A Journey [Hardcover]

I have never liked Tony Blair, never liked Labour and marched against the War. I bought this book from a desire understand why Labour and particularly Tony Blair governed as they did. I could not put the book down and found it genuinely fascinating both as an insight into politics and also the role of the prime minister in modern Britain. Blair is very different from the man I was expecting and a far better man than I would have guessed. Although still against the war, he had by the end convinced me there was an argument both ways. Whilst I consider myself objective, I admit I felt a bit of shame that I definitely fell into the camp that has allowed itself to be led by media opinion of individuals rather than seriously considering a politicians argument on its merits. His reflection on the negative way the media influences politics and public opinion is spot on and this really must change. A lot of reviewers have criticised the personal style the book is written in and in normal circumstances I might agree. However A journey is such a good read that this becomes irrelevant and actually really helps to get inside the mind of a man who is making decisions with historic and grave consequences every day. The analysis of the relationships within the Labour Party is also particularly intriguing. Most of the negative reviews on this site do seem to come at the book with an agenda and also I suspect have not read the entire book or even some of it. Certainly for me it has changed my whole perspective of the New Labour years and its principle architects and is more informative than one hundred second-rate history books on the subject. To sum up, if you have any serious interest in Great Britain and Northern Ireland and its future, this is a book that should definitely be read.

A Journey is the autobiographical account of his time in office by Tony Blair. It's difficult to be objective about a review without your political persuasion getting in the way, but I will try.

For the purposes of transparency, I should state that I didn't vote Labour but I will try, as I said, to be objective.

Firstly, I would recommend this book. I think it gives a valuable insight into the trappings of power, the workings of parliament, the numerous (and diverse) challenges that challenge today's modern politician and indeed, Prime Minister.

The book itself is lengthy, and gives fairly detailed accounts of the key issues that challenged Mr. Blair during his presidency leadership of both the Labour Party and the country. Iraq, Afghanistan, New Labour, Gordon Brown, Fuel Crisis, Irish Peace Talks, the odd scandal, Europe, September 11th, Diana, etc. It's all there and reads like a very modern history, and serves as a good reminder about how much occurred during his leadership.

His writing style is almost conversational, as you might expect if he was recounting verbally to you, which I quite enjoyed and found accessible. It certainly help through some of the longer winded (and to me) less interesting phases of the book.

This review is meant to be a quick review so I am going to cut to the quick with my summation.

In my view he never really answers the Iraq question. His reasons for invading still don't appear to justify it (from a "legal" perspective) but what is clear and I believe is sincere, is the toll the losses from conflict have taken on him mentally. I truly do.

The Tony Blair / Gordon Brown piece, well this is his side. You could say his view in the book has been justified by Gordon Brown's subsequent leadership disaster, but I think I'll withhold my conclusion until I read Mr Brown's memoirs.

His position on Labour is interesting. Basically he says that Labour will go back to being an occasional government if it goes back to it's left roots and gives up on the New Labour program. Time I guess will tell on that conclusion.

Really interesting was his often bitter attack on the press. I'm intrigued by this since New Labour (in my humble opinion) were the first real example of a "spun" party and government. True, the reforms (when you are reminded of them) are impressive on the face of it, but I can't help recalling the spin that Alistair Campbell and co used to masquerade at the height of their power, fully supported by the media. When the media turned their back, clearly Mr Blair thought it unreasonable and unjustifiable, which of course is laughable. Being in office and being PM ends in only 1 way. Just like a football manager. He should be big enough to acknowledge that.

And therein lies the ultimate end point for me. I still get the impression that Mr Blair feels that he was abandoned by party he reformed and got into power for their longest serving period ever, and is still very bitter about that. He never really acknowledges some of the bigger issues he perhaps didn't manage as well as he could have, even in hindsight, which leaves him accepting odd little mistakes that would have made no difference here or there. At times the account therefore seems a little disingenuous. Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect him to turn around and say he was wildly wrong in so many areas, but not accepting fault or blame for certain things, I believe could undermine the sincerity he places on the more important elements of his account.

Nevertheless, I would recommend reading this book and trying to read it as objectively as possible. It's a fairly riveting read (although there are passages on foreign policy and religion that do go on a bit) and a great insight into the world of modern "presidential" politics.

What you get from this book will depend greatly on your opinion of its author. I will state my own position: I was a strong admirer of Tony Blair's leadership. I admired his work on reforming the public sector; and I thought the decision to invade Iraq was controversial, but not necessarily wrong.

The book itself portrays Blair in ways that are good, bad, and indifferent.

The good: I found Blair's account of Iraq well worth reading. I also found very interesting his depiction of the politics of implementing (with great conviction), a social democratic reform programme. Other valuable insights are his informative observations about the difficulties of European politics, and his pessimism over the future of the left, `after' social democracy. On all these matters I felt Blair came over as authentic and plausible.

The indifferent: Notable of course is his relationship with Gordon Brown , slightly to his left. This was initially demanding, then dysfunctional, and finally broken down. Blair describes how towards the end he became distinctly (I would say over-)confident, and virtually stopped listening or attempting to negotiate a consensus. Also noteworthy is his depiction of how he effectively drifted to the right in the later stages, while becoming at the same time less liberal.

The bad: The first lay in the descriptions of peoples' motivations. Blair recurrently reveals a lack of depth and sophistication in his understanding of human psychology. For example, he repeatedly describes a like of `passionate' people - IMHO naively overrating overassertiveness, seemingly oblivious to its cost.

Secondly, for all his capacity to thoroughly understand situations, Blair's described motivations often seem somewhat hot headed. This takes various forms, from moral fervour and over-certainty ('I just wanted to know: what is the right thing?')to powerlust. This leads him in turn to justify some instances of dishonesty He reveals how he expected, but did not disclose this to allies, the use of ground troops in Kosovo; at one point he refers to the concept of sticking to a manifesto pledge as `absurd'; he still fails to give a convincing account of the Bernie Eccleston saga.) He portrays himself as more aggressive and less likeable than the image he conveyed while in post. He scathingly synonimises `liberal' with `wet' ; arrogantly dimisses in retrospect the pandemic flu scare as hype; he even manages to sound racist and sexist at times.

Lastly, for such a brilliant and polished political performer, it's a real shock that he has written the book so badly . It's as though, once he'd decided to donate the royalties to charity, he de-prioritised the project, writing it at night, and then skimping on the use of an editor.

Read the book - it has to be a key part of anyone's retrospective on the Blair decade. You'll learn more about both his strengths and his weaknesses.