In the background, a photograph of Tony Blair with Nelson Mandela. Here is a young Tony, a smiling Tony, a Tony who loves the world and knows the world loves him. The camera pans sideways to reveal the present-day Tony. A wizened Tony, a rictus Tony, a Tony who hates the world and who knows the world hates him.
Tony can feel the chill breath of the Chilcot report on his neck. He’s read the findings, he knows they aren’t good, but Blair Inc is not going to go down without a fight. Not when there’s a legacy, a foundation and a multimillion pound empire to protect. Which is why the Bloomberg TV cameras had been invited to his London office for an hour-long interview with John Micklethwait. Tony’s name might not count for much in the UK, but in the US – on a still summer’s day – he believes he can feel something that might possibly resemble love. This hour was for those – like him – who still want to believe.
The interview takes place in what could pass for a Harley Street waiting room. The chairs arranged just so, the small bookcase full of unread books, the fireplace that looks as if it has never been used, the glass cabinet with bronze statue, the cut flowers, the understated stained glass window. Nothing is out of place, yet nothing is truly of its place. The perfect good taste speaks only of the emptiness of the transient plutocrat.
Tony had meant to come out fighting, but he was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of melancholia. There was a time when his views on whether Britain should remain in Europe might have counted for something, but now he was just a sideshow to the main event. He knew Micklethwait was just trying to warm him up by making him feel like he mattered before getting to the tricky stuff. “I think we will remain,” said Tony wearily. Did he? Did he really? He wondered. He supposed he probably did. Momentarily energised, he took a couple of well-aimed swipes at Boris Johnson and Michael Gove. Just as well he had some of his assets out of the UK if those two were going to tank the economy.
Then came the moment he had prepared for. The moment when he could simultaneously nail Iraq and Corbyn. “I’m accused of being a war criminal for removing Saddam Hussein,” he said, “and yet Jeremy is seen as a progressive icon as we stand by and watch the people of Syria barrel-bombed, beaten and starved into submission and do nothing.
“There’s a guy whose face is on the placard. That’s me: Hate that guy. You’re the person in power taking difficult decisions. Jeremy is the guy with the placard, he’s the guy holding it. One’s the politics of power and the other’s the politics of protest.”
Tony relaxed a while, waiting for a feeling of redemption to wash over him. So what if there had never been any weapons of mass destruction? So what if hundreds of thousands of people had died as the result of his actions? So what if he had further destabilised the Middle East? At least he had tried to walk the walk. Tony waited. And waited. Yet redemption never came.
He tried explaining how George Bush had been one of the greatest humanitarians Africa had ever known, but the amusement in Micklethwait’s eyes only added to his sense of disconnection. Would he never be understood? He supposed not. He caught sight of his reflection in the TV camera and realised he had aged another couple of years in the past hour. He looked across at the photo of him and Mandela and was surprised to see an even younger self. The Picture of Tony Blair.
