Tony Blair: A Journey, by Tony Blair, Hutchison RRP£25, 718 pages
Tony Blair’s memoir is part psychodrama, part treatise on the frustrations of leadership in a modern democracy. It is written in a chummy style with touches of Mills & Boon. Blair reveals, for example, how he “devoured” Cherie with animal passion on the night he decided to pursue the leadership of the Labour party in 1994. The book’s broader purpose is to preserve his legacy, settling scores, justifying the war against Iraq, and mounting a defiant plea to his party to keep faith with New Labour.
The self-portrait is curiously contradictory. Blair is ruthless but at times diffident. He is a conviction politician, especially when it comes to foreign wars; but his domestic reforms are half-baked. He is weak on execution, with the exception of the Northern Ireland settlement. His youthful premiership epitomised “Cool Britannia”, but he ended up being loathed and mistrusted. His relationship with Gordon Brown was the most important but also the most destructive during 10 years in Downing Street.