Tony Bliars new book....

by JKLever Wed 01 Sep 2010, 16:07

"…that night she cradled me in her arms and soothed me; told me what I needed to be told; strengthened me; made me feel that I was about to do was right … On that night of the 12th May, 1994, I needed that love Cherie gave me, selfishly. I devoured it to give me strength. I was an animal following my instinct, knowing I would need every ounce of emotional power to cope with what lay ahead. I was exhilarated, afraid and determined in roughly equal quantities."

by Guest Wed 01 Sep 2010, 16:17

Indeed, awful stuff.

by PeterCS Wed 01 Sep 2010, 18:48

That is the bad personal stuff.

The bad political stuff is worse. "The Man"'s self-righteous effrontery knows no bounds.

("The Man" - in Chris Mullen's antidotal account of the New Labour project)

by Allan D Sun 05 Sep 2010, 16:16

While it is an open question as to whether or not Blair would have made a reasonable living had he remained at the Bar, on the basis of this book he certainly would have struggled as a writer. Unlike the memoirs of Lloyd George and Churchill, which were also best-sellers (making a considerable personal profit for their authors rather than for charity), Blair writes as he speaks unlike the two war Premiers who spoke as they wrote.

George Orwell, in a celebrated review of Volume II of Churchill's WWII memoirs ("Their Finest Hour") covering the period from the beginning of his Premiership to the end of 1940, described it as having the feel of a book "written by a human being". Blair's book certainly passes the human being test but the character that emerges is not the flawed Shakespearean warrior in Churchill's books but that of a rather irritating next-door neighbour constantly button-holing you into conversation.

Here he is describing a banquet for the G8 in 2005 presided over by H.M.The Queen:

This dinner was good. The Queen handled them all well, though some guests didn't know how to handle her.Some got matey with her. Now let me tell you something: you don't get matey with the Queen. Occasionally she can be matey with you, but don't try to reciprocate or you get The Look. I watched with some amusement those who understood the difference between a queen and a president and those who didn't. Both are heads of state, but the Queen is the Queen. That's royalty, not some jumped-up elected pleb. And don't you forget it.

A Journey p.583

Errr, quite.

While all political memoirs are essentially exercises in self-justification many provide useful insights into the process of decision-making and those that take them and, very occasionally, as in the cases of Lloyd George and Churchill, scale the heights of literature. Both the latter's books (including Churchill's history of WWI - The World Crisis 1911-18 written in the 1920s which masqueraded as popular history but was in reality a platform for the author to put forward an extended, but very coherent, defence of the 1915 Dardanelles Campaign) rank alongside Julius Caesar's history of his Gallic campaigns and Ulysses Grant's account of his role in the American Civil War as classics of the genre.

Blair's book, at first sight, cannot be placed in this category. Unlike his successor Blair is a fluent speaker and can present a rational and lucid argument, even if you don't agree with it, as he did when making the case for the intervention in Iraq to the House of Commons in March 2003 but he appears not to have deployed these skills, for the most part, when writing his book.

Here, in the opening passage of the book, is how Blair describes his accession to the Premiership in 1997:

The election night of 1 May had passed in a riot of celebration, exhilaration and expectation. History was not so much being made, as jumping up and down and dancing. Eighteen years of Conservative government had ended. Labour - New Labour - had won by a landslide. It felt as if a fresh era was beginning. As I walked through the iron gates into Downing Street, and as the crowd - carefully assembled, carefully managed - pressed forward in enthusiasm, despite the setting, the managing and the fatigue of being up all night. I could feel the emotion like a charge. It ran not just through the crowd but through the country. It affected everyone, lifting them up, giving them hope, making them believe all things were possible, that by the very act of election and the spirit surrounding it, the world could be changed.

Everyone except for me, that is. My predominant feeling was fear, and of a sort unlike anything I had felt before, deeper even than the fear I had felt the day I knew I was going to take over the leadership of the Labour Party.

Compare this account with the description Winston Churchill gives of his feelings on first entering Downing Street in rather different circumstances, when there were no cheering crowds, carefully managed or otherwise, almost exactly 57 years before at the end of the first volume of his history of WWII, The Gathering Storm:

During these last days of the political crisis my pulse had not quickened at any moment. I took it all as it came. But I cannot conceal from the reader of this truthful account that as I went to bed at about 3 am I was conscious of a profound sense of relief. At last I had the authority to give directions over the whole scene. I felt as if I were walking with destiny, and that all my past life had been but a preparation for this hour and for this trial. Ten years in the political wilderness had freed me from ordinary party antagonisms. My warnings over the last six years had been so numerous, so detailed, and were now so terribly vindicated, that no one could gainsay me. I could not be reproached either for making the war or with want of preparation for it. I thought I knew a good deal about it all, and I was sure I should not fail. Therefore, although impatient for the morning, I slept soundly and had no need of cheering dreams. Facts are better than dreams.

No confession of fearfulness on Churchill's part, even though he had infinitely more to be fearful about in 1940 than Blair had in 1997.

Although I supported Blair (though didn't vote Labour during his period of office) including, unlike most of the forummers here, his intervention in Iraq and thought he was, unlike his successor, a competent and effective Prime Minister I believe the two examples quoted above show that there has not only been an historical decline in the quality of statesmanship but also a decline in the quality of language used by those who rule over us.

by Gary 111 Sun 05 Sep 2010, 22:53

Legend.

by Allan D Sun 05 Sep 2010, 23:54

Churchill's account of his feelings on taking office, although, unlike Blair's, brilliantly written should perhaps be taken with more than a pinch of salt. Churchill never kept a diary, as far as we know, and his remembrance is recollected in the tranquility of 1947-8 when the outcome was known.

A more instructive illumination into his feelings at the time comes in a snatch of conversation recorded by Inspector Thompson, his personal bodyguard, while they were en route to Buckingham Palace to receive the seals of office from George VI. Thompson asked him:

Do you think we'll get through this, sir?

to which Churchill replied

I very much hope so, Thompson, but I fear we may have left it all too late.

by Merlin Mon 06 Sep 2010, 08:41

...the two examples quoted above show that there has not only been an historical decline in the quality of statesmanship but also a decline in the quality of language used by those who rule over us.

Absolute fact.

But tread carefully AD, the mere mention of Churchill might just raise the myopic nationalist fervour in TO, enough to cause him to launch yet another anti-Empire tirade on the forum!!

by Allan D Mon 06 Sep 2010, 14:50

I know, Merls, the convicts still blame the old boy for not financing the building of defences on the peninsula side of Singapore when he was Chancellor in the 1920s but what the heck, as he himself said:

We will have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst - and we will do our best.

by Sponsored content

Tony Bliars new book....

Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....

Re: Tony Bliars new book....