What the Blair memoirs are not going to say
Posted on Tuesday 17 August, 2010
Filed Under Iraq, New Labour
RANDOM House has paid Tony Blair a $7.5m advance for his memoirs. Given that the company is the largest English language publisher in the world, one presumes it knows what it is doing. But the truth is that political diaries only rarely sell in sufficient quantity to recoup major outlays.
Often such deals are not guided purely by commercial considerations. HarperCollins, part of the Murdoch empire, has a track record of handing out huge sums to influential public figures in return for the rights to tedious books unlikely to shift many units, especially if crucial votes on sensitive legislation are in the offing.
There is no suggestion here that the Blair deal is anything other than entirely properly and based on a reasoned projection of likely sales, of course. What is more, all royalties have been pledged to the British Legion, a charity for former service personnel. The gesture does not impress the Stop the War Coalition, which is planning to picket a book signing session at Waterstone’s next month.
But I cannot help wondering just how revelatory ’A Journey’ is going to prove, especially on the crucial question of the invasion of Iraq. You can read an account something close to the reality of the way events really unfolded in Andrew Rawnsley’s ‘The end of the party’, which I am currently about half way through.
Despite the voluminous output of the spin doctors in 2002 and early 2003 – one only hopes Alastair Campbell was on piece work – the evidence we have so far is that all crucial decisions were taken in Washington many months in advance, with Britain essentially tagging along for the ride.
However much the former prime minister maintains that he was motivated primarily by humanitarian considerations, or even the guidance of the Almighty, the one-sentence condensed summary is that he did what he was told to do by Bush.
But Blair, a man who notoriously feels the hand of history on his shoulder, is not going to tell it like it is, or rather, tell it like it was. What we are set to get instead is a sanitised account that will make for tedious reading to all but his most devoted fans. I suspect the lies of omission will be many.
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11 Responses to “What the Blair memoirs are not going to say”
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I particularly liked hearing Blair’s former constituency agent on the radio say that Blair has never been interested in money. Blair’s personal charisma must be quite something – it’s a bit like saying that Peter Mandelson has never been interested in power, or Harold Shipman was never interested in killing people.
It’s a pity the worm didn’t feel the hand of Saddam’s hangman on his shoulder – along with Bush. But nice well spoken white middle class men in suits can’t be war criminals can they?
Dave,
Blair was advocating taking out Saddam(see his Chicago speech in 1999) when George Bush was still the Governor of Texas and Cheney was still at Hailburton.
Blair was no Bush’s puppet……..that is George Galloway smear.
Dave. Blair was no ones puppet. If Galloway said that then he got something right. Blair probably guided Bush 11 just like the British did with Bush 1 in the first Gulf War.
The idea that Britain were pushing the US into war and that it was a British led policy can be put down to either 1) utter idiocy or 2) The British failure to accept the end of empire.
That doesn’t mean Blair was led kicking and screaming into this great historic crime, more smugly smiling. He should still be tried as a war criminal, AND FOUND GUILTY!
What war crimes ? Blair acted in my name !
Dean. You really surprise me. You the anti capitalist. It is fuck all to do with Empire just economic interest. It is a fact Bush 1 was reluctant to retake Kuwait. The British convinced him it was the right thing to do. Britain formed Kuwait and had a deal with Kuwait. They could not abandon their friend. The Yanks thought they could do a deal with Saddam. Initially.
It’s when Deen scrieks about ‘Empire’ that I suspect eis not a socialist.
It doesn’t matter who guided who. The Iraq War from the US ruling class’s perspective, was a disaster. The balance of power is in favor of Iran in that region. In Afghanistan the Taliban are coming back in power.
To the hard of reading : who said anything about the Iraq war being to do with empire? I was saying anyone who believed Britain were the prime movers in the war in Iraq must believe ‘we’ are still the ‘great’ colonial power of yesteryear or a complete idiot.
Really, try reading the words!!
What a clever chappy you are Ceen. Nice bit of evasion there.