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A Journey: My Political Life

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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. My review is not about Tony Blair the politician, but Tony Blair the writer. I am only judging the book from the point of view of the quality of writing describing personal development, political views, exposure to events and people packed in one single volume. My conclusion is if you can put the politics aside, it is a great read.

Undeniably, Tony is a master of political thinking. He is the longest serving Labour Prime Minister after all. You will find in this book a superb analysis of leadership when he writes about the period before the election in 1992. He is a genius when it comes to understanding the change in the public mood and society, although not without fault, as history has shown. An interesting read is the analysis of Labour philosophy, its political agenda, the structure of the voters who favoured Labour, and who didn't, the meaning of "working class" in the 80's (the philosophical essence of the change to New Labour could be summarised in his words: "I hate class. I love aspiration"), the thinking system of some of the Labour main public figures.

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.

One of the aspects I liked about the book is its authenticity. 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.

He can be very funny at times. The story of his "freaking" experience at the Balmoral Castle with the royal family when the valet asked if he wanted him to "draw the bath" made me laugh out loud. I have the impression he enjoyed working on this book; except probably when he talks about Gordon Brown.

He describes the PMQ (Prime Minister Question) times as "discombobulating, nail-biting, bowel-moving, terror-inspiring, courage-draining experience in my prime ministerial life, without question". And many other subjects are treated with the same deliberate style, the Northern Ireland peace deal, Iraq, relationship with US, etc.

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.

I can bet London on a brick on that you will find at least on one occasion something intriguing, interesting and fascinating somewhere in this book that will surprise you. I will not give any example of that for two reasons: I don't want to give away details of the book and because of many of the controversies and huge amount of publicity that followed Tony Blair during this political life, what is interesting, intriguing, interesting and fascinating depends entirely on the reader's attitude and political belief.

First my objective analysis: Blair was Labor leader in 1994, and rode that position to become Prime minister in 1997 with the biggest victory in Labor's history. The book contains 22 chapters covering the period 1997 to 2007. There is a chapter dealing with 2007 - 2010 which are issues that are current and subsequent to his service as Prime Minister. As you know all biography is subjective and selective, and this book is no less so than others. The book's most interesting chapters are:


3) New Labor

5) Princess Diane

6) Peace in Northern Ireland

8) Kosovo

12) 9/11 "Shoulder to Shoulder"


My Subjective Analysis": Tony Blair can write, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. You know an author is at the very top of his form when he can put together sentences in such a way that you say to yourself, if I had a month to think about it, I don't think I could have put it any better.


An example is in the introduction, where Blair states the American burden is that it wants to be loved, but knows it can't be. Love is given to nations with which we sympathize...powerful nations aren't loved...they have to be feared by their enemies.


Blair also seems to be excellent at understanding the world leaders that he developed extensive personal and long relationships with. This includes Vladimir Putin, Clinton, Bush, and now Obama. Listen in just a few words at what awaits you:


Bill Clinton - The Prime Minister found Clinton to be, "The most formidable politician I ever met, actually a brilliant President. He made it at times look easy."


George W. Bush - Blair thought Bush was straight forward and direct. He says about Bush, "The stupidest misconception was that he was stupid" - great intuition, less about politics, more about he thought was right and wrong.


Barack Obama - This was a very interesting observation. "This is a man with steel in every part of him."


You will love his candid analysis of all the major players in the world. However as is true in most autobiographic materials, Blair is less candid about himself and his shortcomings. There is very little about his upbringing or what brought him to his political beliefs. Regarding Iraq he is unapologetic about leading his country to war when there were no weapons of mass destruction. It seems he is trying to sway history here, more than the current reader.


Blair also states that his interest in religion was greater than his interest in politics, but then tells us nothing about how his religious beliefs have impacted and shaped his political beliefs. All in all this is a GREAT READ, and I urge you to do so, if only to get a wonderful understanding of how a foreign leader who had an understanding of America in this time viewed our country through his own informed lens.


Blair will always be remembered as the man who brought the Labor Party into the 21st century by getting rid of the concept of nationalization, and let's disarm by ourselves. He also was quite eloquent in explaining our President's position on Iraq better than our President was. Small failing's aside, I think you will love reading this book, and thank you for reading this review.


Richard C. Stoyeck

Tony Blair's autobiography hits all the high points of his tenure and a few around it: Some brief background about Blair's fairly pedestrian middle class background; his rise to power in Labor including the timely death of one of his predecessors which allowed him to jump to leadership; his three elections and the many episodes that came between them such as Iraq, peace efforts in Ireland, National Health Service reform, and the millennium; and his long, somewhat tortured departure. A few observations:

1. Tony Blair never really had a friendship with Gordon Brown. Oh he says they were friends and the press has told us they were, but if you read between the lines they always viewed each other as competitors. Blair did not miss many opportunities to leapfrog over Brown in the party leadership or slap Brown down as PM. He then seems surprised when Brown does not treat him with total deference. I am sure he said something nice about Brown somewhere in the book, but I cannot recall where.

2. Blair is much more conservative than I thought. I always thought of Blair as a progressive to moderate who was muscular on national security. Blair tries to align himself with Bill Clinton as a third way type of centrist progressive. But other than climate change and a few platitudes towards progressive programs, Blair does not really have much patience for them. This really comes through with his criticism to the economic crisis that occurred once he was out of office, which he seems to believe the market could have solved. But throughout the book his description of "new labor" has a lot in common with the Republican Party in the United States. Oh I am sure I am overstating it, but I was really surprised by the way his positions came off.

3. Blair could not decide who his audience was. At times Blair does a good job of explaining things to us Americans but at other times names are flying by fast and furious and events and formalities that are likely common knowledge in the British system are a bit confusing. That is understandable given that he was the British PM and has no obligation to write for us uninformed Americans, just be prepared for it.

4. Blair needed an editor. The book rambles on a bit particularly in the section on Ireland (which brings me back to point 3, I did not have much context for it) and his "will he, won't he, when will he" departure. Blair also tends to describe people the same way. "Joe Smith was Joe Smith, as ever," never really saying too much about them, sometimes criticizing them, but assuring us that he still likes and respects them for some reason. I noticed it again and again.

5. Blair really liked George W. Bush. He also really liked Clinton, but he really gives a good defense of President Bush here including some of his lesser known but best policies such as support for Africa. Blair's relationships with the two US presidents he served with is interesting and I wonder if there is any president he would not have found a way to get along with. He did not think much of Reagan, though he was not PM then but praised Obama whose tenure began after his.

6. Blair wants to come back. He basically says it at the end but it is something that occurred to me as I was reading the book. Iraq prevents that for now, but this book's spirited defense and time may change the political calculus for Blair. Disraeli, Gladstone, and Churchill all had multiple runs at 10 Downing Street and I think Blair harbors that ambition too.

All in all, a good showing by one of the most influential political leaders of our times.

Mr. Blair has fascinating insights into our times and especially into the leaders who have been on the world stage during his years in politics. He speaks as if he is chatting to you over a cup of coffee...yet his thoughts and conclusions show deep thinking and understanding. Much more than simply reviewing the events he has been part of, he evaluates, assesses, and judges the importance and substance of these recent years. A great book...

Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, wrote this book. It's about his period as leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister (mostly), though he does mentions the parts of his earlier life, as it fits into the story he wanted to tell.

To be honest, I found this book smug and slightly infuriating. I've now read both George Bush's and Tony Blair's book (I was interested in the run up to war) and this book was (without a shadow of a doubt) the more irritating of the two.

In the book Blair describes himself as a moralist with a vision "for good" who changed the Labour for moral reasons, and started wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Sierra Leone, and Kosovo for much the same reason.

I found his thinking about Kosovo perhaps the most illuminating part of the book. His (and Bill Clinton's) use of the armed forces in Kosovo enabled him to liberate Kosovans and bring down a tyrant (in Milosovic). Part of me wonders whether this changed his thinking towards the potential effectiveness of military action that lead him to Iraq and Afghanistan. I don't know for sure, but I honestly think it does, and that's a shame because it clearly went horribly wrong the second time round for him.

Anyway, why do I spend so much time talking about war and Blair? Well, let's face it, that's why I suspect that people will read the book. It's also because Blair spends a lot of the book writing about it. Consequently it's work mentioning.

But what's the rest of the book like? Well, as I said, it's smug. Blair talks a lot about "moral force" and "moral vision." With Bush you know you're going to get a moral "tilt" to his writing because he's never claimed to be anything else. Blair, on the other hand was presented as "less that way." Had he been as explicit about his "moral vision" before the got elected, I don't think he'd have been as successful as a leader.

Reading this book forced me to compare what I had seen him present then and what he presents now, and it grated. If you don't know Blair as well or can put up with how he presents himself, you'll probably learn something from this book. If you do know Blair or find "ostentatious morality" irritating you might find this book irritating (or want to throw the book across the room).

The book also made consider the honesty of politicians. There was clear suspicion between him and Gordon Brown almost from the get go, and yet this was kept under wraps for all of his time in office. I've been a constituency party chairman in my past. I know it's possible for MPs to disclose their views on one another fairly easily, and yet we're expected to believe he managed to keep his increasingly wary views on his successor under wraps for at least 2 years? I'm not entirely sure why he did, or what he gained by doing so. He might argue he feared he might damage the party (it's implied as much in the book), but given what happened later, I don't know why hw did it. Either way his approach drove me mad, and I suspect it will irritate the fair minded reader too.
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There is good substance in Tony Blair's A JOURNEY: MY POLITICAL LIFE. Think of his dogged, hard earned triumph in cajoling Northern Ireland's warring factions into a working partnership. Very well done, Tony!

And there is no little good writing, with a few memorable sentences, honest sounding probings of the narrator's psyche and stream of consciousness in the midst of wars and domestic reforms.

But, overall, the book offends against the classic canon of good writing as pounded into me many moons ago at a Jesuit high school in Shreveport: "CUE": Coherence, Unity, Emphasis.

-- The UNITY is simply the heartbeat by heartbeat unfolding of the autobiography of Tony Blair. And the man is just not important enough a player in his narrative to do for A JOURNEY what Achilles did for the ILIAD.

-- COHERENCE: does one event flow from another? Coherence is perhaps too much to expect to find in a political leader's autobiography when the unexpected can happen at any moment: terrorist attacks on London or the 2006 death of Labour Party leader John Smith. This gave Mr Blair his great chance to seize the helm of the Labour Party.

-- EMPHASIS: here is the greatest flaw in A JOURNEY. There ought to be a few political theses that stand out more clearly. There should be salient events that are better flagged as turning points.

--Instead, amid much dross and trivia of the 700 pages, it takes close reading to tease out how Blair's New Labour differs from the Old Labour of Ernest Bevin (or, as Blair repeatedly alleges, of Socratic gadfly Gordon Brown). In this case, a close reading is very much worth the effort, which cannot be said for 80% or more of Blair's text.

--A really good meditation on militant Islam and how to blunt its narrative does not stand out in a massive tome of personal trivia about Blair's imperviousness to jet lag but need for considerable loo time. Or in his ruminations on why otherwise self-mastering politicians drink and wench.

What stays with me the most attractively is the brainy, hard striving, intellectual dimension of Britain's Labour Party, New or Old, and the joy that Blair, Brown and others felt in decades of bull sessions, seminars, local meetings and various forms of informal adult education given over to debating policy and learning from history. The equivalent learning mode of Labour's elite Tory foes was informal social absorption via friendships formed at Eton and continued at Oxbridge.

It also seems clear that Tony Blair believes that Great Britain can only remain great as a valued junior partner of both the USA and Europe. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are affectionately sketched. And the Blair who likes to be Tony to Everyman does not mind Bush catching his attention with "Yo, Blair," even when the microphones are open.

All in all a disappointingly average book. Too long. No maps of Blair's UK, though dozens for photos of Our Tony. Is this book a breathless, overly hasty, weakly edited rush to print before Gordon Brown beat Tony Blair to it? I would not do any friend of mine a favor, if I recommended he or she wade all the way through the 700 pages of A JOURNEY. An executive summary: sure. A well selected Reader's Digest shortening: fine. If A JOURNEY were only 400 pages long: probably. But 700 pages! No way.

-OOO-

I was not sure that I would finish this book and I always finish books. It is very long but did have some very good content. I have always liked Tony Blair and his centrist political perspectives are at times interesting. I am glad to have learned all that I did but did it really require 600+ pages. If you want to learn about the UK, Tony Blair and a perspective at least somewhat different than what we are used to, go ahead, but realize this will take a long time.

Tony Blair is one of the most intriguing political figures of out time. It is fascinating to hear his account of recent history and his role in it all. We may not agree with his policies, but one has to admit that in this book, Blair shows a more humble, rational justification to the decisions he made as prime minister. It is nice to hear a former British PM properly explaining the diminishing importance of the UK and how badly it needs EU and the US if it wishing to remain relevant. He even puts it plainly how the EU is in trouble and has to shape up--economically--if it wishes to remain competitive. He even hinted in one of the chapters that even Turkey may have a brighter future than the UK or the EU. Simply put, you rarely hear political or former leaders being this frank--and sometimes harsh--about their countries anymore. I guess that's what you call tough love. And about Gorden Brown, his successor, well, Blair appears to pretty much dislike him for pushing him out and cutting short his last term as PM in half. I'm pretty sure Blair is boosting about Brown's failed/short lived premiership even though they both are supposed to belong to the same political party. And about GWBush, Blair seems to think very highly of him and even calls him a "smart" president who is just misunderstood....weird! It'll be interesting to see what GWBush says about himself and Blair in his own book that's coming out next month.

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Many chapters should have been edited, they were too long. Numerous references were made to subjects or people which had been covered in previous chapters. I am from England but live in the United States and understood how the English government operates, american readers may find it less than interesting. Of course they would love the spelling. Overall the book was an interesting insight to being the Prime Minister trying to change things for the British people after 18 years of Conservative power and what it was like to work with leaders all over the world. Cherie's book was good too

If you are interested in political biographies then you are going to buy this book - but I doubt whether it will sit comfortably in your book collection - you will look on it neither with a fond chuckle as per Alan Clark's Diaries and nor with a respectful nod of the more heavyweight tomes from say Nigel Lawson. In most parts it is well-written and easy to read but the chapter dealing with the lead-up to Iraq must have been vetted by his legal advisers and it falls back on lengthy quotes from official documents to justify his actions in taking this country to war - that section is tough. Blair's landmark ability to lead Labour away from its red flag, union-influenced agenda of the 70s seems almost lost in this self-congratulatory journal. (This should be compared with the telling of this legacy in Peter Mandelson's book, The Third Man - frankly, a better and more interesting read). Somehow Tony Blair seemed to lose touch with the person he was - a wonderfully eloquent and fresh face on the political scene - and it seems that somewhere along the way "we" became "I" and turned him into a conviction politician who ultimately lost the respect of the British populace. The vicious attacks on Gordon Brown are almost tabloid in nature and seem to lack the level of dignity and grace you might expect from someone of this standing. I couldn't escape the feeling that all the way through the book, I am being told that Blair is right and that you and I must be wrong. I left the book on the plane. It won't be sitting on my bookshelf.