Released on September 4th 2024, this was not revelatory for me, but it was confirmatory of everything I have thought about the shameless unprincipled man whose name I prefer to spell Bliar, since even before he became prime minister.
Amol Rajan is interesting – he was born in India and was editor of The Independent newspaper before he joined the BBC. He is a spin bowler and has written a book on the subject, Twirlymen, the Unlikely History of Cricket’s Greatest Spin Bowlers, Random House, 2011, and as another reviewer commented, his clever questions reflect that – some of them are googlies. As a republican, he has also, to my delight, come out with some salty comments about the royal family, describing them as absurd and the media as a propaganda outlet for them. He called then prince Charles a “racist buffoon” and “scientifically illiterate”. In a letter to prince William and his wife whilst they were expecting their first baby, he wrote that their public role was “a total fraud”, and has said that the diamond jubilee was “a celebration of mediocrity” and the family is “a clan unusually full of fools.” He did subsequently apologise, which seems a shame.
It is a mystery (well, not really) to me that Bliar is not rotting in a jail cell somewhere. That he has the temerity to raise his head above the parapet yet again and talk down to us all shows a terrifying lack of self-awareness. He is not solely responsible of course, but his illegally taking us to war in Iraq has resulted in tens or even hundreds of thousands of human lives lost, and there are the animal lives too, following his failure to deliver promised legislation relating to animal experimentation. There is no remorse, no contrition, for anything, only a frightening self-belief and overweening arrogance. That this warmonger was appointed peace envoy to the Middle East was the ultimate irony and a terrible insult to the entire Islamic world. He didn’t seem to achieve anything much at all, but did find time to cosy up to ‘dodgy’ (really not a strong enough word) dictators and big corporations, to his huge financial benefit.
He comes across throughout as slippery or tetchy, or both. “I can help the people,” he announces, and he trots out his favourite “What I always say to people is this…” Well, don’t. There were six inquiries, he says, in relation to the illegal war, which found “no deceit”. Is anyone really convinced by this? And even if that were true, is it a justification? As his interviewer remarks, the cloud of war remains what dominates and defines his legacy. We are still living in the terrible aftermath. He takes full credit for the Northern Ireland agreement (admittedly an actual achievement) but gives no credit to, makes no mention of Mo Mowlam, whose role was absolutely crucial.
Bliar is not just messianic (as many who know him well, including other former primer ministers describe him), he has, I think, a God complex. It seems as though he can barely retrain himself from licking his lips whenever he uses the word “power”. He uses it a lot, talking of “coming to power” (looking cross and serious) with no apparent sense that he was supposedly there to serve. All he talks of in that regard is the burden of responsibility, which is not the same thing at all. With cold eyes he talks of growth and globalisation (“The world’s not going to slow down,” he says, comparing what’s happening now to the Industrial Revolution) but it is precisely this obsession with growth and unfettered capitalism that is likely to send us all to hell in a handcart. It’s no good just throwing your hands in the air.
At one point he speaks of “things like education”. What things? What is like education? “I can deal with the problems of arising out of immigration,” he pompously declaims. The Zeitgeist now is “more anxious” – no shit Sherlock. And who is in so many ways responsible for that?
At around the 39 minute mark, Amol Rajan quotes from Bliar’s book (the italics are mine): “The moment I saw what power was and what it could do, I wanted it. I wanted it for the usual mix of motives. To change the world, to put principle into practice, to be respected and recognised as a person with power and to feel that power, to feel how it could shape my [!] world around me as well as the world of of others.” Which pretty much says it all.
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