep your feet in the ground. They may drive you mad, but they keep you sane.
00:39:58The first time I went to see Tony Blair at his home, it was almost like arriving on a film
00:40:05set.
00:40:05You felt that everybody, whether it was Cherie Blair and the children and the coffee maker and all the rest
00:40:11of it,
00:40:11you felt you were seeing a brilliantly orchestrated performance of what they thought that a new Labour leader,
00:40:19how he ought to live and what his children ought to look like and what his wife ought to look
00:40:22like.
00:40:36Tony and the family, they did a brilliant imposture of being normal human beings.
00:40:41Now, actually, anybody who was on his way to becoming Prime Minister is not a normal human being, but they
00:40:46played the game brilliantly.
00:40:47You have obviously also had to think through the possibility of being in Number 10 Downing Street, both of you.
00:40:53You take it stage by stage, actually.
00:40:55I'm a great believer in the old Mrs Beacon recipe for rabbit stew, first catch your rabbit.
00:41:03Cherie, do you have sort of daunting feelings about that?
00:41:06I've never even been near Downing Street, so I've got no idea. I've never even stood outside the door.
00:41:12Well, it's got to cross your mind that it might end that way.
00:41:17Well, I'm sure that there will be space somewhere for the children and mates.
00:41:22The thing you have to understand about Cherie is that she had strong political views, strong sense of ambition.
00:41:32If not Tony, it could have been Cherie.
00:41:34It was Cherie who was, in a sense, the sort of Labour Party animal, the person, you know, who wanted
00:41:40to run as a candidate and to join the leadership of the Labour Party.
00:41:45And she took a very profound, and it must have been quite a difficult personal decision, in a sense to
00:41:52step back and to be his support.
00:41:55There was about a six-month period, no more, when I was a candidate and Tony was still looking for
00:42:00a seat, and so he had to trail behind me.
00:42:04Probably didn't do him any harm, did it?
00:42:06Probably didn't do any harm, but I certainly at the time felt it didn't do me any good.
00:42:11The marriage was so strong, not smooth, not easy, lots of gyrations, lots of sort of shouting in the background,
00:42:24but my word, it was the rock.
00:42:27That marriage was the rock on which Tony's political career was made.
00:42:51There was an idea that I would write one of those sort of campaign diaries, or the story of an
00:42:56election campaign, and Tony Blair was keen that I did it.
00:43:00And I really got an astonishing first-hand insight into that whole election.
00:43:07And really witnessed a politician at the top of their game.
00:43:13He loved campaigning.
00:43:20On the battle bus, he'd go and sit at the front next to the driver so that he could see
00:43:24cars coming towards him, or people on the street.
00:43:28He sought a connection.
00:43:30Hello, Northampton!
00:43:36I think that he just grew in confidence as the campaign went on.
00:43:41And the crowds became much bigger, and the enthusiasm for him was much greater.
00:43:46And it was like watching a flower blossom in the sunlight.
00:43:52Can I have a kiss again? Will you give him a kiss again?
00:43:54Oh, I'm coming back to Basildon.
00:43:57It was very interesting to me during the 97 election that he wore a lot of makeup.
00:44:06There were not one but two makeup people travelling with him, and he liked that.
00:44:15It was like he was putting on the war paint every day before he went out.
00:44:28I got the impression, talking to people who knew him like his old housemaster at school, that he was quite
00:44:36a difficult, rebellious, long-haired, tricky boy to have in the house.
00:44:42And this all changed when the house put on a production of Julius Caesar, and he played Mark Antony.
00:44:50And he said to me, I saw him visibly swell when he went on stage for the first time, as
00:44:57if he had found his calling.
00:45:11It's a clue to Tony's character that he saw being a party leader as a 24-hour-a-day performance.
00:45:19He always needed to perform.
00:45:21Please welcome the Leader of the Opposition, the Right Honourable Tony Blair.
00:45:33It was on television, really, that politicians meet their electorate.
00:45:38And he has this ability to separate his inner self from the public persona.
00:45:45Sitting on that couch last week were the Spice Girls.
00:45:50Right, right.
00:45:51Mrs Thatcher, they thought, was the first Spice Girl.
00:45:54No, you were...
00:45:55They said that, didn't they, Tony?
00:45:57Well, I've actually, I did meet the Spice Girls.
00:46:00They have sort of bare midriffs, short skirts, sort of earrings and through various parts.
00:46:08Yeah, pins and things and tattoos.
00:46:10I can't really see Margaret Thatcher like that.
00:46:14You did go on Chris Evans' show, apparently, and said that Bowie...
00:46:17This is David Bowie, his wife, Eamon, was your dream girl.
00:46:22Did you actually say that?
00:46:23I did.
00:46:24Well, he asked me the question and I broke the first rule of politics and lapsed into total honesty.
00:46:28There's nothing wrong without politics.
00:46:30We won't get enough doing.
00:46:34Tony Blair!
00:46:36Tony Blair!
00:46:39Tony Blair!
00:46:42On the 1st of May, 1997, after 18 years of Tory rule, Britain goes to the polls.
00:46:54My parents were very superstitious.
00:46:56We could not say, Dad's going to win the election, because it might not happen.
00:47:00And I was only nine, so I didn't know what an election meant.
00:47:03I didn't know what him being Prime Minister meant.
00:47:05And so I did not know, and we hadn't packed anything.
00:47:17It was exciting and a little bit scary. Press are not very child friendly.
00:47:24It's this way. Everybody this way, alright?
00:47:26Can you...
00:47:30There were just so many press there, and a hundred cameras in your face, shouting your name, wanting you to
00:47:35look at them and smile, smile, do this.
00:47:37And we're just like, what is going on? I remember it being very terrifying.
00:47:40And I was just holding my dad's hand, thinking, what are we doing? Why are all these people here?
00:48:02There it is, ten o'clock, and we say Tony Blair is to be Prime Minister, and a landslide is
00:48:08likely.
00:48:08CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
00:48:20On election night, I arrived at his house, and the first thing I noticed, of course, was there were now
00:48:25men with machine guns standing around in the garden.
00:48:28You know, he was about to become Prime Minister, clearly.
00:48:31Good morning, Tony.
00:48:31Thanks, Tony.
00:48:32Thanks, Tony.
00:48:34Anthony Charles Linton Blair, the Labour Party candidate, 33,000.
00:48:41CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
00:48:52At the count, I was a few miles from where I'd been brought up.
00:48:57My dad was there, my mum wasn't.
00:49:01My dad had really, all his ambitions in the end had failed because of his illness,
00:49:08but here was his son about to become the British Prime Minister,
00:49:12and he was so proud and happy, and I was happy for him.
00:49:18And, yeah, it was...
00:49:21And I also, I missed my mum.
00:49:33So, off goes Tony Blair.
00:49:36The engines of his jet will soon be starting, the door will close,
00:49:41and he will be down amongst even more admirers.
00:49:45He's got my notes, sir.
00:49:47He's got the notes.
00:49:49OK, Tom, get used to this.
00:49:52We went on the plane, and everyone was very excited, and Alistair was constantly saying,
00:50:00you know, we've just won this, and we've just won that.
00:50:03And Tony was just very still and very quiet, and we sat up at the front.
00:50:10And I was just holding his hand.
00:50:14And, you know, he did say,
00:50:18what have we done?
00:50:19I think it was more about...
00:50:26the weight of it.
00:50:41There's Tony Blair smiling, again, greeting, shaking hands with party workers.
00:50:46They all want to shake his hand. He'll take one or two of them...
00:50:54Everyone was sort of cheering and shouting, and, you know, people were saying to me,
00:50:58well, it's all fantastic.
00:50:59And I was just sitting there thinking,
00:51:01yeah, well, we're now going to be running the country, so, you know, no more words.
00:51:07We're not going to do it anymore.
00:51:08What about fear?
00:51:10Yeah, some fear, yeah, some fear, I think.
00:51:14Because, are you going to be up to it? Can you do it? What's going to happen?
00:51:17Did you enjoy it a bit?
00:51:20Those first 24 hours?
00:51:23You know, if I'm really honest about it, I'm not sure I did enjoy it that much,
00:51:28just because I was...
00:51:30I was just thinking, you know, here you are.
00:51:32You know, you're in your early 40s, you're Prime Minister.
00:51:35And rather than thinking, you're Prime Minister, wow.
00:51:38I was like, you're Prime Minister, so...
00:51:41You better do a good job.
00:51:44Because...
00:51:44Now, what happens to this country and its people depends on you.
00:52:11You better do a good job, you better do a good job.
00:52:17That's right there.
00:52:18The has been really good.
00:52:19So by the time the time the day I've been working on,
00:52:20there were, there were all these flags everywhere, everyone seemed really happy.
00:52:31Even as a 13 year old, and right in the middle of it, there was a genuine sense of excitement.
00:52:36It was kind of nice to think, wow, people really liked that.
00:52:40Of course then, as it developed and you'd read the papers and everything else, you'd
00:52:44realise that not everyone liked it.
00:52:58Blair comes to power with uncharted levels of popularity.
00:53:02He pushes through a blizzard of bold new policies that change the way Britain works.
00:53:08This is a government in a hurry.
00:53:10The Bank of England is to be made independent.
00:53:13Scotland and Wales are to have their own parliaments.
00:53:16For the first time, there'll be a minimum wage.
00:53:22And to improve education, class sizes will be reduced.
00:53:26One of the things I think he was drawn to, as it were, almost irresistibly, was his belief
00:53:33to solve problems which had defeated everybody else.
00:53:37He was drawn to making labour electable by inventing new labour and then delivering it.
00:53:42And I think he was drawn to Northern Ireland.
00:53:45It had defeated everyone else.
00:53:47He could do it.
00:53:58Northern Ireland's Catholic and Protestant communities have been deeply divided for decades.
00:54:03And they're caught in a seemingly never-ending cycle of sectarian violence.
00:54:13Tony came back from Checkers and he came in Monday morning, sort of, you know, all bouncy and what have
00:54:21you.
00:54:22And he said, I've worked out how to do Northern Ireland.
00:54:25I've worked it out.
00:54:26Oh, OK.
00:54:27You've worked it out.
00:54:27Have you done that?
00:54:32And he did become pretty obsessed with it.
00:54:39Blair sets the goal of getting a peace agreement within a year.
00:54:44The stakes were enormous on Northern Ireland and I was alarmed that he would be out of his depth.
00:54:51And I said to him, Prime Minister, I've got to say to you, I am worried.
00:54:56You're going to be moving in with people who have huge sensitive issues,
00:55:02lots of history, lots of anger.
00:55:05Are you going to be ready for it?
00:55:07And he said, look, Richard, I don't need to know about the history.
00:55:12I'm better off if I don't know the history.
00:55:14I'm going to focus on the people.
00:55:16You watch.
00:55:16It'll work.
00:55:19He takes the highly controversial step of inviting the Irish Republican leaders of Sinn F茅in to Downing Street.
00:55:28Tony invested a huge amount of time in me seeing Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness
00:55:31and Ian Paisley and other Northern Irish politicians.
00:55:35And we'd bring them into Downing Street.
00:55:38And particularly when we had the DUP and Paisley's party involved,
00:55:42they would not meet Sinn F茅in.
00:55:43They would not be in the same building as Sinn F茅in.
00:55:45But when I was with Paisley in the Cabinet Office,
00:55:48I noticed looking out of the window, to my horror,
00:55:50that Adams and McGuinness had escaped from Number 10 into the Rose Garden
00:55:53and were playing with Blair children with their skateboard.
00:55:57They go out for a break, right, through these very intense sessions,
00:55:59and they see me and my brother skateboarding in the garden.
00:56:02And we sort of said to them, hey, do you want to try?
00:56:05Because they were sort of watching us.
00:56:07And so you're in the farcical situation of kind of trying to teach Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness
00:56:12how to skateboard against the backdrop of something incredibly serious and solemn and historic.
00:56:18And I remember telling Dad afterwards, and he was just, thank God they didn't injure themselves.
00:56:28It's the 7th of April, 1998.
00:56:31Blair arrives in Belfast with most of the key players around the negotiating table.
00:56:37But the talks are on the brink of collapse, and there's a deadline looming just days away.
00:56:43Morning. We're here to do a job of work, and we've got to get it done.
00:56:48And we've got complete determination to do it.
00:56:51We were in this awful building, and he could get incredibly frustrated.
00:56:56He would say, like, you know, if we could just sort this out without all the other people,
00:57:01we could do it right now, right?
00:57:03But we're having to deal with all this fucking this and fucking that.
00:57:06He's not a table slammer, but I saw him at one point slamming the table,
00:57:11and he just went, fuck, fuck, fuck like that.
00:57:15Tony Blair was one of the most successful and most skilful negotiators I ever came across.
00:57:21He can play with a whole range of emotions, but he's always in control.
00:57:25And I do remember one negotiation we had, and he said to me,
00:57:28never lose your temper except on purpose.
00:57:30And it came home to me quite how he managed negotiations.
00:57:33The problem is, now you're in to this day, is not that you can't reach agreement,
00:57:38it's just making sure that you drive the thing forward as quickly as possible.
00:57:43Machiavelli talks about needing the skill of the fox,
00:57:46but also the courage of the lion.
00:57:48And Tony had both.
00:57:48He had the ability on issues of principle to be really brave, really firm,
00:57:53but he also had a very sinuous way to charm people into things.
00:58:00Roy Jenkins said that Tony Blair had a second-class intellect
00:58:03but a first-class temperament.
00:58:04And actually, there's something in that that's really a compliment,
00:58:08which is that he had the most remarkable EQ.
00:58:10His ability to understand people, to relate to people, to empathise,
00:58:14was his superpower.
00:58:16Well, ladies and gentlemen, you will have heard that
00:58:18Senator Mitchell's announcement has been made that an agreement has been reached.
00:58:24Mrs Thatcher didn't believe Northern Ireland could be solved.
00:58:26John Major believed Northern Ireland could be solved, but he couldn't do it.
00:58:29Tony Blair believed both, that it could be done and he could do it.
00:58:32And he really drove it through.
00:58:34Today, we have just a sense of the prize that is before us.
00:58:39He believed it was kind of his destiny to fulfil this.
00:58:43Somewhere written in the stars was for him to achieve this great thing for the country.
00:58:47The work to win that prize goes on.
00:58:50We cannot, we must not, let it slip from our grasp.
00:58:56But Mo Molan said to me that Tony succeeded because he thought he was fucking Jesus.
00:59:13Less than two years into Blair's time as prime minister, a war is escalating on the edge of Europe.
00:59:31Serbian forces led by Slobodan Milosevic have driven 800,000 people from their homes in Kosovo.
00:59:39Ethnic cleansing is taking place. Blair is under pressure to act.
00:59:46I went in to see Tony and I said, it looks like war in Kosovo because the diplomatic process has
00:59:52completely failed and we've got this commitment to intervene.
00:59:57And I was surprised at how calmly he took it, because I could see this was going to be the
01:00:02dominant issue over the next few months.
01:00:04When a prime minister sends his forces into military action, nothing else competes with it for attention.
01:00:13It was obvious to me that what was happening in Kosovo was effectively ethnic cleansing.
01:00:18You know, there was murder, there was rape, there was a displacement of a civilian population and I felt this
01:00:23was happening right on the doorstep of Europe.
01:00:27We should act and we can act and therefore we're going to.
01:00:33On the 24th of March, 1999, Blair takes a leading role as NATO planes are scrambled to bomb targets in
01:00:43Serbia.
01:00:57You are fighting a just war and a just cause.
01:01:00And I believe we are fighting for the values of civilisation.
01:01:06Blair becomes convinced that the only way to beat Milosevic is to threaten boots on the ground.
01:01:13But other world leaders are set against it and Blair is isolated.
01:01:18This was the one situation I remember Tony saying, if this is the last thing I do as prime minister,
01:01:24if I'm hounded out as a result of this, if it somehow goes belly up, so be it, I'm going
01:01:30for it.
01:01:32Blair starts a campaign to persuade a reluctant US President Bill Clinton to back his plans.
01:01:42First of all, it was the only real policy disagreement I think we had of any magnitude the whole time
01:01:49we worked together.
01:01:50I argued that we would have fewer casualties and that we might be able to win with their power.
01:02:00I said, I think we are morally obliged to win and to win it by killing the fewest number of
01:02:06people.
01:02:11The New York Times splashed a headline saying that Tony Blair was trying to toughen up Clinton and make him
01:02:17agree to ground troops.
01:02:20And Clinton went absolutely ape.
01:02:22He called Tony from Air Force One.
01:02:25I remember being on the call and he was so angry.
01:02:28He really lost it.
01:02:29He really shouted and yelled, I know what you're doing.
01:02:32You're trying to make me look weak and you're trying to make yourself look strong.
01:02:35And Tony said, no, no, no, honestly, it wasn't us.
01:02:36We didn't do that.
01:02:37It's not in our interest to do that.
01:02:39I believe there was a phone call between the two of you and it got a little bit heated.
01:02:44It did.
01:02:45I was mad because his guys were trying to make him look good in the New York Times at my
01:02:50expense when we should have been united in fighting this war.
01:02:54I was always totally honest with him.
01:02:57I didn't ever pull any punches.
01:03:01How did the Prime Minister bring the President down from that anger?
01:03:04The method was to stay calm, not to sort of panic as people sometimes do when you face anger like
01:03:08that.
01:03:09But to calmly say, no, no, it honestly wasn't us.
01:03:11We don't want to do that.
01:03:11It's not in our interest to do that.
01:03:12And gradually talked him down until they're able to end the call.
01:03:16He could always, as we say at home, he could always talk an owl out of a tree.
01:03:23Under pressure from Blair, Clinton softens his stance on ground troops.
01:03:29And in the face of a united front, Milosevic backs down.
01:03:33The logic of the campaign came through to Tony much quicker than it did to other leaders.
01:03:41And I don't think we would have got anything like the outcome had it not been for that personal commitment
01:03:46that he made.
01:03:50Blair's standing up to Milosevic helped end the conflict in Kosovo, saving thousands of lives.
01:03:58lan!uti
01:04:02!reek!
01:04:18Whenever something
01:04:20in politics looks at its zenith, the termites are at work on the base.
01:04:26That is a sort of cyclical, almost natural rule of politics.
01:04:30And people that I've spoken to who know him very well,
01:04:33they all point to Kosovo.
01:04:35At that point, for the first time,
01:04:39maybe a slight parting from reality began to take place.
01:04:48The moment that he appeared rather like, you know,
01:04:52Christ walking through the Holy Land with people hailing him,
01:04:57as if he had worked a miracle,
01:04:59a friend of mine, a friend of Tony's, said to me,
01:05:02he thought he could walk on water.
01:05:04And in that triumph, the seeds of tragedy were so.
01:05:19This is not a battle for NATO.
01:05:22This is not a battle for territory.
01:05:25This is a battle for humanity.
01:05:28It is a just cause.
01:05:30It is a rightful cause.
01:05:32And we will make sure that these people here are returned to their homes.
01:05:37That is our commitment to them.
01:05:39Practical help.
01:05:40Practical commitment.
01:05:42And above all else,
01:05:43a determination that all this suffering and all this misery
01:05:48and everything that has been created by the brutality of Milosevic
01:05:52shall not last, but shall be reversed, shall be defeated,
01:05:57so these people can once again become symbols of hope, humanity and peace.
01:06:06He was at his best.
01:06:10He really felt deeply it had to be done.
01:06:14We had a moral responsibility to act.
01:06:18The international politics were difficult,
01:06:20but he showed genuine leadership in moving the dialogue.
01:06:28My concerns were the alacrity with which he wanted to take military action,
01:06:34his very quick decision,
01:06:36we'll go in, we're going to get involved,
01:06:37we're going to do this militarily.
01:06:40It had been, in those terms, successful.
01:06:42But I think he then realized that he had the power to do this,
01:06:47and we then descended, in my view, into the horrors of the post-2001 situation.
01:06:57Well, one of the things you learn in politics
01:06:59is they could be chanting your name one day in praise
01:07:02and they could be chanting it the next day in condemnation.
01:07:06You've got to be strong enough both to withstand the praise and the condemnation.
01:07:10Once you come to the view that what you should do is what you think is right,
01:07:14then you've got to stand by that.
01:07:16Some people will hate it, some people will love it,
01:07:19and that you shouldn't, it shouldn't propel you one way or the other.
01:07:24The End
01:07:25The End
01:07:25The End
01:07:28The End
01:07:37The End
01:07:59Transcription by CastingWords
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