Blair after Chilcot - Power Corrupts

One forgets. Time passes, a succession of new demands and preoccupations gradually blur our memory of things we once knew so well: faces, characteristic expressions, tones of voice. So it was with a sudden strong rush of recognition that I caught snatches of Tony Blair's marathon press conference on the day the Chilcot report was released. There it all was again - the throb in the voice - the pauses for emphasis in strange places - the sensation of watching an actor, and rather a stagy one. But an actor needs the consent of the audience for his art to take effect, whereas here was the singular spectacle of an actor carrying on despite the fact that almost no one agreed with or believed any more in what he was saying or how he said it: like someone suffering from the delusion that they are the Pope continuing to insist that they are and behaving as if they are while everyone they address knows that they aren't; the consent of his audience had long since drained away. The exaggerated sincerity of Blair's delivery has the result of seeming precisely insincere. It made me think of the French saying "On connaît la chanson" which means "That old one !" or "I've heard it all before." Because we have heard it all before. This is not 2005, 2001, 1997 or even 1995. That last is more than 20 years ago.

Here is an example of his style in the press conference. Instead of a simple apology - "I was wrong, I'm sorry" - Blair produced a florid and contorted soundbite:

"For all of this I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you may ever know or can believe."

It sounds impressive in a hollow sort of way, but is remarkably vague. No matter how many times I read or hear it, I'm still not sure what it means. It's exact import is slippery. This is the press conference in miniature: both the matter and the manner of its delivery are unsatisfactory.

It's puzzling who this performance was aimed at, or who Blair thought it would convince. He made me think of one of those kings in Hades from Greek myth who had offended the gods, like Tantalus or Sisyphus, condemned to a perpetual task: in his case, trying to fit the shards of his reputation back together, holding it up imploringly each time he has finished only to have it always rejected.

Here is Sir John Chilcot introducing his report:

Here is Tony Blair's press conference:

Both repay a full viewing.

One motive Blair has I think to try and justify himself is the great contrast he must feel between how he is almost universally reviled in the UK now and his former popularity. Recall that Blair won a General Election for a third time in 2005, 2 years after the invasion of Iraq. But at that time the scope of the disaster the occupation was going to become was not yet clear, and the economy was still good. Anthony Eden's reputation was destroyed nearly immediately by the Suez Crisis, whereas Blair's was in slow motion, yet in the end no less entirely.

Sometimes a Prime Minister or a senior leader has what is, despite the complexities, an essentially simple choice to make: yes or no, in or out. For instance, Gordon Brown kept the UK out of the Euro: Blair was broadly pro entry but not strongly enough to overrule him. Even more pertinently, Harold Wilson resisted all pressure from Lyndon Johnson to send British forces to the Vietnam War, despite the fact that the Australian and New Zealand Governments had both joined in. The US Government did not need the forces of those countries in a military sense, it wanted them for a political reason, to show solidarity and support for its policy. Similarly, Blair's conception of our alliance with the US was that we had to join the invasion of Iraq to show our absolute commitment to it, especially so soon after 9/11. This was not the only reason for his decision but it was an important one.

Here is a striking comparison. Who do you think is speaking here ?

"The newspapers have already pronounced their verdict, but I remind those armchair historians sitting comfortably at home in their slippers that it was not I who decreed the historical circumstances. I only had the unenviable task of choosing the lesser of two evils. Whatever my decision, the results would have been negative. Mine were difficult decisions. No one has the right to dismiss me lightly as a murderer. I am a patriot."

What follows provides the clue:

"I saved Poland from great danger. In December 1981 the Soviets were about to trample all over us. Even Gorbachev said so many times over."

It's General Jaruzelski, interviewed in 2001 by Riccardo Orizio in his Speak of the Devil.

Here is what Blair himself has to say about what he calls "trust, as a political concept" in his autobiography A Journey. These reflections come from a section where he is outlining some general principles derived from his experience of the Northern Ireland peace process, unquestionably one of his great achievements, and not from the sections about the Iraq invasion or its aftermath. Two things I would note before the quotation itself: first, as I read this, I can absolutely hear Blair speaking it, I wonder if he dictated the book, the style is so typical and evocative of him, at once chatty but giving one an uneasy sense of something dubious as the words keep tumbling out; second, I'm always reminded when he speaks or writes that, like so many politicians over the centuries in this country, he was originally a barrister, which is to say to those readers unfamiliar with the English legal system that he is a highly trained lawyer.

"By the way, trust, as a political concept, is multilayered. At one level no one trusts politicians, and politicians are obliged from time to time to conceal the full truth, to bend it and even distort it, where the interests of the bigger strategic goal demand it be done. Of course, where the line is drawn is crucial, and is not in any way an exact science. (And don't get too affronted by it; we all make these decisions every day in our business and personal lives.) Without operating with some subtlety at this level, the job would be well-nigh impossible.

But the public are quite discerning, and discriminate between politicians they don't trust at a superficial level, i.e. pretty much all of them, and those they don't trust at a more profound level. This level of trust is about whether the public believe that the political leader is trying to do his or her best for them, with whatever mistakes or compromises, Machiavellian or otherwise, are made. This is the level that really matters."

- Tony Blair, A Journey, p.186-7

Overleaf, on page 188, Blair writes the following about a particular point in negotiations between Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley during Christmas 2006:

"I took horrendous chances in what I was telling each the other had agreed to - stretching the truth, I fear, on occasions past breaking point -"

He can admit this in a context where the outcome is generally agreed to be a success.

Finally, to the second part of my title - Power Corrupts - which is a reference to Lord Acton's famous dictum "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" which is usually remembered as Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I believe from observation that the awareness, however deeply buried and however strongly denied, of having had great power and used it for bad purposes leaves a mark or shadow on the face of the person who misused it: their face looks corrupt.

Tony Blair

Alastair Campbell

John Prescott

Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell and John Prescott all have just such corrupt faces. I'm struck by it whenever they reappear on television.



Bibliography:

Tony Blair    A Journey   Paperback edition with a new introduction, Arrow Books, 2011
                                         ISBN 9780099525097

Riccardo Orizio       Talk of the Devil: Encounters with Seven Dictators  trans. Avril Bardoni
                                                                                                                     Vintage, 2004
                                                                                                                      ISBN 9780099440673

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