Why Blair is standing by Bush now

29 July 2006

Whether Tony Blair decides to step down at the next party conference, or hang in there until 2007, doesn’t much matter when it comes to appraising the much-mocked Blair–Bush relationship.

Good fun, but wrong. I remember sitting with the PM on the lawn of a deserted No.10 on a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon, sipping a Diet Coke, the same drink I was offered years ago in the humbler setting of the office Blair occupied when still an obscure opposition politician, quizzing me on the effect on employment of his proposed minimum-wage law.

The afternoon’s topic: Britain’s place in the world. Blair may lurch from policy to policy when it comes to crime, education and other domestic issues, but when it comes to foreign policy he has a very definite view of where he wants to take Britain. Start with a view he shares with the President. The foreign-policy establishments of both countries are somewhere between useless and harmful to their nations’ interests.

Blair knows that the Foreign Office is irremediably pro-Arab and anti-Israel — ‘Remember where the oil is, old boy, remember the atrocities those Jews committed to drive us out of Palestine, and remember all the money the Saudis and others spend and invest in Britain.’ Bush knows that his State Department — especially in the days of Colin Powell and at least until he parachuted in Condoleezza Rice — prefers any deal to no deal when there is a crisis, is unnerved by any threat to the status quo, and found Saudi Arabia’s smooth Prince Bandar more congenial than the rougher-hewn Ariel Sharon.

So both men rely on their own judgments and instincts when it comes to carving out a role for their countries in an increasingly fractious world. The striped-pants brigade can tut-tut, but no matter.

Back to No.10 on that great English afternoon. No strawberries and cream, but unlimited Diet Cokes. As requested, I laid out the economic arguments for and against deeper involvement with the EU, and suggested that the economic data show that even the extreme case — withdrawal from the Union — would not hurt the UK economy and might even enable it to grow faster.

Blair’s reply reminded me of the time I argued to Margaret Thatcher that she was costing the Treasury a small — well, not so small — fortune by underpricing shares in British Gas. ‘This has nothing to do with economics,’ was the reply (I paraphrase). ‘This is about politics. We need to have more shareholders than union members, and I want the original purchasers [remember the ‘Sids’?] to do so well that they become shareholders in other companies.’