Labour's all-time winner stopped trashing his own legacy at the Leveson inquiry and reminded us of his great talents
Polly Toynbee
guardian.co.uk,
Tony Blair arrives at the Royal Courts of Justice to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics on Monday 28 May. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Watching Tony Blair at Leveson on Monday, what was Labour to think? Here was their all-time winner, clever, engaging and frank about what he did to navigate the hostile media seas. Here was a strong reminder of all the perennial dilemmas Labour faces in trying to be heard above the massed foghorns of the right.
Had he once said "My absolute priority is to win. I know it sounds unprincipled but I believe it's my role in life"? "Yep, sounds like something I would have said," he replied with a smile and the courtroom laughed. In politics there is no point in losing. The finest principles are useless without power. What Blair laid out was realpolitik, the art of the possible. The question for a party whose purpose is radical change remains the same: how far dare one go? Blair's answer has always been the same: not very far. His failure to challenge the overmighty media was emblematic of much that he did and didn't do.
The warped press is the single greatest obstacle to Labour gaining power. Once having gingerly stepped inside, the party never feels secure and fears its own shadow. Spin was in fact self-defence, using what Blair called Labour's first professional media operation. Never forget what Labour is up against: 80% of newspaper readership for a hundred years has belonged not just to conservatives, but mainly to extreme maverick press barons, using their power to control politics.
Churchill had to take Beaverbrook into his wartime cabinet to keep him quiet. Northcliffe, asked for his formula, said he gave his Mail readers "a daily hate" – and Blair was dead right to decide nothing could be done about the Mail's poisonous hostility. Conrad Black, after years of hectoring Labour with his off-the-scale neocon views in the Telegraph, is only just out of jail. The Barclay brothers are scarcely more reasonable, tax-avoiding in their feudal fiefdom of Sark, while Red Hot TV owner Richard Desmond's Express is beyond parody.Now Murdoch and his empire are at last in the dock for the vile activities of his gutter press, as scrutiny turns to his cat-and-mouse intimidation and manipulation of politicians.
Historians underestimate the might of the media forces against Labour: apart from Berlusconi's Italy, Europe's media is more balanced. Blair rightly says our broadcasters' agendas are dragged along by the frenzy of sound from the press. He talked of how deeply he and his entourage were seared by the treatment of Neil Kinnock in 1992, with that "It's the Sun wot won it"gloat. "I was absolutely determined that we should not be subject to the same onslaught."
John Major marked his downfall from the day Murdoch turned against him – the day Murdoch gave Blair the thumbs up. What did it take? Blair was open: whatever it took to placate, charm and persuade him to give Labour a fair hearing. Did that include shaping policies to please Murdoch? No, he absolutely denied it. No, he never gave Murdoch what he wanted commercially either: not ITV, not sport's crown jewels or Manchester United – nor did Labour cut back the BBC. And Murdoch detested the strengthening of Ofcom.
But once in power, why didn't Blair stand up to Murdoch? "Frankly, I decided as a political leader that I was going to manage that and not confront it." Since Margaret Thatcher set aside media ownership laws to let Murdoch acquire 40% of readership plus Sky, why didn't he break up overmighty empires? Impossible, Blair said, for any government: he left his"feral beasts" attack to his last days. Taking on the overmighty press would have meant an "absolute major confrontation" lasting years, while the public wanted action on health, schools and crime. "That's the political judgment you have to make."
At his most eloquent, Blair called on all the parties to support whatever Leveson decides and not to play politics. This is the only last chance: he has exposed more than any previous leader the unremitting thuggery of the press. "Now is a sensible moment to protect our democratic freedoms." Will it happen?
Watching him, Labour people will ask if Blair was right in his caution. His view that some things were just "inevitable", unchangeable, permeated his politics: nothing much could be done about Britain's distribution of power and money. He rarely shared his party's yearning for radical change, satisfied with amelioration and a minor shift of emphasis. On Monday he was eager to protect his legacy – and indeed, he deserves that we remember all that Labour did best: an NHS immeasurably improved, 20% more pupils with five good GCSEs, many more at university or in further education, minimum wage, right to roam, civil partnerships, 3,500 Sure Starts.
As for Iraq – yes, he said, of course he strove to bend the media to his cause. I share the common view that Iraq was a terrible error, but I never thought Blair anything but sincere in joining that war: politically there was nothing in it for him. There is no doubt he moved rightwards the longer he stayed in office: his remaining standard bearers are irritants, still calling for more commercialising "reform" of public service, as if they haven't noticed how time and politics have moved on, as Cameron's government sets about stripping the state to its barest bones. These Blairite outposts warn that any step more radical than his leads to the eternal wilderness, as warn the words at the end of his autobiography: "Labour won when it was New Labour. It lost because it stopped being New Labour."
But he would say that, wouldn't he? The Blair at Leveson has travelled far from the man who first stepped into No 10 that May morning among a crowd of rose-wavers. The mystery is why he has been so reckless with his reputation since leaving office. Why use his ex-leader prestige to earn obscene sums of money, channelled through opaque companies, keeping bad company in a jet-set of plutocrats, none sharing the social concerns he once had? Why has he become a close friend of Murdoch, godfather to Murdoch's child? Why send Rebekah Brooks his commiserations after the foul work that forced her resignation? Why flack for a filthy Kazakhstan dictator? Had he taken Jimmy Carter's path of virtue, his reputation would be growing by the year. Most ex-leaders burnish their place in history. How sad to be reminded of his great political talents on Monday, as he trashes his own legacy.
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