Read Online A Journey by Tony Blair - Free Book Online
Authors: Tony Blair
Tags: Historical, History, Personal Memoirs, Biography & Autobiography, Military, Political, Political Science, Modern, 21st Century, Leadership, Political Process
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suddenly find you’re in a cage with a bare-knuckle fighter and a howling mob outside laying bets on how long you’ll last.
I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide. However, I would calculate the upset, calibrate it, understand its dimensions, assess its magnitude, ameliorate its consequences. And so I got over the surprise of the onslaught and became used to the derision, began to develop the carapace of near indifference to dispute that is so dangerous in a leader yet so necessary for survival.
Through it all, I was slowly coming to grips with the other dimension of government for which no amount of political courage is sufficient: the technical details of getting the policy right. I could see I might have to choose between what was right and what was politic, but deciding what was right was itself complex and highly contentious. The more I investigated the facts, the closer came the understanding that changing a nation was a whole lot harder than changing a party. The risks inherent in that, and the courage to take them, were of a different order entirely.
I was going to do my best and I was going to do it carefully; but even in those first months, even as it seemed we were masters of the political scene, I could see where the next lesson lay: what happened when you came to the risk that could not be calculated? What happened when your opponents were not the usual vested interests, and the noise was not the normal clamour aroused by anyone who tries to change anything, but came from the mainstream voices of mainstream people? What happened if the disagreement was not with the party or a limited section of the public, but with the body of the people?
I was aware I was a very popular leader. It was a bit like a love affair with the public, on both our parts. Like newly-weds, we envisaged ourselves growing together, learning together, falling out from time to time as all couples do, but retaining something profound that made our love real and whole, always there to be retrieved. What happened if we grew apart?
TWO
THE APPRENTICE LEADER
T he journey from Opposition to government had taken three years. It sounds a short time. It’s not how it feels. Every day drags. Every week a fresh anxiety or event or statement disturbs the careful orchestration of the march from impotence to power. Every month your competitors, or someone in the media simply bored or irritated by your success, looks to sully the brand, cheapen it, ridicule it. Every year there is a new height to be attained so that the momentum is not lost.
Yet I look back on the stories and commentary during those years, and I deride the feelings of difficulty I had at the time. That was tough? It was a stroll, a breeze, a gentle jog towards the finishing line. I reread the notes, remember the calls, run through the meetings, each one of which mattered so much and, in my mind, contributed so much, and I wonder at the simplicity and ease of it all.
What never changed between Opposition and government was the intensity of the focus. Of course, back then, I was learning and reaching new levels at every important juncture; at the time it naturally felt so much harder and challenging.
As a child you first learn about courage and fear in the playground fight, when the bully bullies and you are scared of being hurt. Finally, at some point, you turn and fight. I can still recall the exact moment for me: aged about ten, outside the gates of Durham Choristers School in the beautiful and ancient Cathedral Close where we first lived when we came to the city, with the old SPCK bookshop and the eighteenth-century houses and cottages beside the Norman splendour of the cathedral.
He wasn’t even a very big bully.
I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide. However, I would calculate the upset, calibrate it, understand its dimensions, assess its magnitude, ameliorate its consequences. And so I got over the surprise of the onslaught and became used to the derision, began to develop the carapace of near indifference to dispute that is so dangerous in a leader yet so necessary for survival.
Through it all, I was slowly coming to grips with the other dimension of government for which no amount of political courage is sufficient: the technical details of getting the policy right. I could see I might have to choose between what was right and what was politic, but deciding what was right was itself complex and highly contentious. The more I investigated the facts, the closer came the understanding that changing a nation was a whole lot harder than changing a party. The risks inherent in that, and the courage to take them, were of a different order entirely.
I was going to do my best and I was going to do it carefully; but even in those first months, even as it seemed we were masters of the political scene, I could see where the next lesson lay: what happened when you came to the risk that could not be calculated? What happened when your opponents were not the usual vested interests, and the noise was not the normal clamour aroused by anyone who tries to change anything, but came from the mainstream voices of mainstream people? What happened if the disagreement was not with the party or a limited section of the public, but with the body of the people?
I was aware I was a very popular leader. It was a bit like a love affair with the public, on both our parts. Like newly-weds, we envisaged ourselves growing together, learning together, falling out from time to time as all couples do, but retaining something profound that made our love real and whole, always there to be retrieved. What happened if we grew apart?
TWO
THE APPRENTICE LEADER
T he journey from Opposition to government had taken three years. It sounds a short time. It’s not how it feels. Every day drags. Every week a fresh anxiety or event or statement disturbs the careful orchestration of the march from impotence to power. Every month your competitors, or someone in the media simply bored or irritated by your success, looks to sully the brand, cheapen it, ridicule it. Every year there is a new height to be attained so that the momentum is not lost.
Yet I look back on the stories and commentary during those years, and I deride the feelings of difficulty I had at the time. That was tough? It was a stroll, a breeze, a gentle jog towards the finishing line. I reread the notes, remember the calls, run through the meetings, each one of which mattered so much and, in my mind, contributed so much, and I wonder at the simplicity and ease of it all.
What never changed between Opposition and government was the intensity of the focus. Of course, back then, I was learning and reaching new levels at every important juncture; at the time it naturally felt so much harder and challenging.
As a child you first learn about courage and fear in the playground fight, when the bully bullies and you are scared of being hurt. Finally, at some point, you turn and fight. I can still recall the exact moment for me: aged about ten, outside the gates of Durham Choristers School in the beautiful and ancient Cathedral Close where we first lived when we came to the city, with the old SPCK bookshop and the eighteenth-century houses and cottages beside the Norman splendour of the cathedral.
He wasn’t even a very big bully.
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