Tony Blair's A Journey is One Long Justification

Tony Blair's long awaited memoirs, A Journey: My Political Life, detail the career of the most important British politician of his generation. Sadly, Mr. Blair seems unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the dreadful decision to go to war in Iraq-Nam while taking credit for achievements in Britain that more rightly belong to others. It is not that Mr. Blair is a liar or a cad, quite the opposite in most situations. Rather, his imagination fails him in considering other, more fact-based interpretations of his career.

On the credit side of the ledger, Mr. Blair took Labour to three consecutive election victories and rebranded the party as a moderate collection of social democrats and trade unions -- a big change from the somewhat democratic and definitely socialist party it was under Michael Foote. Here, Mr. Blair merely built on Neil Kinnock's reform efforts, but he did so brilliantly. When the 18 years of Tory rule ended, there was an audible sigh of relief across Britain. He achieved a peace deal in Northern Ireland, and he helped end the war in Kosovo. He boosted the idea of aspiration in a country that was still class bound (and remains so to a large extent).

On devolution, education and British economics, Mr. Blair's term was a mixed bag. That there is now a Scottish Parliament and a Welsh assembly is all to the good. However, his attempt to create regional government in England was an unmitigated failure. On education, he succeeded in boosting the independence of the schools and increased parent involvement; yet, he forced a generation of students into debt with tuition fees (a UK university education used to be at taxpayers' expense, much like primary and secondary was). On the economic front, he left Britain richer than he found it. At the same time, he (along with Mr. Brown) followed a non-regulation policy that sunk the economy when Wall Street crumbled in 2008.

In the end, though, Mr. Blair cannot escape the shadow of the War in Iraq-Nam. He states that it was the right thing to do, but he refuses to see that it was fought on false pretenses. He claims the intelligence on the Saddamites' Weapons of Mass Destruction was merely wrong and that was excusable because of all the good that has flowed from the attack. However, the people only see that there were not WMD, so it was all nonsense. Mr. Blair fails to see this,

As for his pal, George Bush, Mr. Blair is full of praise. He says that Mr. Bush is one of the most decisive leaders, a smart man, and a good friend. This journal can agree to an extent. Mr. Bush was decisive as president; most of his decisions were lousy. He is a smart man (Yale and Harvard), but he is intellectually lazy (a hold over from a dyslexic childhood?) and often acts before thinking. As for a good friend, one has no basis to dissent.

Mr. Blair's relationship with Gordon Brown, the Chancellor and his successor, was far more dysfunctional than anyone could have imagined. Upon the death of Labour Leader John Smith, Gordon Brown was initially the front-runner, but Mr. Blair elbowed him aside without a vote on the matter. This led to the Blairite and Brownite divide that poisoned Mr. Blair's last term and ruined Mr. Brown's turn as Prime Minister. Mr. Blair never believed that Mr. Brown was truly New Labour enough, and he was unwilling to resign in favor of the Scotsman until he was convinced that Blairism would triumph. In short, Mr. Blair wanted to continue his policies but would let Mr. Brown do the heavy lifting. Any politician worth his salt would know this could not work.

In the end, Mr. Blair's foray into rebranding Labour is best summed up by the man himself, "the party and the voters were in two different places . . . the voters are right and we should change not because were have to, but because we want to." This really is not leadership. Elsewhere, he writes, "back in the late 1980s there was a group of rock musicians called Red Wedge, fronted by people like Paul Weller and Billy Bragg, who came out and campaigned for us. It was great but I remember saying after one of their gigs . . . 'we need to reach the people listening to Duran Duran and Madonna.' (a comment which went down like a cup of sick)." A true leader would have found a way to get the Durranies and Madonna-ites to widen their taste.

© Copyright 2010 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.

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