The first full-length transmission from Planet Fuck

In terms of oratory it wasn’t up there with the classics of the genre; Hitler at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally, Kennedy in Berlin and Peter O’Toole in Peter Medak’s The Ruling Class but Ed Miliband’s first speech as Labour leader made some encouraging noises.

Mili-E made an important concession to truth and history by denouncing Iraq as a mistake; an act of legal barbarism that punctured holes in the UN charter with an engorged phallus. Mili-D and sinister Steve Martin look-a-like Alistair Darling sat ashen faced, hands never threatening applause, listening to their new leader tell them that they’d voted to emasculate one of the world’s most important post-war institutions. If David does indeed have blood on his hands then presumably he won’t have any desire to soil a ministerial box with them any time soon. Seldom has the phrase “fuck off to Harvard and leave me to it” been delivered with greater eloquence.

Although Ed was occasionally stilted, nerves retarding his mouth to produce new inventions like the word “stup-port” while abolishing important plurals, it was an encouraging address for social democrats and disenfranchised Liberals.

Constitutional reform got the nod with a pledge to support AV in the forthcoming referendum and campaign for a fully elected House of Lords. A levy on the banks was mooted along with the concept of “a living wage” and a more liberal attitude toward civil liberties. New Labour hadn’t kept good company, he said, in an uncoded reference to big business and the party should have done more to regulate the economy, including discouraging the growth of personal debt. Students heard him lay the ground for the abolition of tuition fees, assuming he’s ever in a position to do so and strike action was criticised, causing one union leader to mouth “rubbish” in a live cutaway – a clip which can only be useful in light of the criticism that he’s little more than a trade union stooge.

I thought it was an encouraging speech, which fully took advantage of the opposition privilege of eschewing policy detail in favour of progressive rhetoric. You couldn’t call it a tub-thumper and Ed’s confidence will have to grow if he’s to avoid looking like a private school boy who got pushed onto the stage at the last minute to perform a poem for an audience of expectant parents but the break with the party we didn’t vote for in May was unmistakable.

I felt good will toward the Labour leadership today for the first time since I was a teenager. It may not last and of course it’s far easier to denounce a failed project in government than work out what to do in future but even if it doesn’t last, I like the Labour party this afternoon and that, in itself, is a minor Mili-E achievement.

All hail the Emissary from Planet Fuck!

The Sunday papers are overflowing with it but I thought I’d offer some, ahem, brief reflections on the election of my fellow Ed to the leadership of the Labour Party – the man the Blarites used to call “our emissary from Planet Fuck” as he was the only member of the Brown camp who’d talk to them sans Malcolm Tuckerisms.

“You’ve stolen my DNA!”

The first and most important question anyone should ask when someone accedes to the leadership of a major political party is, what kind of person are they? Character matters. It shouldn’t do because the ability of one person to cast the shadow of their intellect across fiendishly difficult problems and solve them, while addressing as many sectional interests as possible, is a task that only a handful of us are equipped for. Of course no leader has to deal with these things alone, they’re flanked with advisers but ultimately they make the crucial decisions. These are matters of the mind so what, you may ask, does it matter if you’re a social terrorist? Ask that question to Gordon Brown and he’d cough so hard his eye would pop out. If you were standing too close you might choke on it. Character matters.

So what do we know about Ed Miliband and I’m not talking biographical toss because your background, though important, only suggests a direction of travel, it doesn’t guarantee what you’ll do en route. One thing we do know is that Ed is ruthless enough that he’ll destroy his elder brother’s political ambitions to further his own. There are two ways of looking at this. Either you can infer that he’s a bastard; a cold, selfish and opportunistic careerist who’s happy to play politics with his own immediate family, or he’s so, how do they say, “passionate” about his beliefs that he simply couldn’t defer to Mili-D’s more Blarite positioning at this critical juncture in the party’s history. I’m not sure I’d want Ed as a brother but I imagine that there’s more of the latter in his decision to go for the leadership.

We know he wrote the last Labour manifesto but I’m writing this and you don’t imagine I believe a word of it do you? Exactly. It’s fair to say that Ed didn’t have the final say on what went into the document. He’d have agreed with the thrust of it I’m sure but he was a junior figure relative to its final composition, constrained by the likes of Brown and Mandleson. The fact he felt oppressed by these people is, for my money, a sign of rude intellectual health.

I’d feel a little more sorry for David Miliband were he not emotionally stunted and so vulnerable to the entitlement trap that snared Gordon Brown. Brown, like Mili-D, saw himself as the senior figure and resented some little upstart squatting over his Maris Piper wedges. However, the lesson of the Blair/Brown years is surely that no one, regardless of his or her age and experience should feel entitled to be Labour leader. It isn’t a matter for an individual’s ego, it’s for the party, and in terms of being prime minister, for the country to decide. If Milli-E thought he knew better he was right not to allow the matter to be decided internally. Contesting the election was the right thing to do, that way any issue of who the legitimate leader should be would be settled outright. It’s just a pity that the Labour Party’s electoral college has fucked that into a lead box.

You illegitimate son of a Marxist intellectual!

Never hand a loaded gun to someone with a Labour membership card because chances are they’ll discharge it into their own genitals. I’ve got some sympathy with John Rentoul’s view in the Independent on Sunday, that this is mathematically the worst result possible for Labour because it appears to fly in the face of party intent. Granted, it’s a bit of a freak result – with Ed coming second amongst MPs, MEPs and Party Members yet just crossing the finishing line by being ahead with trade union members, nor was it easily anticipated (or avoided) because there were so many variables, not least the redistribution of second preference votes across a series of (as it turned out) four rounds of voting but does any of that make it illegitimate?

It won’t matter to the Westminster village or perhaps, to the electorate, that the votes of union members are legitimate and their interests should be represented at the top of the party that they co-fund and established a century ago. What’s causing anger and resentment already is that neither the political class nor the deferential party membership elected Ed.

Unionisation in Britain is now shorthand for sinister protectionism amongst a cabal of lowly, base, grunting proles. The PM will chide Ed for being their bag man while simultaneously, though you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be reported this way, telling the country that he’s governing to protect working people and their families, implying that anyone who represents their interests is in some way illegitimate and has a less than robust mandate to be opposition leader.

Were I Mili-E, I’d be challenging Cameron to tell me why, given that the final result is not disputed and within the rules, should my strong showing amongst union members be a problem. Is the backing of workers who carry a union card more or less legitimate than being in hoc to say, Rupert Murdoch or a tiny minority of Middle England voters? You’ll be able to list many more minority interests with disproportionate influence that are far more perfidious than trade unions. You may begin now.

What Margaret Knew

Clearly poor Ed must cope with political reality and that means that his 2^nd place finish amongst his own MPs and party members is a problem. What to do? Courting them is a thankless task because he won’t face another election at their hands unless he’s challenged for the leadership, a sure fire sign that you’ve already lost the confidence of the party. To be brutal he must forget about them, especially David and concentrate on us – the great unwashed (and in many uncases, the great undecided). The received wisdom, which should always be questioned, is that in times like these you should seek to balance your shadow cabinet to unite factions within your party. My instinct would be to do the opposite. Set out a clear direction of travel and set of policies, particularly on balancing the economy fairly and stuff your senior positions with sympathisers, assuming that is that the party elect enough of them to the shadow cabinet to allow such a thing. Fuck balance – look at the drift it lead to in government. Unity at the top is paramount. Your members aren’t on TV, unless you work in pornography, so Ed Balls to them. If you’re winning the argument opinion polls will take care of back benchers and the grass roots, all 17 of them, will go to ground if they sense the tide is turning toward victory.

Triangulation is a strategy for maintaining the status quo, so drop it. Besides it’s just a euphemism for small c Conservatism. Margaret Thatcher understood that being ideologically driven was an asset provided it was supported with a bit of political nous and the impression of strength. No one in the country needs to like Ed, they only need to know where they are with him. Even if they grow to loathe him (unlikely), the confidence with which he puts forward his arguments and their coherence will be key.

We’re about to enter a period of real political turmoil. The economy may droop, blacken and then fall off – hundreds of thousands more people could be out of work, critically middle class people who previously didn’t feel the spray in recessionary waters because the proles were throwing tarpaulin over them. 35% of registered voters don’t bother to walk half a mile to a polling station and put a cross on a bit of paper. This is bad news for them but good news for Ed because they’re not signed up to the coalition’s plans. These people are there for the taking. Whoever can capture their imagination and make them angry enough to vote has a chance of overpowering Middle England. Reforming the voting system would help of course but as previously documented in this blog, I think it would need to be reformed so that,

a)  Effectively every seat became a marginal while

b)  Allowing for the possibility of single party majority government.

If someone can tell me how that might work I’d be grateful. Anyway, the point is that no system should be adopted to fit current voting patterns. You adopt the fairest system and then persuade people to use it in order to give you the sole mandate to govern. Shouldn’t that be what politics is all about? None of the parties currently trust the electorate to abandon their tribal vote if something better came along, nor their own ability to make us enthused enough by becoming that something better and it shows.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

If by their enemies ye shall know them, then Ed is already looking like a friend of progress. Those that now wish he’d perish down a well include Tony Blair, Jack Straw, David Blunkett, Tessa Jowell, Alistair Darling, Lord Mandleson and of course, David Miliband. I don’t know about you but I feel better already.

You cynics will say ah, but aren’t Ed’s “friends” all kryptonite to the electorate? Who’d want backing from Gordon Brown, Peter Hain, Diane Abbot and Harriet Harman? This is the struggle for the future political positioning of Labour. Mili-E’s bent only looks like a liability if you accept, without question, two intellectually spurious propositions. One, that the 2010 general election result was the public throwing their hands up in horror at Labour abandoning the so called “centre ground” for a more left leaning position and NOT a rejection of a party that had apparently betrayed all its principles after 13 largely listless years in government. Two, that a small number of voters, perhaps no more than 30,000, living in a series of marginal constituencies and representing a highly narrow sectional interest should be allowed to decide the result of general elections.

If you want to take something positive from Mili-E’s election it should be that he correctly rejects both those propositions as false.

Scary Monsters (and super creeps)

Were I a special adviser to Ed I’d be in his hotel room right now, helping myself to the free drinks and presenting him with a choice of two golden envelopes. One would contain a card that said “play it safe”, the other “be bold”. If he chose PIS I’d tell him that his job was to accept that the country is now Thatcherite by design and that any attempt to change that is fundamentally doomed. He must capitulate accordingly, being careful not to make any noises that may be interpreted as radical.

I’d tell him about terribly nice, semi-affluent people around the country who were politically and socially pig-ignorant and had fallen victim to the disease of middle age. I’d tell him that they, like many, started out as broad minded and socially conscientious but narrowed their field of interaction to a limited group of people from a similar background as they got older. I’d tell him that slowly, empathy for those from other walks of life frittered away and turned to resentment, envy, fear and hatred – though not necessarily in that order. I’d tell him that these people live in bubbles, seldom venturing beyond their immediate environs and whereas once they formed an impression of the world from brushing up against many different types of people, maybe in school, maybe at work – these days their window on the universe is the paper they read and the scare stories they see on the drool-box.

I’d tell him that much of what they saw was now judged in terms of whether or not it represented a threat to their lifestyle and interests. I’d tell him that this bunch didn’t give two fucks about vulnerable people because whenever they ceased to be abstract figures and became people they’d actually met, they wrote them off as uneducated, crude and pointless. I’d tell him that these were the people whose votes currently held the most sway and who had the most to lose from a more equal and inclusive society. I’d tell him that if he wanted an easy win, he should give them the nod as Tony Blair did and allay their guilty conscience about voting selfishly with hollow rhetoric on protecting the most vulnerable.

However, if he chose “be bold” I’d tell him that his mission in opposition should be to marginalise the influence of these people in the political life of the nation. I’d tell him that the key was to overpower them using the votes of the young and those currently disfranchised. I’d tell him that he had to find new ways to reach the vast constituencies of people who know nothing about politics and consequently may as well be dead from the neck up. These people are Frankenstein’s monsters waiting for a shock. I’d tell him we were out of Gordons Gin and little cans of tonic and perhaps someone should ring room service. I’d tell him that we needed state interventionism more than ever to deal with the problems of housing and employment and transport, which he could deal with under the banner of the environment if he so desired as long as he understood that the issue was transport. I’d tell him that his period as Labour leader could be the most important yet because chance had afforded him one last opportunity to move the country to the left and keep it there. I’d tell him that the price of failure would be the de facto end of the Labour movement and a final, decisive victory for Thatcherism.

A Journey by Tony Blair – 1st draft extracts part II (Exclusive)

Read Part I here.

Today, In Power:

On being in government (from the chapter ‘Breaking Britain’)

Tony Blair is Britain’s first new Labour Prime Minister for 18 years and he’s riding high on a wave of unprecedented popularity, but what to do?

Look, there’s been a lot of criticism of Labour’s record but people underestimate the difficulty of starting with a blank sheet of paper. That was literally true at the beginning of the first term. Gathered around the cabinet table, I explained to the ensemble that the manifesto was a lovely, glossy document and we were all very proud of it, particularly the cover photograph, but now we’d been elected there was the little matter of policy.

“I believe in cabinet government,” I told them, though I was careful not to look at Mo [Molam] or Robin [Cook], “and I want us to work well together, so I’d like each of you to nominate a policy and we’ll ask Frank [Dobson] to make a note of it.”

“What sort of thing should we be thinking about?” asked Frank. It was that ability to get to the kernel of the issue that had earned him his place at the top table. It was then I was able to respond with my first big idea for the Labour government. I instructed every member of the cabinet to think of a state asset that would benefit from full or part-privatisation. I confess I’d expected a degree of resistance but the suggestions just kept coming – higher education, the health service, schools, the post office, banking regulation – it was like a fire sale!

“This is remarkable,” I said, “this is what modernisation is all about.”

“What’s modern about turning everything over to the private sector?” asked Mo, as was her wont.

“Modern, as in it’s happening now, Mo – in the present.” The difficulty in being leader was that you often had to simplify difficult concepts for your worker bees but I think she understood. Nevertheless, following the meeting and with the minutes safely dispatched to the appropriate civil servant, I made an executive decision not to discuss difficult or contentious matters with colleagues from that day forward. Good government was about unity and consensus, I felt, and the best way to achieve that was to avoid confrontation and keep decision making at the top where it could be executed without interference.

Moments after the meeting I was approached by Alistair, who’d been listening in with an ear to the door.

“Command and control, TB?” he suggested.

Well, I had a spare half hour so we unlocked the console cabinet, extracted the playstation and enjoyed a quick game before my afternoon appointments.

On dealing with 9/11 (From the chapter ‘Shaping The World Around Me’)

Blair has been re-elected with a second landslide following the June 2001 general election. Many commentators have written off the first term as a missed opportunity and the Prime Minister is determined that delivery will be the watchword of the second. However, the war on terror threatens the domestic agenda…

The passage of time may have diminished its impact but I don’t believe that any Prime Minister has faced an event as awful as the September 2001 TUC conference. Addressing the TUC is like facing a hall full of ex-girlfriends, all of whom you left for their more attractive, sexually adventurous pals. They hate you, they’re hoping you’ve turned impotent and they have this self-righteous air about them that I always found nigh on unbearable. On the morning of September 11^th I’d prepared a speech, a good one so I thought, in which I’d planned to shoot some zingers, charting the difficult course we had to steer as reformers. It wasn’t exactly poetry but Alistair assured me that there were enough buzzwords and phrases in there to keep the newspaper editors happy and they, after all, were the real audience, not the cast of I’m Alright Jack.

I was orating to a small cabal of advisers who were clapping at the appropriate moments, correcting my stance and remoulding my facial muscles for best effect when Alistair came charging into the room.

“Quick, turn on the TV, not the BBC but one of Rupert’s networks, now!” he barked. On Sky News, we witnessed the live feed from New York. The World Trade Center was on fire, a dense plume of smoke clogging the Manhattan skyline. The headlines were unbelievable: hundreds, possibly thousands dead, the US under full scale attack from what was at this point, an invisible enemy. As we watched the North Tower collapse, my TUC speech fell from my hand. I’d never known such quiet. This was what Peter used to call a ‘Prescott moment’ – it was senseless, incomprehensible – one felt a sense of moral and physical revulsion.

“This is not a moment for hyperbole,” I said, “but this could be the beginning of a new world war.”

The hours following the attack were very difficult. I tried to contact President Bush only to be informed that George had been sedated both for his own protection and that of the American people. His generals were busy executing the so-called “Knee Cap Plan”, changing the country’s nuclear launch codes while a briefing package was put together for the president. This was designed to buy time so that the joint chiefs could explain the complexities of the situation to George before he launched a full-scale nuclear strike against whichever nation he deemed responsible. Knee jerk responses could start a war but it was important to fight the right battle, i.e. choose a target that couldn’t respond in kind.

Once George had been revived and fully briefed I was permitted to speak to him on our direct line.

“Blair,” he said, “these motherfuckers want to kill all of us and that includes you, your family and most of the Western world. Don’t be under any illusionations, we’re dealing with as many as twenty to thirty extremists here. These guys are hiding somewhere in Afghanistan and there’s no limit to what they’ll do – raping animals in church, urinating in holy water, selling women for guns; they’re barely human and we’ve got to show them that we won’t tolerate the mass murderization of our people by killing as many of theirs as possible.”

George would come in for a lot of criticism in the years that followed but people need to understand that he understood the issue immediately, knowing what needed to be done without having to think it through and I respected him for that from the very beginning.

This to me was my calling; it was essentially the reason that I’d entered public service. I realised in that moment that a policy of liberal, and whisper it quietly, Christian interventionism was the only way to restore order and meaning to the world. I was to be morality’s champion. Unless you’ve been Prime Minister you may struggle to understand the importance of having a mission in government. Up to that moment I had struggled to know precisely what New Labour was for. The project had been created to get into government and we had achieved that. I’d often watch old footage of Mrs Thatcher and envy her strength and clarity of purpose. What, I sometimes wondered, was mine? Now I knew. In that instant, I didn’t need to see the United Nations Charter or reams of appeasing legal documentation; my authority was my faith, my ability to persuade and connect, the toolkit that would facilitate delivery of this new and grand project. The war wets would have their say later, sanctimonious in the extreme; for now though this was my time and I took the chance to do what was right and get us on the subs bench with the winning team.

“George,” I said without so much as a flinch, “We’re with you. We’re with you with all our shoulders and hearts. I say to you, unconditionally, we’ll do whatever needs to be done and we shall not falter. We’re all on the same team after all; we’re all on the side of democracy and liberty. Whatever you need from us, rest assured you shall get it.”

It was at that moment that Mary, my PA, cut in on the line. “He’s gone Prime Minister.”

On Iraq and its aftermath (from the chapter ‘Faint Hearts Never Won Over A Nation’)

Afghanistan has been invaded and the attention of the US administration has now turned to Iraq. Despite immense opposition at home and abroad, Tony Blair has committed Britain to supporting and participating in the planned invasion. With just three days to go before the vote in the commons, the question of the whether there is a legal case for a preventative war dominates the headlines.

The legality of the war was a crucial question. Clearly there was moral authority for an invasion, any fool could see that. Saddam Hussein was a ruthless and sadistic dictator who’d killed more people than I cared to find out about and yet, despite this, a million lazy minded, sandal wearing, Guardian reading, pig-ignorant, bleating, pacifist pseudo-communists had marched on London (and a few other places), decrying the whole affair as reprehensible, indefensible and illegal. This final point seemed to me absurd. We were the government and we decided what was legal; that was the authority the people had invested in us – had they forgotten it? Obviously lawyers were ten a penny and you could, if you were so minded, rustle up a bunch who’d tell you that the war was a criminal act without a second UN resolution; no doubt a bunch of 2:2 graduates from The University of Huddersfield or some such! This was idiocy. The only legal opinion that mattered was that which came from within, after all, we had access to all of the intelligence, we’d written it for God’s sake! We had Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, whose reputation was beyond reproach, at least it was at that time. Nevertheless it didn’t hurt to push him a little.

I felt it was important to remind him that the commons vote was now only days away and, more importantly, the fate of myself, the government and our relationship with the international community was resting on his decision. Consequently I rang him every two hours to get an update on his progress. Initially he was flaky – well, you know lawyers, umming and erring as we talked about the legal position.

“C’mon man, I need an answer!” I’d tell him. “Do I really need to have Alistair draft one for you?”

“No Prime Minister,” he’d say, sounding rather wretched, “I’m reviewing the case for war carefully, you’ll have my decision in due course.”

Well, you can understand my frustration!

Fortunately we got the right answer. With hindsight a lot of the credit for this must go to Alistair. He was magnificent in very difficult circumstances. He had a very open and strongly worded dialogue with Goldsmith and I think that clarified a lot of details in the Attorney General’s mind. Legal questions are entertaining for a while but there comes a point when they threaten to derail the government’s agenda and angry as those million marchers were, I couldn’t believe they really wanted us distracted at such a critical moment in the history of the world.

Despite the haranguing I’ve received from some in the left wing press, and a few in the right wing press, it’s rather unfair that Iraq is considered to be my war. Whereas I’d fully take the credit, were it due, it was the Commons that voted for military action. Now be under no illusions, I had no obligation to give MPs the vote on this matter, I get my authority to declare war from the Crown, but I chose to allow it in order to equally distribute the plaudits for our post-war successes. I wanted members on all sides to share the nation’s thanks for being brave enough to vote in the national interest and protect our freedoms. Years later, it hurts to read that I had contempt for the PLP and the commons in general, that’s nonsense. I always held the upmost respect for my colleagues, regardless of their ignorance or adherence to antiquated parliamentary traditions that were laughable in a 24 hour, fast paced, dynamic, 21^st century world. The commons vote is therefore a moment I treasure with the upmost fondness. It wasn’t simply that I delivered what was, by common consent, a magnificent speech, rightly lauded as some of the finest and most sincere oratory ever delivered within the chamber, but also that when it came to the crunch both Labour and Conservative MPs (the less said about the feckless Liberals, the better!) voted the right way. I regret that Robin Cook felt the need to tarnish an otherwise adequate parliamentary career with a moment of obnoxious grandstanding, or that over 130 of my own MPs, who only held their seats because of me in the first place, soiled their own reputations and chances of ministerial posts by flaunting an appeasing tendency to the nation while simultaneously patting themselves on the back, but that’s politics. I said a little prayer for each of them.

Waiting for the result of that vote was awful. “This is probably how Patrick Magee felt when he was waiting for the Brighton Bomb to go off!” I joked to an aide but the tension killed the gag.

When the Chief Whip entered the committee room and gave me the nod, I felt twenty feet tall and twice as wide. I was going to fire the starting gun for democracy in the Middle East and I’d taken my party with me. When I now recall what followed, David Kelly, Robin’s unfortunate fall in the Lake District, hundreds of thousands Iraqis dead and of course 7/7, with the degenerates responsible having the Ed Balls to blame our policy in Iraq for the 52 people (though some reports say less) murdered, I’m sad but my heart nevertheless swells with pride. How could it not? There are casualties in every war but life is short and ultimately immaterial; what matters are the principles one lives one’s life by. Values, driven by self-belief, live on in history and endure, long after the blood has dried and the infrastructure has been rebuilt. We fought a good war, the right war, for the right reasons.

I dare say that in a hundred years time, when the slack-jawed critics with their blogs and newspaper columns and pointless public meetings have rotted away to nothing, their children’s illegitimate children will be sunning themselves poolside at a hotel in Tikrit, by that time once of the most prosperous and cosmopolitan places on Earth, and they’ll know, because of their GCSE history, that the reason that Iraq has moved from being a backward, oil rich nation to one of the most vibrant, service economy driven, forward thinking democracies on the planet is due to the hard choices we made back in 2003.

On the handover to Gordon Brown (from the chapter ‘Fade to Brown’)

Iraq has all but destroyed Tony Blair’s standing in the country and the government limps on for a further four years, winning an election in between with the lowest share of the vote in modern times. Gordon Brown wants to be Prime Minister and the pressure on Blair to make way is relentless.

“When are you going to resign?” This, from Cherie of all people who’d started to make comments like “this job is aging you, Tony” and “we’re never going to make any real money until you get out of Downing Street and start hitting the lecture circuit.”

Let me be perfectly clear about this, I didn’t hold onto the premiership for the sake of doing so. The problem was Gordon. To those that would say, “why didn’t you sack him?” my answer is a) he’d never allow it and b) there was a consensus at the time, admittedly from Gordon’s people within the treasury, that he was an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer. Not only did the treasury think so but also the banking industry, whom despite having no sway on the fate of elections, provide confidence which is considered crucial in winning them. I’ve never understood how that formula works but I’m not an economist.

Although there was no obvious alternative, I was apprehensive about handing the leadership to Gordon. Colleagues kept their true feelings private but one could infer their thinking from jokes and asides. Peter would ring me once a week to say things like “he’ll destroy the fucking party, we’ll be in the wilderness for thirty years” and Alistair, whose levity could always be relied upon to puncture the gloom would add, “he’s a clueless drone, a bean counter – if you ripped open his chest they’d be nothing but thick black hate where his organs should be. We couldn’t do worse if we went to the country lead by Gerry Adams’ conjoined twin.”

Whatever they said publically, I understood the subtext. I felt it myself. Gordon understood the minutiae of policy and had a forensic intelligence but he wasn’t strictly human. One expects computers to be cold, emotional voidships, making little calculations and nothing more, but it’s disconcerting to see this in a grown man. To make matters worse, he was cruel and aggressive whenever we spoke.

“I hate you,” he’d say, “you’re a fart, a cocktail of shit and afterbirth, you couldn’t lead a dance, you’re a cist on a lepper’s cock – why don’t you just fuck off to the palace and let the big boys take over, huh? Why won’t you go?”

I’d endured these rants for the best part of 13 years and they were finally starting to take their toll. I couldn’t trust Gordon on anything – he was clueless on reform, didn’t understand what was required for the country and had spent his entire time at the treasury forming opposition to whatever I did, rather than come up with a viable, that is to say similar, alternative. He hated people, and though we all did to an extent, he was incapable of hiding it.

Regardless of how I felt, however, I was no longer in control of events. The party was non-cooperative and silent, waiting for me to go. The country, despite everything I’d done for them, seemed to will on my departure. That’s difficult to accept, not least because I’d been so careful not to spook the horses with anything too radical – I’d kept the nation afloat and belatedly responded to the liberal views they’d held for years with half-hearted progressive legislation. Surely I deserved some credit for that? Commentators were now saying that I’d wasted the greatest opportunity afforded to any centre-left politician in British history but that could be dismissed as ahistoric. The people had elected us to govern with a caring face but not make too many changes and that’s exactly what we had done. Now, with Gordon bursting into my office every afternoon, slamming his fists against the desk and crying, “you’re in my fucking seat!” it was time to get off the stage before it collapsed beneath me.

“I’ll be going in June,” I said to him at last, “I just want to see out ten years and then that’ll be that.”

“Fine,” he said, “but that’s about 5 years too fucking late!”

So that was that, the end. Whatever historians, cultural commentators, the people who’d lived through the period or my own party thought, I knew myself to be the most successful Labour prime minister of all time. My accomplishments were unrivalled and you couldn’t argue with one desperate and two apathetic election victories.

My regret, if I had to declare, was that despite being true to myself I’d been labelled a liar by cynical armchair pundits – podgy failures who spent their free time watching EastEnders and munching chocolate while I was moving the world toward virtue and enlightenment.

Now I’d endorse Gordon by talking up his record, telling the nation what a great Prime Minister he’d make. This wasn’t, as you may suppose, a lie at all, rather an omission. By not providing all the facts about the man I was simply sparing the public undue worry about who’d be holding the most important office in the land. That’s what I did in tough times. I knew what needed to be done so I held a few things back. That’s the compromise we make with ourselves in public life. Maybe, one day, when you’re Prime Minister, you’ll understand.

A Journey by Tony Blair is published by Random House (RRP £25) and is available now. Is That All There Is suggests you donate money directly to the Royal British Legion and save yourself the trouble of reading it.

A Journey by Tony Blair – 1st draft extracts part I (Exclusive)

Today sees the publication of Tony Blair’s long awaited memoirs; the most important book to be published since the King James Bible. The title wasn’t the only part of the text to undergo minor amendments prior to publication. Is That All There Is, a favourite blog within the Westminster village, has acquired an early draft of the book. The paper is scented with incense confirming its authenticity. The draft runs to 500,000 words and significantly differs from the final version.

Today and tomorrow I shall be publishing key extracts from what is arguably one of the most important political tracts in history.

Today, the path to power…

On his early years (From the Chapter ‘Ugly Rumours’)

Blair is studying at St Johns College, Oxford and is the lead guitarist for Ugly Rumours, a sodomite rock band. It’s April 1972 and they’ve just performed their first gig for an audience at Corpus Christi College.

I was never fully comfortable with the sodomy gimmick, though Mark [Ellen] insisted that it gave the band an edge. On stage it enraptured the crowd, particularly the girls, who’d never witnessed four men engaged in full homosexual intercourse over two hours while playing instruments and singing. The chanting was extraordinary. I heard “fuck him” and “shunt the drummer” coming from pockets of the audience. It was filthy, grotesque even, yet incredibly exciting. I’ve often lamented that I never felt so grubby or alive for years after that, not until the 1996 party conference in fact, when Peter [Mandleson] approached me and said he had a transcript from an illicitly recorded conversation at Tory Central Office. It purported to include John Major saying ‘Blair’s going to fuck us all in the arse.’ I thought this remarkable because John Major knew nothing of my musical background.

Following the gig Mark took me to one side, asking if he could have a word. He looked downcast, unwell even – his face looked caked in talc. “Tony, I’m just going to come out and say it,” he said, “but there’s a rumour going around the college that you’re a Tory. You don’t have to tell me anything now, just know that no one on the right has ever been involved with a successful rock band. Think about it.”

Of course this horrified me, I had no idea that being on the left was a prerequisite for success with one’s music but I took it on board. Naturally the rumour was bunk. I’d always been Labour through and through; my mother’s eggs were individually inscribed with a Labour party membership number. I was pressed to explain how such a vile rumour may have started. I recalled making some light hearted comments about “the bloody unions” and “the obvious benefit of the free market” but clearly someone had put two and two together and made five. Innumeracy and ignorance were the twin maladies afflicting the left at that time, naturally.

On becoming a Labour MP (From the Chapter ‘Intelligent Design’)

The 1983 General Election has proved disastrous for the Labour Party but Blair has nevertheless been elected as the MP for Sedgefield. He now shares a parliamentary office with fellow newbie, Gordon Brown.

The 1983 victory was bittersweet. On one hand we’d gone down to a crushing defeat, one of the worst in our history. On the other I had joined the commons. Many, including myself, thought that the latter just about balanced the former, though there were others, notably the lachrymose Gordon, who was prone to dismissing the obvious and violently shaking me with a growl of “keep quiet you arrogant little bastard.”

Nevertheless I knew that I’d been provided with an incredible opportunity and, whisper it quietly, perhaps I had more than my new constituents to thank for it. One can consider it fanciful in this cynical, secular age, but I’d had some inkling of my personal success some two weeks before polling day. I’d been engaged in an act of furious masturbation, intimately involved in the circumstance of my release, when seconds before the climatic moment, I achieved a moment of absolute certainty. I knew I was going to win. Clearly absolute certainty was, at that time, the province of just two individuals, God and Mrs Thatcher, so it was obvious to me who’d inseminated my brain with this vision. Besides, there was no rational way that Thatcher could have been responsible.

In the early days I’d explain this to Gordon but even then he dismissed everything I said as “gobbledefuck” and “toss”. Gordon would talk about building a socialist utopia in which we’d nationalise the land and build two million new homes, each of which would come with a garage and a box of matches for the gas. Fortunately for The Labour Party, I held a different view. Although I’d barely begun to understand the complexities of the divine authority that guided my hand, I nevertheless could boast of now having a clear vision, unencumbered by the ideological infantilism of the past.

“Gordon,” I used to say, as simply and formally as that, “it’s all very well being a bastion of working class interest but ordinary people can’t be trusted to vote the right way.” Well, he hated that but I’d hardly begun.

“The problem,” I told him, “is that Mrs Thatcher has seized the initiative. She understands that the proletariat are essentially base, uneducated and envy-ridden. They look at the bourgeoisie and they say, ‘I want to be as materialistic, dull and self-righteous as them’ and who can blame them? They want what these people have – a car, a house, the best schools for their children. They want to make money for nothing, turning their home into an asset and borrowing against it in order to live in more segregated communities and buy consumer goods that will make them feel superior to their parents. If we understand this, above all else, and shed all this lofty, intellectually well sourced, principled bollocks, then we’ll start winning elections.”

To me the merits of the argument were obvious but Gordon would usually respond by trapping my hand underneath his and hitting the tips of my fingers with a Keir Hardie paperweight. It was obvious to me even then, that he simply couldn’t be trusted with the leadership.

On the death of John Smith and the tussle for the Labour Party Leadership (From the Chapter ‘They Call Me Mr Blair!’)

The sudden and unexpected death of John Smith in May 1994 shocks the nation and prompts an immediate clamour for the party leadership. Blair feels destined to take over but before he can do so, there’s the little matter of Gordon…

I’d received the dreadful news while in transit to the commons. The phone rang and it was Peter. His voice was pregnant with emotion. “Tony, I’m sorry,” he began, and one could tell he was fighting back tears, “but it looks as though Gordon’s serious about the leadership.” I’m usually fairly restrained when it comes to expressing my feelings but I recall that I broke down and collapsed into Cherie’s slippery arms. This, coming just hours after John’s death, was too much. The party had lost its leader and now looked set to lose its mind.

I’d asked to see Gordon at his earliest convenience but that, according to his secretary, was July 1997, so I was forced to ring his private number and demand a face to face meeting. Gordon said he was busy putting his campaign team together and having any rival group liquidated and asked if I wouldn’t mind deferring the catch up until after his election as leader. When I told him it was about the leadership, he agreed to dinner at Granita, provided I’d pay and limit my vocal contribution to less than 15 minutes.

Peter and I role played the dinner conversation the night before. I played myself, as is customary and Peter stood in for Gordon, vying for authenticity with the deliberate avoidance of eye contact and the periodic insertion of the word ‘fuck’ into every other sentence. Nervous as I was, it was tremendously exciting. On our first run-through Peter rolled a D20 and inflicted +4 damage, meaning that I had to give up control of both Economic Policy and the domestic agenda. The second time I was more successful and was able to use a gold talisman that forced Gordon to resign his parliamentary seat and chair a Tobacco company. The average across 12 rounds had me accede to the leadership, win the next election and keep Gordon at bay. This, I felt, was a good omen.

“Fuck that,” Gordon said when I suggested that I might be the modernising candidate that could win Middle England, “you’re an opportunistic parasite, a piece of shit. You think you can lead the party? No one knows who the fuck you are. I don’t know who you are and I’ve been working with you for 11 years!” Such distortions, were I’m afraid, typical of the man.

“Gordon, you’d be chancellor with full control of domestic policy,” I offered, “and I can promise you right now that if you agree to this, in the interests of the party let’s not forget, I’d almost definitely stand down after two terms and endorse you as my successor.” I thought it rather clever to include the word ‘almost’ as it left me plenty of room for manoeuvre and fortunately Gordon, who is selectively deaf and predictable to a fault, duly excised it from his immediate recollection of the conversation. It wasn’t pretty but he acknowledged the proposition’s self-evident logic by spitting on my lapin salad. It had taken four hours and six courses but I’d been able to use the spectre of our 1992 defeat and the misgivings we’d all had about Neil, well, everyone bar Gordon that is, to evoke the inevitability of defeat under any man who didn’t sound educated, that is to say Southern and middle class, like myself.

“Oh Gordon, don’t you see,” I said, “Once we’ve circumvented the electorate and established a Labour government it will be safe for you to take over. Then the nation’s prejudices won’t matter, you can show them what a great leader you are and win them over. By that time New Labour will be the dominant force in British Politics, more iconic than the swastika, and you’ll be the most magnificent second act since Coppola’s Godfather sequel.” I confess that I’m still very proud of that little speech. Peter had written it but it was my delivery that had made the difference on the night.

On Labour’s historic 1997 Landslide Victory (From the chapter – ‘1997 and all that’)

After 18 years of Conservative Government John Major finally fires the starting gun for the 1997 election. Tony Blair is 20 points ahead in the polls but stalked by uncertainty in the run up to polling day.

Alistair was upbeat, as ever. “We’re going to piss it,” he said, “have you seen these figures? We’re about the fuck the Tories ten new holes.” It was sweet to hear that kind of optimism but I confess I had my doubts. We’d been so certain in 1992, only to see the Tories run us over when the people finally voted. My political antenna is excellent, everyone said so, but despite usually being able to read the fickle British public like a Jeffrey Archer novel, I felt illiterate now.

“Yes,” I said to Alistair, while we chugged redbulls at Millbank, “I know we’re 20 points ahead and this is the least popular government since the 1920s and that we’ve had the easiest ride of any opposition since the extension of the franchise, but we can’t take anything for granted!”

“Ah Tony, you’re a fucking dunce” he’d say. Thank goodness for Alistair’s sense of humour.

On Election night Cherie and I had initially planned to video the results and make a statement the following afternoon but Peter was on the phone to say that it may be prudent to stay up to attend my count and, in the event of victory, make some kind of address. I was exhausted but reluctantly agreed.

I still feel somewhat engorged when I think back to those few hours. Alistair would rush up to me at regular intervals with exit polling from the marginals and we’d sit agog, crunching the numbers. “We’re looking at a three figure majority,” he said, “three fucking figures!” Quick as a flash I came back with “yeah, me, you and Peter” and he roared with laughter. These were the best times for the Labour Party.

With victory confirmed I was now free to seize the mantle of responsibility and be the war leader the country needed. They didn’t know we were at war of course but we were and it was a war against ideology. I’d been elected with the most threadbare policy agenda of any mainstream political party in the history of British Politics, yet, as I stood before a crowd of invited party workers and declared “A new dawn has broken, has it not?” – though it was a rhetorical question, the answer was self-evidently yes, I knew there was much still to do. Alistair thought that victory was final but I had to tell him, the country now expected us to do something. What would that be exactly? Well, many people, though they’d voted for us, were carrying around ideological baggage. Our project was to expunge it and put in its place total deference to market forces. “That way,” I explained as the crowds cheered outside, “we could be in power forever. You see if the market controls everything then government is responsible for nothing. We can concentrate on flying the flag abroad, promoting middle class lifestyle choices and encouraging people to become less political.”

“But isn’t there a danger they won’t vote?” asked Alistair, not yet appreciating the scale of my vision.

“Well we don’t want old Labour voters to turn out, do we?” I told him, “else we might have to listen to them.”  That was Alistair’s eureka moment and I’m proud to have given it to him.

“We’ve had your face put on some sticks,” he said, “we’re going to give them to the crowd we’ve earmarked for Downing Street, once you’ve been to the palace.”

“Oh no,” I said, “better just to give them union jacks and Labour Party banners, this is going to be recorded for posterity, I want it to be low key and dignified.” That was my gift to the Labour Party and the country; I knew them better than they knew themselves.

Tomorrow – 9/11, Iraq, hard choices and the handover of power!

Read Part II here.