Charlie Wolf

Beyond the spin, Tony Blair really was a force for good

By Charlie Wolf - Thursday 2nd 2010f September 2010

Tony Blair’s publication of his memoirs, "A Journey", today, brings his Premiership back into focus.

More unexpectedly than not, the headlines revolve around his relationship with Gordon Brown than the war that brought him most notoriety.

Last Sunday I debated his legacy, specifically as a force for good on BBC1's religious and ethics programme Sunday Morning Live hosted by Susanna Read. Also on the panel were the journalist Francis Beckett and religious commentator Anne Atkins.

A legacy, or being a force for good, is specific and different from a general political assessment. It can find an old Labour Socialist like Beckett deriding a political fellow traveller like Blair, while a social and political conservative like myself defends him.

Whatever one's politics, it is undoubted that Blair is easily one of the greatest politicians of his generation. He brought a moribund and totally unelectable Labour party out of the wilderness to win not just one, but an unprecedented three elections. His style of politics and campaigning would not only influence his successor by one, David Cameron, but Barack Obama as well.

One can easily deride, criticise and, rightfully so, expose the flaws of third way politics but it presented politics in a new and powerful style. Of course it was a style we would go on to see through; the spin over the substances finally exposed; third way being nothing but politics by polling numbers and Blair in essence the least and most convictional politicians of our time.

Blair brought Labour into the 21st Century and his party have derided him for it, even if Iraq had never happened. For Conservatives, his party’s spending from his unstoppable Chancellor, (characterised in his book as the “strange guy” and “maddening” Gordon Brown) have left the country near bankrupt and a state government as overgrown, unmanageable and strangulating as the vines on an old unkempt country house. And that is but one area his policies can be criticised.

What qualifies Blair for greatness, as a force for good, as with George Bush, however was his reaction to 9/11 and the ability to understand a threat that was bigger than all of us and the need to act to face a challenge bigger than himself or his party.

Far from being "Bush's poodle" the man who relied on polls and bringing all the people on board, went totally against type, against the polls and with his convictions.

It was a major act of political courage and political will. He realised that radical Islamism, and political Jihad, was a danger against this country. His actions could lose him an election (though in the end they did not) but this was not as important as the bigger battle.

Blair, Bush and Spain’s José Maria Aznar and few others were the first to see the threat was not one of civil justice but of a war: A war of hearts and minds, intelligence, security, diplomacy and most importantly military action.

No, Bush, Blair and company did not fight the war perfectly but neither did Washington, Lincoln or Churchill fight theirs perfectly either. But they stepped up to the plate and fought. Blair’s detractors are reduced to quibbling over finer points and loose ends.

From that experience, Tony Blair has grown to be a statesman and is not afraid to stand-up for right. This barrister is now able to speak in simple terms without a lawyer’s parsing. Substance has replaced style

Tony Blair's Herzliya speech last week is a case in point. Blair challenged those who delegitimize Israel at every level; from the terrorists who refuse and dispute her very existence to those of the intellectual left who wittingly or unwittingly delegitimize her daily by holding Israel to a standard they wouldn’t hold their own country’s to. Maybe for a man derided and delegitimized himself at every turn as a "war criminal" he has deeper insight into this subject. He wasn’t uncritical of Israel, but he was fair.

Compare Blair's simple but powerful speech with the recent offering of David Cameron in Turkey. While trying to curry favour with the Turks, the Prime Minister, in a weak, shilly shallying speech happily threw Israel under the bus with absurd and baseless charges. The speech was as bad as his 9/11 fifth anniversary speech when he did the same to the Americans; where politics took precedence over statesmanship.

Because of their own experiences dealing with terrorism, Blair, Bush and Aznar have become three of Israel’s strongest friends. We need more like them.