Harvard Book Store; WGBH Forum Network; Tony Blair: My Political Life

So tonight I am humbled to welcome you to a most unique conversation former Prime Minister Tony Blair will discuss his political career political career and his new memoir A Journey with renowned journalist Tina Brown Tina Brown is the author of The New York Times best seller The Diana Chronicles and has written for numerous publications including The London Sunday Times The Times of London Spectator and the Washington Post. Ms Brown is widely regarded for her revival of magazine publications. She has worked as editor in chief of the Tattler The New Yorker and Vanity Fair where during her tenure tenure they won four National Magazine Awards. Miss Brown is now has this audience no doubt knows operating as the wonderfully successful founder and editor editor in chief of The Daily Beast. And I'm thrilled that she's here to engage our guests tonight. Let's get this conversation started. Going to turn the introductions over now to Tina Brown. Please join me in welcoming Tina Brown. Thanks. Thank you have a good evening everybody and welcome to this very special event and thanks to the Harvard bookstore on the first parish church. It's an

app setting really for this conversation because the man with whom will spend the next hour has written in his new memoir that he's always been more interested in religion than politics. And it's rather hard to imagine where Tony Blair might be now had he gone off to work with God. I wonder if the pope knows that the man he's just welcoming to the Catholic Church he is an obsessive moderniser. Some would say I suppose that his political career was itself something of a miracle. He raised to the Labor Party from the dead and was elected three times. His government affected constitutional reforms modernizing expanded social services lead on gay rights and the environment. And of course he won peace in Northern Ireland that many thought impossible. Now he's founded the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and he speaks for the quartet in trying to find peace in another impossible situation the Middle East. Here in America. He's best known of course for his partnership with two very different presidents with Bill Clinton. He found a political soul mate in the

creation of the international center left alliance called the third way in Britain between Labor's class based statism and touches full throttle capitalism. The New Labor Party the welded together by his intelligence eloquence and political skill. So like Clinton to apply progressive policies to governance in the new era of globalization and interdependent. Together they fought the Kosovo war along with our NATO allies against ethnic cleansing without a single casualty. Then there was that other special relationship with George W. Bush will be visiting that subject and its consequences more than once tonight. But meanwhile when you please give me a very warm welcome to former Prime Minister Tony Blair. Thank you. So I remember that beautiful May date in 1997 when you came in is that young modernising new prime minister sweeping out those stodgy old Tories a triumphant reformer of your own marginalised party.

And. 12 years later here we are. It was controversial. There was a lot of. Tremendous highs and lows bitterness noise. You left. Really in a spirit somewhat of leaving it all to Gordon Brown because in a sense your popularity at that point had been eroded by the Iraq war. But through it all you were always somebody who could win elections. You who could sell books of a new book is a bestseller selling beyond belief in England and have gone on to do some extraordinary things now. It was something of a journey I suppose to actually write this book at all and. Before we get into the rest of it I really wanted to ask you what did you learn about yourself as you wrote it. Well first of all can I say it's a real pleasure to be in Cambridge Massachusetts in the first parish church and to thank the Harvard bookstore as well for giving

us the privilege of being here this evening and thank you very much Tina. We were university together in Stanley. Many many years ago. She she was way above my pay grade. I know I never really got to know her then I got to know her later and I would never have guessed if you told me when I was a student in a rock band at Oxford that I was going to be interviewed by you. Thirty odd years later I've been very surprised. I mean look. What I tried to do with the book is to write it in a different way. You know so it's a very personal account it's a human account of what it's like to be a decision maker an ordinary human being in living in extraordinary times. What did I learn about myself during the course of this. I think what was interesting is I was able to reflect back. On my time as prime minister. And. Trying to draw out some of the lessons not not just fought for my time as prime minister but lessons that are relevant to politics today.

So on the security issue obviously on the economic issue but also on the future of progressive politics. Because at the moment certainly in Europe. You know progressive politics is in a pretty difficult state and the left has been put out of power in most places in Europe right now. And so I wanted to write the book in a sense yes as a as a retrospective of my time in office and the decisions I took but also trying to frame some of the questions for the future too. When you look at the new young prime minister of Britain David Cameron and his young partner in the coalition Nick Clegg. Do you feel a commonality with them they've just come in on their journey and they face Of course here enormous problems different from yours but nonetheless pretty daunting. Well he's a Tory. So no I don't. Except that I do in one sense of course I mean the toughest thing in politics today is American politician actually who said that we campaign in poetry but we govern in prose.

And the problem is that you come in often. This may have echoes here in America you come in and a huge tidal wave of expectation. Right. Because they are a lot of people been there for a long time. They've become unpopular. You know your campaigning to get the job you get the job. And then what you find is that actually the realities that you face and the decisions that you have to take are difficult you know hard. And that. Very quickly takes the age of all that. Great Expectation off you I mean I remember straight after President Obama's. Victory meeting somebody in New York back in December 2008 before he'd actually taken over and she said to me Isn't it wonderful. Now everything is possible. And. I thought I said to her like what. And she said well everything and you have that feeling in a sense when you're the new government coming in. But very quickly you have to settle

down to the long hard slog difficult business of governing. Obviously. The Tea Party movement in the primaries yesterday had a lot to crow about. Now there was a lot of they've had you know some some some big big traction recently here. What do you think about the Tea Party movement America does it. How do you explain it come from looking at as you are as a tremendous professional you know political understanding of how politics works. What do you see in the Tea Party movement. I mean I think it's it's interesting if you compare this with what's happening in Europe right now as well. And basically might my. Thought of of today's world in today's politics is that we live in an era of low predictability. You know you look at the economy or security or any of these issues. It's really tough. To work out. Where things are going to go and what the right answers are. And in this climate therefore people get quite insecure.

And then someone comes along and says I've got the answer. And if they appear to be definitive enough and clear enough they can pull people towards them. So you could get an election in Europe. In fact some elections are being won in Europe on a sort of anti-immigrant you know pretty hardline right wing message. The Tea Party here obviously is in a different context but it's it's very much or a sense that we're going to take on the people in power we're going to change everything. You know everything is possible provided we kick these people out we put these people in. It's a very powerful and beguiling political message right now. And what it means is that those of us who are maybe more from the the center ground of politics. We've got to get on our mettle a bit I think. And get out there and argue with sufficient clarity and strenth ourselves about why some of these answers may sound very. You know attractive but actually don't really result in

much of an answer. And why in fact you know a sensible modernizing and more moderate position is actually where people should be because I think the other interesting thing. And I think you can see this here but you can see this again in Europe. Is that you've got. A sort of paradox happening. I think the center ground in terms of public support. Has never been stronger. But I notice a sort of quite partisan divide in terms of the way political parties are tending to approach things now and it's going to sink in any of that. It's so hard to find passionate centrists who can communicate with the same kind of vivid color. And connective tissue that the people in the marginal extremes of politics are able to do because you know you think it was Obama who was such a great communicator. If anybody. Could do it he could. And yet oddly enough. The language of centrism that you know you might say is embodied by him just doesn't connect in the same fervid way.

First of all. A sort of claim of opposition. Is so much in a sense more powerful. Than a claim of responsible government. You know so if you're out there. Saying. These people are rotten terrible move let our whole country down. It's a very strong and powerful message if you're there sitting there in a reasonable position in government saying well actually the following five policies are immensely relevant to how we determine our future and you know who are you. I mean you've got to you know frankly you've got a media environment today in which. You know you just imagine that in the NEWSROOM. Someone comes up and says. OBAMA I think is has got this on balance wrong because I think when we really analyze it it's not quite the right answer. No one's going to be reporting someone comes up and says. Obama is taking this country to hell in a handbasket. They're going to be on with you you know but it's nonetheless it is the job is as you found in politics

to to to to see those moments and figure out a way to connect with the part with that with the public and actually one of the most interesting things that I found in your book is a lot of the stuff I think that's the best in the book actually is your ability to explain the emotional quotient factor in politics and how important it is to understand these moments and be able to get a message across and you. You write that the moments when people switch on are defining moments. The trick is to spot them Missing them is very bad news the professional politician every waking moment is defining what when you're for you those kind of defining moments where you saw that and you came out. And one of them I can remember of course was that was the moment when Princess Diana died. I mean oddly enough that became a very defining moment when you did see importance in connecting immediately and making that statement of Sedgefield when you just come into office. She died and. No one was really speaking in the royal family at all and you came out and you made those statements about her being the people's princess do use Did you see that as that kind of

moment. I mean I kind of what one of things I did in the book is write about certain things like the events of Princess Diana and then chapters on Northern Ireland Iraq and 9/11 and so on. And I've tried to do it in a way where people can take those chapters as a whole and some of those defining moments with Princess Diana that was it was very much about how. My country at this particular moment came through this with. Respect for the monarchy intact. At the same time as as people felt very angry that someone they loved and was an iconic figure had been taken from them. But I think for me the beginning of the defining moment was about the Labor Party itself. Because we've been in power very little over 100 years of history. You know we've never won two successive full terms before I became the Labor Party leader in all of our history. We then won three and we were in power this last time for more than double the length of the

previous Labor government. And I remember it's very hard because making change in a political party is also very very difficult. For me this was a defining moment and when I was trying to change the Labor party we used to have. It like this a meeting here of people outside. Given voice and you know one of the. I used to be saying look we've got to reconnect with the electorate you know because we've been out of power for 18 years and people used to hold banners outside as I went into the meeting saying no compromise with the electorate. One of the all time great political slogans. For a Democratic Party and. You know I think so. That was obviously Defining I mean of course the issues to do with security but I think just to go back to this point. I think what the the people who are certainly from the progressive wing of politics what what we've got to do is have clarity because through clarity comes

strength and through strength comes the ability to persuade. And that's where I think we got to be. And you know that it's very very hard to do this because when you're subject to pressure from the extremes you can feel very squeezed and very uncomfortable actually in it. But I think you know recognizing that you need to be clear this is the way we're going to go. And then I think this is the test of leadership in the end being prepared to say this is where I'm prepared to go. And if you agree with that that's fine if you don't agree with that that's fine. But this is where as far as long as I'm leader we're going and I think you know in this. Climate of insecurity and uncertainty. I think that's a very important part of what we got to be about. I mean I found all the way through my leadership defining moments like that. One of them I remember very clearly as well was about. Part of the difficulty and this is something I try to explain in the book. He

has a an astonishing revelation. I mean political leaders in the end the human beings. You know they don't in fact come from Mars we just seem like that but we. We're not. And therefore one thing that you do when you come into government. Is. You learn you know you learn on the job and the job is difficult and the decisions are tough. But you actually learn to be somebody who is capable of recognizing those decision points and when they come actually taking the decisions. Well let's obviously now move to change your relationship with President Bush because there in lies so many questions about leadership and decisions that are probably very popular here. First of all I mean you say in the book that it's it's wrong to think that President Bush is stupid which has been very much the wrap that that he. Has had. You say he's actually quite smart but you you don't really give us explicit examples I mean

I. I was. Going to catch up. When did you say to yourself when you give us an example. Yeah I. Do it for us. Well I tell you what I what I thought. It's modern though in the way of Bill Clinton. No. But and this was the single most difficult thing for me because I was obviously from the progressive side of politics completely different politics. But I think there was there was a clarity about his view after September 11 that I share it. Now many people didn't and many people don't today but I did. And the difficulty was and I found myself obviously as. Time went on. It was extremely difficult for me to be a supporter particularly as a Labor Party leader of a Republican president

that was let's say not you know wildly popular in Britain at the time. And. Yet I you know this was the problem for me. I actually thought and think that on that central question namely that September the 11th changed the whole prism of foreign policy was basically right. So it was a. You know it was difficult and I think in relation to. This issue actually and him as a person I mean first of all I think your political system given you what you have to do to win the nomination and then what you have to do to win the presidency. I mean it's easy to caricature people as stupid but I personally think not many people survive that process unless they've got a certain basic level of intellect and indeed credibility. But I also think that. One of the hardest things about the political decision making now as we look at the world now. Is and I find myself and I say this in the book I actually don't think

people are foolish if they disagree with me on Afghanistan Iraq 9/11 any of the rest of it I think there's a perfectly rational case against. What we did. It's just that in the end. I came to the conclusion and went the way that I did. So now a lot of the book you very carefully in a very painstaking way said are teens out your case if you like. Why you did make this decision. About Iraq. And. That you today still feel strongly that it's something that you would really have done again or certainly that you don't regret having done. And you offer no apologies or order or you defend your decisions. But I actually did get the sense that. You are still working it through that you are fully. At peace if you like with the decision. I mean almost as if you were protesting you know a little too much. And teasing out just with a little too much. And phatic quest for the

detail. It was a one place where I didn't feel that you had stuff internal real clarity about. What happened. Well I think you'd be very wrong indeed. I'm somewhat lacking in humanity if given everything that's happened you didn't constantly reflect and reconsider and I do. And I think the hardest thing because I think you know to throw it forward we've got a very difficult decision on Iraq facing us right now. And I think these risks are incredibly difficult to judge. But I came to the conclusion in the end there was kind of two different ways of dealing with this. One way. Is. To manage this the world as it is this. Look you know I spend a lot of time out in the Middle East now. I see this this strain of extremism everywhere. But it's possible that the way to deal with it is to just manage it. Where there are countries that depart from proper norms of behavior you try and

circle them with sanctions or whatever and you try basically to create a situation in which there is a benign evolution. Of this extremism. Right that's one strategy. The other strategy is to say no this thing is never going to evolve in a benign way it has to be confronted. Now that in the end the decision that I took and the reason why. I took that was because of essentially because of what happened on 9/11 and the reason for that was because. That was the worst terrorist attack the world ever had 3000 people killed in one day in New York. My whole point there all the way through about that was and this is what changed my thinking in foreign policy terms. If those people could have killed 30000 or 300000 they would have done it. And they would still in my view. And therefore when I. Look at for example today the issue of Iran a nuclear weapons capability. My view is you cannot let them do that. You know you cannot let them acquire a nuclear weapon. Now some people would say to me what

are you crazy. You're actually not contemplating military action against Iran after everything we've been through. To which my answer is I don't want to contemplate it. I think we should try everything else. But I don't think you can take that option off the table. And yet the one thing I think that we don't all agree that Iraq taught us was this terrifying or unintended consequences that. In the taking hours if you like of you know one middle a maniac despot who is torturing his own people we let loose a Pandora's Box of absolute you know unintended consequences and tribal. Ritson and civil war and pouring in where they haven't been before. And all of the. Then getting into this. Terrible sort of toxic brew that then came forth in Iraq wasn't really that exactly the same thing lightly unfold in Iran and we haven't yet completed if we haven't will. The mission in

Afghanistan. So if he were to take your eye off the ball as we did with Iraq and go into Iran you be reproducing the same raft of problems all over again. It's a completely reasonable point. So what do you do. Because here's the thing that I think is toughest of all because sometimes people say to me look. It's not Iraq it's Afghanistan or is not Iraq or Afghanistan is really Pakistan you want to worry about and someone else is Iran. And then someone else rightly would say today well look at Yemen. You know look at Somalia. If you just take the middle of dispute in the Philippines 150000 people have died in that. I mean especially in the news we most people wouldn't even know what that was about. You look at what his blower is doing in Lebanon. You look at how Hamas on the day literally the day we started the quest for a new peace between the Israelis and Palestinians they go and kill. A group of settlers but including a pregnant woman and the parents of six children and put out a statement afterward saying the people who killed them are heroes financed by Iran I'm afraid.

Now. Do you let those people get a nuclear weapon. It's that's the issue and it's you know the thing is and this is what I think is so important about the political debate and one of the things I try to get across to people. You know we're not going to resolve this by one group of people saying the warmongers the other group of people saying you're sort of the pieces. This is not. This is not it's not like that. It's a really really difficult decision. Now if I was a decision maker today I wouldn't take the risk of Iran with a nuclear weapon. But if you say to me well. Look at the consequences that could flow from from that position that I'm taking. I agree. Huge and severe. And difficult. But I wouldn't let them do that. I wouldn't let the. Well I think that you know one of the sources I guess of. Somewhat of the bitterness in a way in the in the U.K. for those who who don't seem to

feel they will ever get over Iraq is just a sense that you were so run over by the Bush express train that you pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with Bush. And yet when you argued for the second U.N. resolution authorizing military action. BUSH You know he made the decision anyway to go ahead without it. And the President Clinton told the author Andrew Rawnsley Tony was caught naked in the middle of the room. Wasn't that thing you were humiliating them or didn't you feel let down by your partner in this enterprise. We couldn't get the second resolution because in the end it was a political decision by Russia and France not to back it so it was never going to happen that way. I mean I would have given you a moral high ground from which you could at least have protected your own political. You know I may have been able better to protect my own politics but let's be honest about this it wouldn't have made a difference to what was going to go on after the removal of Saddam because that was the problem. And that in itself holds a really important lesson in

this. The truth is we got rid of Saddam in two months. From the middle of June from the middle of 2003 in June 2003 we were there American forces British forces the forces of other countries full UN authority with the UN process UN people moved in. Set up the electoral process open the office in Baghdad. What happened. Was the terrorism came in from the outside. Al Qaeda linking up with some insurgents is true but basically al-Qaeda on the one side Iranian backed militias on the other. And the problem that I have with the the idea that. Well if you knew that all those people were going to come in and do this should you then have just stayed out. Is I think we got to be really careful as to what we're saying here. You know because. That. An external force that started operating on Iraq is of course exactly the same type of phenomenon we see not just right around the Middle East but of course in Afghanistan where it's also very difficult today. And where in a sense everybody you know from. Pretty much a point on the left spectrum

right through to the right thought that it was the right thing to do. And I feel look this is just my view about this and I I base this. As much as anything else on spending time out in that part of the world. I think we are in a situation where there is this strain of extremism. It's based on a perversion of the proper faith of Islam which is a peaceful and decent faith. But it's there. And. It's narrative which is that West the West is oppressing Islam. Reaches I think far deeper into the spectrum of opinion out there than we really think. And so you know you feel that at the time though you didn't ask perhaps deep enough questions about that about the. Contextual. All these issues of Islam and him and the Sex and the differences between them and what we could possibly be staring up to this I think on the

same divide I think we did ask the questions but I think you're right to this extent and I say this in the book that I mean I know a lot more about this now than I did then and we know a lot more about it. I'm not sure though there would have been right to have let those people at home if you'd known about it say OK we'll as one Iraqi put it to me so we got a choice between rule by Saddam and rule by terrorists. I mean why can't we have your choice which I think is a reasonable position I think you know to me the key thing is if Afghans and Iraqis and you know I can think of other cases as well. If those people were saying to us Look we don't want this democracy as a Western idea go take that somewhere else but they're not. And you know I think one of the most important things in the Middle East right now is that there are people and countries that are developing democratic institutions just beginning to do it. We should be encouraging them we should partner alongside them so I don't think the answer to this is all

military might and hard power. There's a whole soft power agenda that we need alongside with it. But where the terrorists are using these terrorist activities and tactics I do think it's important we stand up and that we are prepared to confront them and defeat them. But obviously in taking on this position this shoulder to shoulder with. The Bush administration which was so following unpopular in the UK you knew you lost that political capital that you had of the sense with your your own nation and when you went you had an argument with your own country in a sense. Wise thing to do. And I'm I seem to do that regrettably land politicians you know and they and it and it still rankles as we know tremendously so. And of course at the same time it probably didn't help you in your battles with the man of the K. who was started as your partner in New Labor and really became an internal rival who was the chancellor of the Exchequer your colleague Gordon Brown who always thought that he should have been the prime minister except that he wasn't. You were. Not

an uncommon thing actually in politics you know and you write about the titanic struggles between you and I. Think a lot of people think well you know him you were willing to take such strong. Sort of clear positions when it came to you know facing down Saddam Hussein taking the decision to persuade President Clinton that we must go into Kosovo and. These kind of decisions. And yet you didn't seem to like confronting or wanting to confront this kind of worm in the bud in your own in your own political administration I mean you know you say What have not been tenable you said you know politically to have got short of Gordon Brown when he started to become. A water instead of a helper. But why not just face it out why not just have that bloody fight politically. Gordon's here next week incidentally. So. I go on and actually I hope some of you get a chance to hear him and to see him because the little probably answer that question. The fact is.

Here is what we had a severe political disagreement. And it was very very difficult. But I will always say and do say in the book he's also someone of absolutely outstanding brilliance played an enormous part for example in the financial crisis internationally was a great part of the government. And you know in politics. People fall out from time to time. The point is that in the end obviously he wanted to be prime minister and I was prime minister but the reason wasn't a fear of confronting him it was a judgment that in the end his presence in the government was better than his absence. Well he's certainly not Mr now. I was it was that I mean obviously he had this obsession. That. He was put on earth to be the prime minister and that he was going to be the person who followed you. My only question is just why did you not. Could you not disabuse him of the notion that stuff happens corny you know I got it in you didn't.

You know do you like politics. Yeah I mean people it is very hard to disabuse someone of the notion they shouldn't be Prime Minister let me tell you. I mean you know you're in a sense at the end he was really undermining you. The king on you creating negative press around you having factions around you and in the sense he did weigh you down and you left and left him to be prime minister. But you know when I look back on the government and think we were in power as I say more than twice as long as the last Labor government he was a big part of that. So yes I mean you know I haven't written in the book and I describe in the book it's a this was an interesting interesting partnership as well because of course we were you know very very close political friends and we are personal friends indeed all throughout the 1980s when the Labor Party was in the wilderness and we were thinking through all this goes back a long way this relationship and it's. People always ask me to explain and I never can. It's complex and

it's difficult but in the end I retained and still retain an immense affection for him and incidentally you know you're right that people can be very harsh about him now but I actually say in the book that I mean they underestimated. His. Ability to be prime minister when he wasn't. And. They. Actually underestimate his time as prime minister now. And I think the single biggest decision he had to make and it was the biggest decision that any political leaders had to make a long time I mean probably on a par with some of the decisions I had to make was in the financial crisis he stepped in to recapitalize the banks in an imaginative way in a way that was really important for the future. So. I don't you know funnily enough people often felt harder against him on my behalf than I did myself. But as you looked. At what happened after you left. And. Now. He's gone. We have.

David Cameron. And you talked a lot in the end. Later part of the book about how you wanted him to continue your reform agenda. Yeah. Well the last thing that you know that's going to happen is that because now we have a Tory government. So in fact he let you down in that regard and he didn't manage to. Well that was the disagreement. I mean look I have remained we leave aside all this kind of foreign policy issues for a moment in terms of where progressive politics is. I have a very very clear view for the Labor Party for the Democrats for progressive politics in Europe and elsewhere. We win when we're at the cutting edge of the future. We win when we're prepared to make the changes in public services and welfare in our system of government that mean that we understand the world today is not the world as it was you know and if you give people a choice between a big state and a minimalist state. That the right one they'll choose a minimalist state. Unfortunately in my view if you give them a choice between a big state a minimalist state and what I would call a strategic state that is about empowering people

rather than controlling their lives they will choose that way. You know that's why Bill Clinton and I with the progressive politicians and in the end I wanted to push ahead on school reform health care reform pensions welfare and in very much a sort of new labor new Democrat way and God didn't agree with that and that was the disagreement really between us. But you know there it is. You feel that foreign policy. Dramas that consumed you know with Iraq. And Afghanistan and so on actually did the really there's someone from the modernising agenda but when you talk in the not an interesting manner and actually amusing in your book about the Prime Minister's time management being everything and it's always struck me when I when I see something like that happening like the you know that the consuming nature of something like the Iraq business or in the case of our many chose to do health care how much really can can one leader do at a time in the middle of the you know there's a kind of. PR of it is always all we can deal with a lot of things at any one time and it's never going to be absorbed into

one issue but actually Surely that's not true. Life is is what it is and you are absorbed with one issue and we didn't did Iraq not only consume you for several reasons following up in my second term 2001 2005 was when we really started to get public service reform going I mean part of the trouble is in politics you would love things to happen. In an orderly and sequin sure way. You know we would spend six months on economic policy and then afterwards we'll have a foreign policy crisis and then we can deal with that. And then we'll go on to health care reform because that will then be the issue of the debt. It doesn't happen like that. And you know I came into office. I mean you know in these these these questions that they ask you know people running for office they say kind of. Name the foreign minister of Spain. And go on. You know I wouldn't I didn't know much about foreign policy I mean fact. You know I remember about a few months into my premiership you know I speak French but not as

well as I thought I did. And so I guess I get you know not understanding all the complexities of this foreign policy. I decide to do a press conference with the then French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin I decide to do it live in French. And so a French journalist gets up and asks me in French whether there are any policy positions of the French prime minister I desire to emulate. Right. I mean to say. There are many policy positions of the French prime minister I desire to emulate instead of which I get phrases wrong in French and what I actually say is I desire the French prime minister in many different positions. I. You know. You. Think this is. Why you have to recover from I can tell you that you did blush Actually I think it's meant that you shouldn't be I think that you will be able. To be that way inclined but it is so

foreign policy if you told me that the foreign policy is going to dominate my premiership when I went in 1997 I would be horrified actually. But that's the way it is so you have to get used to dealing with things at the same time. And you know I find this when I'm here and people say to me why President Obama should have done this thing first and that thing next and you know he should be on the economy and never mind the Middle East peace process I'm saying hang on a minute. Because the the entry is the entry. OK. You can't just say I'm sorry. Can you guys in Israel and Palestine just hang on a couple of years we'll get through this and I'll come back and deal with. It's not like that never it's you know one of the things I'm crushed to read in your book is that mean for years everybody here I think particularly has you know watch their C-SPAN and seen you on prime prime minister's question time and seen this incredible gladiatorial process where you carried him frosted and did things with great ally now in your book of course we know that you were in complete agony and that you would be throwing up before Prime Minister's Question Time. Is that a useful process. You know when you're talking

about dealing with the. Did it hone your thoughts did it make you more of a you know I honed think going through that as you talk you've talked about Claritin you've talked about you know the need to be able to answer questions when you're there. Do you think that that process was a help. No. So Frank the prime minister's questions because it's usually people in the US will say to me you must really miss prime minister's questions. I mean it was the most terrifying thing and you know even now Wednesday today isn't it. Three minutes to twelve I feel a chill on the bag because. What used to happen is I used to go over the House of Commons and I do little room the primus has a little room just behind the House of Commons chamber and there is the MP who looks after the prime minister has called these people yes always at three minutes to 12 every Wednesday. We would throw the door open you know use the I used to watch the minutes as they tick by going up three minutes to twelve and I was like being led

along the execution chamber. And used to throw the door open this guy and you say Prime Minister a grateful nation awaits. Go in and they abuse you used to get and it was just because people would be the thing that people never quite understand is a lot of the noise isn't picked up but people will be very very close like the front row the pew there and you know when you would be standing at the dispatch box it wasn't just that you have to answer the questions but people like the Tories on the front bench would be they'd be shouting at you the whole way through. They'd be saying things like he is really ill today. They used to make remarks about your clothing. Take you to where your you were you know buttoned up or not and that type of thing and it was completely so you be having all this coming at you and then thinking I'm going to answer this question and physical it will. It was a it was a physical. Yes it was a physical deal and it was

I mean it's a great part of the theater. But. You know there is a there is a myth that the prime minister is held to account that way. I mean I know people get upset when I say this in England but. It's really you know no one's really interested when they asked the question in the answer. What they're interested in particularly striking here because we do tend to feel that the president is so managed I mean the press corps I know when I first came here from the U.K. felt as if the presidential press conference was such a kind of managed stage there really wasn't any real exposure to the stance of the problem that the president would be exposed to any REAL. Total kind of searing questions that would just take him apart. You know I mean I think those you know your position with the president is different as you present your head of state. So. I think. I mean I call it the respect shown to the office of president you would be like what is not out of the prime minister at all because of course we've got the Queen so it's

not like that but I think that look by the way that you know there's a there's a controversy about the fact that your count of how you met the queen. Is exactly like the movie of the Queen and the writer of the movie of the queen says that it couldn't have been like that because he made it up. Now did you really meet the queen. Did you meet Helen Mirren. Well you know I read that the guy who did the movie said this. I mean I actually told the story for years. It happens to be the true story. What happened was that when I went in for the for the audience with the queen Well there are two things that happened. I don't know that this is in the movie. I haven't seen the film for reasons I will give you in a moment but my wife has and my kids have and lots of my friends are. What happens. We have an election campaign that's about four weeks. It's a little different from you and. But what we don't have is the is the interregnum. After the campaign and before you take office so you literally. Thursday's polling day Friday

you're in as prime minister. So you're completely exhausted instantly because you've been up all night listening to the results and you know making speeches and so on and so forth and you go along to Buckingham Palace to see them become the prime minister because you're not. The prime minister until the head of state has a blessed you and made you the prime minister as it were. So. I go along for the ceremony which is which is called the ceremony of kissing hands. This is the tradition. Anyway I'm standing there an absolute exhausted before I go in and see the queen is in the room next door. And this is one of these very aristocratic English types standing there and her dress an extraordinary sort of costume. And he says to me just before I'm about to go in he says to me. Mr. Blair I should tell you. That the ceremony of kissing hands does not actually involve. Kissing the Queen's hands. You brushed them gently.

I'm completely full but I say what I'm trying to think of. What that means describe. When the door opens I mash it in a number of my minds and I trip over the carpet just before that when she's sitting in the chair and I she neither kiss her hands nor brush them before all about me. Which I then do but then you know once we'd settled down opposite each other. But. She then said to me. Well my first prime minister was Winston and that was before you were born. So that is actually what happened and she was actually immensely gracious and very decent to me as a matter of fact but you were aware that you were sitting opposite. A piece of history in a sense. And when I had my little investiture you know what. It's quite a daunting business.

It is because you always and especially if you're brought up in as you know. In England I remember when I was a kid in Durham in the north of England the Queen came to town you know standing waving the flag by the by the roadside so it's. It's one of the things that you know that's very much about our system. And there we are but no. Whether it's in his film or not. It's. True. And I'm going to tell you why why and watch the film. Yeah. Because when the film came out. I had my audience with the queen. Right. There in the real queen not Helen Mirren. So. I was sitting like this and you always sat in the tree just the two of you in the room and you would have about an hour and a half together talking about everything in the world everything. And the queen says to me this occasion I sit down and she says to me. I hear this a film. As of course it says about us.

In. Spirit. However there is another movie said I should just inform you that I shall be watching it. So I then said don't suppose I will be I'll go there. And I have to love it that's great. Well let's get back to that comment. You know you said at the beginning I said at the beginning you mention in the beginning that you said that you really need more religion into that of religion and politics which is really extraordinary that you throw that out about page six hundred thirty six and. You've now got your faith foundation but can you just tell us. What a little bit about your faith journey I mean you recently became a Catholic. How does your face inform your decisions. Well here is the thing is people say often you say religion is more important than politics and they don't talk a lot about religion in the book or not very much and. I would say about my faith that I mean I am somewhat of religious faith in what I believe and

so on. But. The trouble is faith can give you strength. It can be very important in your life it can be a major part of your life a major part of the way that you feel as a human being. The thing is however it doesn't tell you the right policy answer. And that's the problem and so I used to say to people I mean I don't go into a corner and pray to God and say you know what should the minimum wage be next year because I don't get an answer. And actually even on the difficult decision the repeat will often ask about the decisions of war and peace. I'm afraid your faith can give you your values it can give you as I say your your your your belief system but it can't tell you the right answer. The reason I'm working on. The issues to do with religion today though is that I do. Passionately believe that the issue for the 21st century. Will not be fundamentalist political ideology. I mean I think the era of left versus right in a very fundamentalist way I think is a 20th century issue. I think however that the 21st century could be. About

fundamentalist religious or cultural ideology. And I think the single most interesting thing you see this here you see this right round Europe at the moment is religion. And its position in the public space is a huge issue. But of course we have the ultimate teachable moment on that for your faith foundation with this whole about the mosque and Ground Zero. How did that. Controversy list you know this inflamed issue happened in your country when you were prime minister. If this same issue would come up perhaps on the ground in the venue of where the the the the July bombings happened in the U.K. and a mosque was being put up. How would you have handled it. I think there's a really really important principle in a sense we did have a similar type of issue actually when I was prime minister. Which was about where the Muslims should be entitled to have Muslim schools because we have we have church schools in the UK. And we have actually Jewish schools in the UK. People are allowed to do that in a way you're not in your public school

system here. And the issue was whether the Muslims could start. Their schools. And I took the view then and I would take it now about any similar issue is that one of the civilised values we're fighting for is that people should be treated equally irrespective of their religious faith. And you cannot say that that is true for Christians but not for Muslims. And you know one of the things that we're going to have to do in the world in which we live today is we're going to have to stand up. For that civilized value. And. The people we want standing alongside us are not just people of our own religious faith. You know we want Jews and Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists. This this is extreme Islam as it is is based on a perversion of Islam it is a strain within Islam and you can't deny that. And I think it's foolish to deny it. But let's be absolutely clear the way to defeated is to say. That. You may have your

views to the right religious path. As a Muslim I have mine as a Christian but I will respect you and treat you as an equal and will not discriminate against you. And that is to me absolutely fundamental. You know I introduced actually the first Muslims into the House of Lords. I made the first Muslim minister that we'd ever had in my government. And you know the first military action I took was actually in respect of cause over where we were. We were protecting was limbs against a Christian country in Serbia. And I just think you know I really do believe this the only way we are going to win in the 21st century is on the basis of mutual respect and solidarity between people of different faiths and anything else. Plays into the hands of those who want to religious conflict. Terry I just want to ask you one last question now. He said as you were you say at the end of your book it has never been entirely clear

where the journey I've taken is one of triumph of the person over the politics. Or the politics over the person. The book's called the journey. But is there more personal book to be written do you think as you further resolved that question. I don't know I think you know one book's enough for the moment. I think I don't know what in the end I think and hope you'll get from the book. And this is why I wrote in the way that I I did write tonight. I wrote it laboriously longhand since my technological skills are somewhat limited. What I've tried to do. Is to give you a personal and human account of what it's like to be a decision maker. And the most The hardest thing I mean I love going in addressing groups of young people particularly actually in schools and things where I kind of look at them all gazing up at me you know when you're prime minister a country you go along you know you are the prime minister and this sort of thing is interesting as the

prime minister you see him on the telly and. You know I try to explain to them. I was like you were. You know. And. Actually. You have the same doubts and hesitations and worries and inadequacies that anyone else has. And one of the. Problems with today's politics is people want to know far more about their politicians and their decision making. You know you know far more about their private lives about the people around them. You know they've filled the gossip columns you really wonder in your politics here or in ours back home you how would Winston Churchill and Lloyd George and John F. Kennedy and everyone fared today I mean I would you know with all that degree of scrutiny and what I wanted to do in the book is say. If that's the way it is which it probably is today you want to know far more you're going to know far more than know it from the other side of the fence as well. Because otherwise what you do is you invest in your politicians hopes that can't be realized. And expectations that are bound

to be disappointed. In the single most important thing to realize in the end is the only way government today works in the modern world where people can afford to put their politicians really on a pedestal. But should have some regard for their humanity. Is through partnership. Through some sense of shared responsibility between the government and the government. And the real problem is that. That is. Harder for all of us not just hard for the politicians hard for the people as well and the people. It's so easy for them to say it's their fault. So check them out. And all that does actually is lead to a fresh wave of expectation and then a fresh wave of disappointment. And actually if you come to a more realistic more sensible more practical. Better grounded. Your understanding. Of what decision making is about and the fact that there are human beings like you that are put in these decisions of responsibility the more that

happens. The better we will evolve our democracy into something. A more understanding more sensitive. And therefore more real and more effective. And that's what I've tried to do. Thank you very much today. Thank you.