Tony Blair: evaluation

Transcript context

…Today I have the pleasure of speaking with Tony Blair who was Prime Minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007 and now leads the Tony Blair Institute, which advises dozens of governments on improving governance, reform, and adding technology. For my first question, I want to go back to your time in office when you first got in. You had these large majorities. What are the constraints on a prime minister, despite the fact that they have these large majorities? Was it the other members of your party fighting against you? Was it the deep state? What part was constraining you at that point? The biggest constraint is that politics, in particular political leadership, is probably the only walk of life in which someone is put into an immensely powerful and important position with absolutely zero qualifications or experience. I'd never had a ministerial appointment before. My one and only one was being prime minister. It’s great if you want to start at the top, but it's that that’s most difficult. When you're running for office, you have to be the great persuader. The moment you get into office, you really have to be the great chief executive. Those two skill sets are completely different. A lot of political leaders fail because they've failed to make the transition. Those executive skills — focus, prioritization, good policy, building the right team of people who can actually help you govern — are crucial. The moment you become the government, the saying becomes less important than the doing. Whereas when you're in opposition or running for office, it's all about saying. All of these things mean that it's a much more difficult, much more focused role. Suddenly you're thrust into this completely new environment when you come in. That's what makes it the hardest thing. Of course, you do have a situation with the system as a system. It's not that there's this great deep state theory. We can talk about that but that's not the problem with government. The problem with government is not that it's a conspiracy, either left-wing or right-wing. It's a conspiracy for inertia. The thing about government systems is that they always think, "we're permanent, you've come in as the elected politician, you're temporary. We know how to do this and if you only just let us alone, we would carry on managing the status quo in the right way." That's the toughest thing, making that transition. That's really interesting. Let’s take you back with everything you knew, let's say in 2007, but you have the majorities and the popularity you had in 1997. Is it that you know now what is a waste of time? Would you say, "I'm not going to do these PMQs, they're total theatrics" or "I'm not going to meet the queen"? Is it the time? Is it that you're going to go against the bureaucracy and say, "I think you're wrong about your inertia"? What fundamentally changes?…

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