The Tony Blair Story (2026) s01e03 Episode Script

1
This programme contains
distressing images of war
I remember there was one time
when I went up to the flat
just before I was going home
about 11pm at night and said,
"Right, I'm off now", which
I'd done dozens of times before.
And I've got no idea why,
but I walked to the door over here
and I got to the door, which was
open, and I stood at the door
and I turned around
and I looked at him
and I think he thought I'd gone.
And I can just remember thinking
it was an absolute picture
of isolation.
And he just
He had a sense of burden and weight.
And because at that stage
so many people saw him
in the way that they did,
Tony B. Liar and all that stuff
actually, it was one of those
moments when I wished I could paint.
It was an absolute portrait
in the kind of isolation of power.
Did you feel any urge to either say
something or put an arm around him?
No, I didn't. I just walked out.
Mmm.
After the fall of Saddam
we got a message from the Russians
saying Putin would like Tony
to go out.
One on one. Oh, interesting.
Almost out of the blue.
We get on the plane,
we get picked up by a helicopter,
we get taken to this place,
God knows where.
Amazing sort of luxury
that he's living in by now.
And we had a dinner
where Putin absolutely
laid into him.
"OK, where are the Americans
going next?
"Where are they going to war next?
Oh, they haven't told you yet.
"They'll tell you
and then you'll do it."
And it was It was nasty.
It was cynical.
He didn't use the phrase
'Bush's poodle', but that
was kind of what he was saying.
It was really quite vicious.
How did Tony respond?
He sort of sat there, took it
then just explained to him
why I thought he was wrong.
No doubt there will be
discussions ahead of us
in order to make sure that we can
resolve any remaining difficulties
or issues that there are
in the international community.
But I would like to thank
the president once again
for the constructive
and immensely friendly atmosphere
in which these talks were conducted.
Gentlemen, thank you.
The conference is over.
APPLAUSE
Back home, Tony Blair has a problem.
He wants to move on
from the Iraq War,
continue his reforms
to the United Kingdom
and win another general election.
I want us to win a third term.
Not so that we can go
in the history books,
but so that we can consign Britain's
failings to the history books.
That's why we want it.
APPLAUSE
But moving on from the war
is proving to be difficult.
You have blood on your hands!
That's fine, sir,
you can make your protest.
Just thank goodness we live
in a democracy and you can.
APPLAUSE
The Iraq war shattered
the Blair coalition,
so it was "Never glad
confident morning again."
We'd gone through a long period
where Tony Blair
was a very trusted individual.
And once that trust was lost,
a lot of people lost faith
in what government was telling them.
As the war on terror continues
and stories keep on
emerging from Iraq,
it proves impossible
to draw a line under it.
NEWS REPORT: An American
television network
has shown disturbing photographs
taken by one US soldier,
which appear to show others
abusing Iraqi prisoners.
Just tell me what you felt
when you saw those images
of hooded prisoners in Abu Ghraib.
No, of course I was appalled.
Whenever you see a
Appalled by the fact of it
and appalled by the stupidity of it.
In war, bad things
are going to happen.
But our
attempt there
to stabilise the country,
I mean, that's an ambition
that was a perfectly good one.
What about the fact
that it was official US policy
to have a form of torture?
Well, I never agreed with torture.
And at any point in time
when it was ever raised with me,
I always said, "I'm opposed to this.
I'm opposed to it on moral grounds.
"I'm opposed to it on grounds
of effectiveness."
I have never been in favour of it
and I never was at the time.
And I made it clear that
we should say to the Americans
we were not in favour of it.
APPLAUSE
Blair's also having problems
with Gordon Brown,
a decade after Brown agreed
to support Blair's bid
to become Labour leader.
Tony was increasingly exasperated
with the impatience
that Gordon Brown had
to be Prime Minister.
Obviously wanting to take over
when Tony stood down,
but when was Tony
going to stand down?
And a lot of those people
who were supporting Gordon Brown
were getting increasingly impatient.
Ten years is a very long time
in any job.
Has there been any point
when you've thought about moving on?
No.
So there you are!
Did you ever see him sort of crack
or crumble a little bit
in the privacy of, as it were,
your bedroom or the flat?
There were plenty of times, I think,
when he would,
he would feel,
have I done the right thing?
You wouldn't be human
if you didn't find that difficult.
And the constant
drip, drip, drip
of Gordon's pressure.
There was a point when he thought,
you know, maybe I should stand down.
What did you say? No.
I was absolutely against that.
I said to him,
"Of course, if you want to
stand down, you must stand down.
"But do you really think that Gordon
is the right person to
"take over from you?
"Because I don't think you do
and therefore don't do it."
People say there's always tension
between Number 10
and the Chancellor, but there was
this extra dimension in this case.
The deal was supposed to be
that they wouldn't fight each other
and that Tony
would hand over to Gordon.
And that became a sort of despoiling
element in the government,
as Tony went on and on and on.
CROWD: Boo!
Down with Blair!
It was not an easy campaign.
The days of sort of standing
on a soapbox
and just talking to
an adoring gathering had gone.
We've had Mr Kennedy in that chair,
we've had Mr Howard in that chair.
Why wouldn't you debate directly,
face-to-face with them in the
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
I debate every week in the House
of Commons with Michael Howard.
I'm here to answer questions
tonight and
AUDIENCE SHOU
I probably do more discussions,
not just with audiences like this,
but with people
when we talk about the issues
than any politician before me.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Coward!
All right. Mr Blair, thank you.
What got to Tony, however,
was when people who were
really close to him
started saying to him, you know,
trust is draining away.
People don't believe you
in the way that they did.
All this being
fostered, generated
by people who wanted him to go.
I told him, "Just get up
off your knees.
"Don't be apologetic.
Stop being a supplicant.
"Be a leader. Go out there
and be confident and fight.
NEWS REPORT: After years
of bad blood and distrust,
Tony Blair since last week
has rarely ventured a few yards
from the Chancellor's side.
Despite the ongoing tensions
between the two men,
Blair and Brown put on
a united front during the campaign.
You must have seen more of him
in the last five days
than in the last five years!
I think that's a bit
of an exaggeration, Michael.
Your wives must be beginning
to wonder if something's going on!
When we are together, it emphasises
the importance,
not just of the unity
of the government,
but also the importance
of the unity of that message.
Got my fists, did you?!
Tony Blair is a trusted leader
and internationally respected
around the world.
And he has led the major reforms
that have been brought about
in this country,
including the reforms
in economic policy
that we're talking about today.
Britain has decided.
And we are predicting that
Tony Blair has won a third term,
but with a sharply reduced
majority of 66,
making the Prime Minister
the first-ever Labour leader
to win three elections in a row.
It felt a much more tense night.
It wasn't joyous in the same way.
Did he feel vulnerable?
I mean, he's still Prime Minister,
he wins, but
No, he felt vulnerable.
He felt vulnerable.
I think he felt that things
were turning. I think he felt,
you know And they were.
On these results, I would have
thought, not Gordon Brown himself,
but the Brown supporters
will be wondering how quickly
they can move Tony Blair
out of Downing Street.
He is clearly a liability
and I fear for the future
unless he ceases to be
the leader of the party.
After the 2005 election,
there was a kind of sourness
amongst Labour MPs,
as if to say, well, Tony's won,
that's what we expect of Tony.
Whereas in fact it was
This guy's a genius.
Maybe other things as well,
but an absolute genius.
Brilliant at winning elections.
I think hubris kicked in.
Ego is the disease of politics.
I mean, people are
That's why you have to change,
you know, presidents and leaders
and not hang on forever.
You know, if you have
absolute power,
it goes to your head and you think
you're the fount of all wisdom.
They all say you're brilliant and
you start thinking you're brilliant.
After Iraq, because it was
such a difficult decision
and the aftermath was so traumatic
in many ways
you know, there was bound
to be a reduction
in my capacity to persuade people.
What there wasn't
was a reduction in my ability
to do the things
I really wanted to do.
You know, the irony is you start
as a politician at your
most popular but least capable,
and then you end at your most
capable but least popular.
So, yes, I was conscious of the fact
I was much less able
to persuade people,
but I was also much more confident
about the direction
I was taking the country in.
With power slipping away,
Blair wants to use what time he has
to make as much difference
as possible.
And when the G8 comes to the UK,
he gets to choose the agenda for
the leaders of the world to discuss.
Blair chooses cancelling the debt
of the world's poorest countries
and for them all to admit
the truth of climate change.
It was probably the most
extraordinary 48 hours
I had in politics.
We tried to do something completely
different with what was then the G8
and I really used every bit
of last credibility
and influence with the Americans
in order to do it.
It was very tense because
first of all, I don't think the
Americans really wanted that agenda,
and secondly,
because Russia was there
and already things were
becoming somewhat fractured
with the Russian leadership.
So it was going to be
a very, very tall ask.
If we cancel debt, we will save
thousands of lives every day
and millions of lives in the future.
With the summit under way,
Blair is hoping for another boost.
Right. Good morning, everyone.
You know the issues that are there -
Africa and climate change.
Thank you for your leadership.
This is going to be
a successful summit.
Thousands of people have
gathered in central London
to hear the result of
the 2012 Olympic bid.
The Games of the 30th Olympiad
in 2012
are awarded to the City of London.
CHEERING
Prime Minister, Trafalgar Square
is listening right now.
Is there anything you have to say to
the people of London at this moment?
Well done.
Let's make 2012 the greatest Games
the world has ever seen.
Blair arrives to put
the finishing touches
to a deal that writes off the debt
of the world's poorest countries
and properly recognises
climate change.
SIRENS WAIL
Move away from this road, please!
Thank you.
Four Islamist terrorists have
detonated suicide bombs in London,
killing 52 people.
I always remember
he took a moment
to go outside by himself
and stand and reflect.
There seems to be a link between
the invasion of Iraq
and a greater risk
of terrorist activity in Britain.
The fact is, what they're doing
is utterly evil,
and you can't compromise with it.
You've got to pull it
up by its roots.
You could see that there were
moments of extreme pressure,
especially when he was
making momentous decisions,
especially ones involving
human lives.
Dad's always had this habit
of, you'd be talking
to him about something,
and he'll zone out and think
about something
completely different,
and you would see
the kind of zone out moments
ratchet up as more was
on his shoulders.
You know, he really cared
if he saw it affecting us as well.
So I think we were quite careful
to make sure it didn't affect us.
Or at least not show it.
Right, right.
There was almost
this shared mutual understanding
that we would never let him see it
affect us too much,
and he would never let us see it
affect him too much.
Blair knows that there are Labour MPs
who want him to stand down,
but there's still fight left in him
as he takes on a little-known
Ukip MEP.
I thought, "Crikey.
Perhaps Blair's going to do it.
"Perhaps he really is going to
reform and change."
But no. Under your presidency,
there have been 3,350
new legislative acts.
Total failure on economic reform.
Let me just tell you,
sir, and your colleagues.
You sit with our country's flag.
You do not represent
our country's interests.
APPLAUSE
This
This is the year 2005, not 1945.
We're not fighting each other
any more.
These are our partners,
they're our colleagues.
And our future lies in Europe.
APPLAUSE
But Blair is finally
about to lose power.
And it's not the British electorate
who force him out.
It's his own party.
The polling was saying that with
Tony Blair as prime minister,
we were in trouble.
Gordon was the most
popular politician
in Britain for about a decade.
People really respected him,
and he had almost single-handedly
turned around Labour's
long-standing reputation
for screwing up the economy.
Many of those plotting
Blair's downfall
are allies of the Chancellor.
I was saying to him,
you need to make space
for others than Gordon
to come forward.
And he would always say to me,
"I cannot choose my successor."
And I would say, "By not doing that,
"you are effectively
choosing Gordon."
Do you think he made a mistake?
I do.
What did you make of the accusation
that you were
a sort of Lady Macbeth figure?
I think Really?
I thought that was a joke.
I thought it was Gordon
who described me as Lady Macbeth.
If anyone thinks Tony's my puppet,
they just don't understand
the nature of the man.
He's on a visit to York
when an adviser pulls him aside.
They tell him that MPs
are coming forward
with letters calling
for him to resign.
Prime Minister, some of your most
The people who owe you their career
want you to resign.
What's your response to them?
He brought
his closest people together
and worked out what he needed to do
to respond.
Who were his allies?
Where were the people
that he could activate
on his behalf?
Who was going to do that?
So it became a sort of a mini
war plan.
There were people saying
"Ride it out,"
but in the end,
there was a realisation
that he couldn't fight it any more.
His head recognised
that he had run out of road.
I'm not sure his heart
ever accepted that.
As for my timing and date
of departure,
I would have preferred to do this
in my own way,
but, as has been pretty obvious from
what many of my cabinet colleagues
have said earlier in the week,
the next party conference
in a couple of weeks will be
my last party conference
as party leader.
Tell me a bit about
you and Gordon Brown.
You know, we were much more than
just friends, right?
We were deep political partners.
And for the best part of ten years -
it was quite a long time -
we would be talking several times
a day.
And then you put all the stresses
and strains of government.
I mean, if you think about it,
it was a miracle
we lasted ten years, but we did.
And I always say to people,
because people often say to me,
you know,
"Would it not have been better
to have got rid of Gordon,"
and so on? And, you know, you can
make an argument for that. But
I think those
three election victories,
which were the only time
Labour ever won
three consecutive election victories
with a full functioning majority,
I think they were
because we were New Labour,
but I also think in part they were
because that partnership
was there with him.
Blair has overseen ten years
of economic prosperity,
while at the same time transforming
many aspects of British society.
There's a huge legacy
and it covers many,
many, many different areas -
Bank of England independence,
New Deal schools and hospitals,
investment, gay rights,
Scottish Parliament, minimum wage.
Now, just as he leaves office,
he is confronting the reality
of life without power.
By the time he was
leaving Number 10,
he really finally understood how
to make the whole thing work.
And at that point, when perhaps
he felt he could do even more,
he had to stand back.
Prime Minister's private staff
had organised a sort of do,
which was meant as a sort of
thank you/celebration.
With Blair's leaving drinks
under way upstairs,
Blair and Brown meet downstairs
in the corridor.
It's finally time for Blair
to hand over
the role of Prime Minister,
and he can't help but give
Gordon's speech the once-over.
It's been an honour to serve,
a privilege to work
in this building.
Thank you very much indeed.
APPLAUSE
It didn't really work.
He suddenly realised it's over.
And that hurt.
APPLAUSE
Your party.
And then we made our way downstairs
and we gathered our stuff
as Gordon Brown's people came in
that way, passing us.
OK, I'll see you later. Thank you.
Matthew, come down.
Ten years in power,
your dad leaves office.
Did you get a sense that
that was difficult for him?
Yes. Yes, and definitely a sense
of unfinished business.
There you are, a seven-year-old.
Yeah.
Do you remember anything
about that day?
I remember being very sad.
I wasn't just leaving the house
I was in,
I was leaving everybody else
who I'd grown up with
who was there. Right?
All the people that worked there
who had been, like,
you know,
kind of raised me collectively.
I know it might sound a bit weird,
but it is really like that
when you see people
every day from a very young age.
Both my mum and I were trying to
hold back tears.
I think my mum made a sarcastic
comment as she left, didn't she?
To the press? To the press.
Bye! I don't think we'll miss you.
What did you think of the press?
I hated the press.
They were particularly horrible
to my mum.
They obviously don't like
strong women.
Really, I think if someone today
told me they worked
for the Daily Mail,
I'd probably turn around
and walk in the other direction.
Your skill as a politician
is about knowing about the people
and living with the people,
and understanding
what the people want.
Ten years of living
in the goldfish bowl,
you kind of lose contact
with reality.
He didn't really bring on
a generation
to carry on his revolution.
He was singular in that sense.
It was just him, and the way
that he left gave one an impression
that it had always really just been
about him,
that being Prime Minister was merely
a stage on his career journey.
And he left a void in politics
that was never really filled.
That is the problem
with charismatic politicians.
Once the charisma has gone
there's just a bit of smoke left
and a faint memory of light,
and the stage is empty.
So you were forced out,
as you've put it,
of the biggest job in your life
when you were 54.
How did that feel?
See, I don't
I knew I was going to go.
I'd had more than ten years
in the job.
I was literally thinking
about, what's the future?
I mean, some people said to me,
"You should take six months off.
"You should go and, you know,
go and sit somewhere,
"read books and, you know,
contemplate life."
I was literally not interested
in that for a moment.
On his first afternoon
not being Prime Minister,
he takes the train up to
the north-east of England,
back to Sedgefield
and he arrives back
at Darlington train station
and there's no-one there.
So the official car has gone.
All of that he has got used to
over the previous ten years,
the British state just turns it off.
He is left on Darlington
train station waiting.
And I think that sort of sudden,
jolting change to your power
and status is sort of captured
in that moment.
It's quite a frightening thing
to know that you're going
from having
one of the most important jobs
in the country
to walking out
into the world and
nothing.
But no red box this morning.
No red box.
Yes, that was strange.
This will be a new government
with new priorities.
And now let the work
of change begin.
Thank you.
SHOUTING
Not only has he given up
being Prime Minister,
he's giving up his seat
in the House of Commons.
It's time to pack up
his constituency house.
This is just I mean,
the thing is, it's one thing to
change your job,
but then you change your job,
you move house at the same time.
Those are apparently the two
most stressful things you ever do
and I'm doing both
at the same time.
An American politician said
that losing high office is like
the end of a love affair.
And the thing about
a love affair is,
when you're out of one,
you shouldn't go too quickly into
the next one.
And I think Tony was
Scared is the wrong word,
but worried at the idea
that he'd have an empty diary.
With the help of the Americans,
Blair gets the job
as envoy to the Middle East.
He wants to improve the situation
between Israel and the Palestinians.
So, Mr Blair, what does it feel
like being pitched into
one of the most intractable
conflicts in the world?
It's hugely challenging,
but there's nothing more important
in the world today than
to get this issue sorted out
and in a different place.
Hello there.
He was a genuine statesman,
which is more than can be said
for most of his successors.
But on the other hand,
what he could not see
was how grievously
he was morally compromised
by the Iraq War,
about all the fallout from that.
I brought you my closest adviser.
Hello, good morning.
Yeah, good to see you.
This is Yuval Steinitz,
who is the head of
He's never been good at
seeing himself as others see him.
So, where would you like to?
Right, shall we sit down here?
Do you want me?
I'll take my tie off, then.
If you want.
If you're feeling casual, yeah.
But Blair is a statesman
without a state.
And alongside his role
in the Middle East,
he establishes several foundations
for which he starts raising money.
No previous Labour Prime Minister
has ever gone after money
like he did,
and he went to some
very disreputable countries.
I think it was all because he wanted
to be left with a big legacy
and a big reputation, and he didn't
want to finish with Iraq.
Iraq was failure, but then
he wanted to build another story
of him as a great leader
and thinker and
And that's why he threw himself
into raising all this money.
The amount of money
that a prime minister is paid
is ludicrous in this country -
to pay them quite so little.
And if you had a political career
as an MP, etc,
by comparison with an ordinary
person, yes, you're paid well,
but by comparison
with their contemporaries
from university, the people
they compare themselves with,
they feel very poor.
It's the same with civil servants.
So when they come out,
they want to make money.
And I think Tony
is just very competitive.
He wants to make more money
than anyone else.
In office,
Blair tried to persuade some of the
world's most controversial regimes
to move closer to the West.
And he still believes he can
NEWSREADER SPEAKS RUSSIAN
which takes him to Kazakhstan,
advising President Nazarbayev,
a dictator known to have repressed
his own people.
You advised
some pretty unsavoury characters.
Do you think that was a mistake?
So, the advisory work we were doing,
for example, in Kazakhstan,
was advisory work
that was completely in line
with what the World Bank
was doing there,
other consultancies and foundations
were doing there.
But, anyway,
it was a complete mistake
to do the for-profit in that way
because it looked like
it was all to do with personal gain,
when, actually, it really wasn't.
It was to do with
creating enough funding
that we could start the Institute.
And if you want to do something,
you've got to raise money.
But money is never pure.
Well, money's money.
It just allows you to do things.
If you leave office
and you're in your early 50s -
and many people will now -
and you've got maybe, I don't know,
maybe 20, 30 years
of active life in front of you,
what are you going to do?
If you're the sort of person
that became prime minister,
you're not going to want to go off
and play rounds of golf all day.
And, certainly, that's not
what I would ever want to do.
So, you know, you're going to
want to create something.
But if you want to create something,
I'm afraid you need money.
When Blair publishes
his autobiography,
he donates the £4.6 million advance
to the Royal British Legion.
But even the launch of his book
proves controversial.
The first stop on his book tour
is Dublin.
Shame! Shame! Shame!
AGGRESSIVE SHOUTING
Hi. Sorry about that.
Brought that with me.
He then cancels his book launch
in London,
and it looks like he may never
shake off the legacy of the Iraq War.
You will remember the portrait
that was painted of you
by Jonathan Yeo, I believe Mmm.
where the only real bit of colour
is the poppy.
What did you think when you saw that?
I thought it was a good painting.
Significance of the poppy?
Yeah, of course.
I mean, it was bound to be seen
in the context of the war and so on.
But I thought it was a good picture.
A portrait is in some ways
meant to summarise someone.
Did it do that with you?
You decide whether
I mean I'm not interested
in that type of stuff.
I mean, if people want to say
that's all it was about,
and there will be plenty of people
on the right
and plenty of people on the left
who want to say,
"That was all he ever did,
"was take the country
to war post 9/11,"
then, fine, they can say that.
It really doesn't worry me.
You've got to understand,
I have enough belief
in what I've done
and what I'm doing now
that if people want to do that,
which, by the way,
is for political reasons,
because I can't think of
another British prime minister
that wouldn't have also wanted
to be with America post 9/11.
But, anyway, leave that to one side.
If people want to make that
the only thing they think about
when they think about me,
that's up to them.
I don't You have to understand,
it's not going to determine
my view of what I've done
or what I'm doing now.
I will have that debate with people.
I'm very happy to have it
with people.
But, you know, there's no point
in keeping asking me the same thing
around, you know, well, someone
paints a portrait of you, you know -
"What do you feel
when you look at it?"
And I actually felt
it was a really good portrait
is the most important thing
I thought.
This series is going to reflect
the successes of your project.
But it has to touch on
these other things.
Yeah, no, I understand that,
Michael. I'm not I'm not
The reason I push back hard
is because
you know, I feel it's got to
be pushed back hard against
because, of course,
it's what a lot of people say.
And, you know,
this is a programme about me
and so I'm entitled to my view
and I want to express my view.
You know, you asked me a lot
about Iraq and everything,
but I always say to people,
"Look, we did an immense
amount of good things
"and this country,
on the day I left in June 2007,
"was a strong, capable country."
And, in my view,
and I'm entitled to it as people
are entitled to their view,
if we'd stuck with that strong
centre-ground government
and we hadn't got into the mess
we have got into as a country,
we would be in a much more
powerful position today.
Ten years after losing power,
and Blair's aims
for the Labour Party, Britain
and the world seem to be collapsing.
War criminal! War criminal!
War criminal!
Jeremy Corbyn,
who campaigned against the Iraq War,
is Labour leader.
Don't let those people
who wish us ill divide us.
Stay together, strong and united,
for the kind of world
we want to live in.
Thank you very much.
Nigel Farage, the once minor MEP,
helps take Britain out of Europe.
Let June the 23rd
go down in our history
as our Independence Day.
I mean, if you'd told me
that Nigel Farage was going to
be a key player in British politics
and Jeremy Corbyn
was going to lead the Labour Party,
I would have said,
"That's never going to happen."
But I was wrong. Both did happen.
SIREN BLARES
And the new world order is crumbling.
Putin will later cite the Iraq War
as one of the justifications
for his invasion of Ukraine.
Tell me about your perspective
on Putin's character.
The question you always ask yourself
is, "Was he always as he became
"and I just didn't see it,
or did he change?"
And my view is that he did change.
But, you know, who knows?
A huge part of what you fought for
has, frankly, crumbled
since you left power.
Has that been difficult to watch?
Look, people in these last years
have moved against
some of the things I stood for.
You know, belief that globalisation
was basically a positive process
that we needed to manage,
Britain being in Europe,
liberal interventionism.
Yeah, "We should
all just disengage."
Yeah. People have moved against it.
But, you know,
I remain committed to those things.
And I think, again,
you've got to think,
you know, history's not static,
it changes.
And people will, I think,
come in time to realise,
you know, there are merits
in the position that I took.
His sense of himself
is that he is a man of the future.
Yes.
He believes that progress is real
and that history is moving
in a direction from bad to good,
from dark to light.
Do you mind just giving me
some level, please?
Right. My name's Tony Blair.
I'll speak round about this level.
Thank you.
I think there is a sense of him
being this kind of tragic character.
But in the kind of original
kind of Greek tragic sense
of battling against a fate,
trying to shape the world into
the kind of world that he wants,
into a liberal, international,
democratic world order.
And this was what
Blairite Britain represented.
Britain was going to be the beacon
of this world,
and it just kind of collapses
into something
that is completely different
to that world that he imagined.
But yet he still holds on to the
idea that he can see that future.
But just at that low point,
things start to turn around
for Blair.
He sets up a new organisation,
the Tony Blair Institute
for Global Change.
We speak every morning,
sometime between 5.30 and 6.30.
We're trying to grow something
that's going to outlive him.
Blair personally advises
world leaders
and his institute
pumps out policy papers,
coming to prominence
during the pandemic.
When Covid first hit,
Tony and I decided
we were going to pivot the entire
organisation to work on Covid
because we knew every single leader
we worked with across the world
was going to be grappling
with this issue.
Good morning. How are you doing?
How are you doing?
Blair becomes an early proponent
of mass testing.
And his strategy for vaccinations
is adopted by governments
across the world.
It was the Tony Blair Institute
which seemed to be
ahead of the government.
You suddenly started to see
prime ministers
going to see Tony Blair
or asking Tony Blair
to come in to Number 10.
Liz Truss saw him,
Boris Johnson saw him,
Keir Starmer certainly saw him
before he became prime minister.
This is the kind of influence that
he has managed to build for himself.
Blair's Institute
employs over 900 people
working in more than 40 countries.
Do you have as much power
and influence now
as you did in Number 10?
So, I don't know as much power
as I did when I was prime minister,
but influence, yeah, to a degree.
Many of Blair's old allies
found their way back to power.
His chief of staff, Jonathan Powell,
is Britain's
national security adviser.
And, until recently, Peter Mandelson
was Britain's ambassador
to the United States.
And thank you
very much indeed, also,
for that very typical
11th-hour intervention by you
with your phone call
to the president.
Do you think there's a small part of
him that would rather like your job?
I'm not sure
that Tony Blair is quite ready
to become a mere ambassador,
but he'd certainly want to
exercise influence over the person
who was actually doing it.
And Blair is still in the frame
when it comes to trying to
bring peace to the Middle East.
Even 18 years after leaving power,
Tony Blair still provokes
a kaleidoscopic range of opinions.
As we sit here,
with all that's going on,
I look back
I think he was an integral part
of a golden age in Britain,
which I think a lot of people
would wish we were now back on,
because we sure ain't
in a golden age today.
There are still many people
who hate him.
Often the people
who used to love him most.
He was a formidable figure
brought down
by some of the very qualities
that had taken him to the top.
The tragedy for Tony Blair,
if there is to be one,
may well be that his achievements
are blotted out
by the mistake
that's unacknowledged.
That is a tragedy.
I know there are some people
who absolutely despise the guy.
There are some people
who'll celebrate the day he dies.
But I think Northern Ireland alone
puts him in the top rank
of British prime ministers.
He's a big historic figure.
His strength is
all the communication and charm,
and he's brilliant,
brilliant, brilliant at that.
And he wants to be the big thinker,
which he isn't.
But that's what he's trying
to play out.
There will be those
who will never forgive him for Iraq.
But, you ask me,
I think he did a good job.
What would you say are his flaws?
He is an amazing politician.
As a husband and as a human being,
that's a different matter.
But that's really
between me and him.
He doesn't stop. I think
he's busier than he was then.
Why do you think that is?
Because he's just not finished.
He wants to do the work
that he set out to do,
and so he won't stop.
And also it's very important
to understand about me -
I'm not into psychoanalysis, right?
I think there's far too much of it.
I think people spend far too long
constantly analysing themselves.
I know why I do what I do -
cos I believe in it.
If people want to accept that,
they can accept it.
If they don't accept it
I'll just get on with doing it.