Critics who dubbed Britain’s ex-prime minister “Tony Blur” for his allegedly substance-free politics swaddled in gauzy PR won’t have their minds changed by this nebulous memoir. Blair’s brief for his “ground-breaking” New Labour platform reads like a marketing plan: it’s all about middle-class “aspiration”, “focusing on the developing tastes of consumers”, and “modernization”, the glossed-over particulars being a muddle of small-bore education, health-care and law-and-order initiatives.
The Iraq War is a similar “battle between modernizers and reactionaries”, according to Blair’s high-minded justification, a battle which would have gone well but for the meddling of Al Qaeda and Iran. He writes like an ad executive–”it had to be dignified, it had to be different, and it had to be Diana”, he says of the laudably “modern” princess’s funeral–but his candor can be bracing. He paints comic scenes of excruciating audiences with dull dignitaries and the weekly torment of Prime Minister’s Questions, is nakedly spiteful toward his Labour rival and successor Gordon Brown, and never hides his preoccupation with image-crafting and media relations. Blair reveals himself to be savvy, charming, and sometimes earnest and impassioned, but never quite a statesman.
As Tony Blair said it at the beginning of the book, this is not a memoir; it is a reflection of history that unravelled around him mainly during the time of his prime ministership. Readers may have extremely different political views and a review risks appearing taking one side or another.
The book is personal story narrated in a style that changes throughout the book. It can be crisp and clear, but it can be convoluted, dragging the argument on and on. It gives away a schism between two sides which contradict themselves: the intense, ambitious political man who has the point blank desire to get the power (“it is an extraordinary feeling…you can achieve something beyond the ordinary”) and the person accepting the destiny that gives him the sceptre of that power. The sense of destiny appears sometimes as if he did it because he had to; it is almost a justification for some difficult choices.
Tony Blair seems to be genuine; he is not chasing elegance and righteousness and sometimes he becomes so involved with the subject to the point where he almost forgets he is addressing to a reader. He would know when is opinion is controversial and accept many others have opposite opinions. He leaves the door open for others’ interpretation of error on his behalf. He knows the public is judging him. His only defence is personal belief in what he considers his duty.
There is one thread though that goes through the book, something that causes him quite a discomfort: his relationship with Gordon Brown (GB as he refers to him sometimes). This is an aspect of his life that has no definite closure and he is not hundred percent comfortable talking about it, but he talks.
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