Tony Blair, Britain’s longest-serving Labour prime minister, endorsed Conservative David Cameron’s economic policy and slammed Gordon Brown, his partner in power for a decade, for political incompetence.
In his memoir “A Journey,” published by Random House today, Blair said that “in many areas of domestic policy, the Tories will be at their best when they are allowed to get on with it.” He said Cameron’s policies are close to his own vision of using market forces to improve public services, ideas rejected by Brown, who led the Labour Party to defeat in May after forcing Blair out in 2007.
“If governments don’t tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers, who fear that big deficits mean big taxes, both of which reduce confidence, investment and purchasing power,” Blair wrote.
The 736-page book recounted Blair’s 27-year relationship with Brown, initially comparing them to lovers, then a married couple, and then bitter rivals. Blair praised Brown’s efforts to stave off the 2008 banking collapse, then criticised him for driving up government debt.
‘No instinct’
“I had a feeling that my going and being succeeded by Gordon was also terminal for the government,” Blair wrote. “I discovered there was a lacuna — not the wrong instinct, but no instinct at the human, gut level. Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero. Gordon is a strange guy.”
In an advance copy of the book seen by Bloomberg, Blair wrote that Britain elected “a Tory version of New Labour” in May with a coalition of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. In the British edition published today, that was changed to “a Tory version of a centrist government (whether they get that is another matter!).”
Blair claimed credit in the memoir for management of the economy, saying the 1997 move to give the Bank of England independence by granting it the power to set monetary policy was his idea, not Brown’s. The two men oversaw Britain’s longest period of uninterrupted growth.
The former premier, 57, defended his 2003 decision to invade Iraq, while describing how he wept as he talked to a soldier’s widow. He also recounted sabotaging a ban on fox hunting, one of the most controversial laws of his premiership.
Charity donation
Blair will donate the proceeds of the book, including his advance, reported to be £4.6 million ($7.1 million) by British media, to a charity for wounded soldiers.
In the final chapter, Blair turned to UK politics today. While praising Brown’s actions to recapitalise banks, he attacked the rest of his response to the global financial crisis.
