“There is a whole swathe of the public that think: 'I elect my government, you guys go and govern...' They want to see their leaders leading.”
So Tony Blair tells Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, in an interview for the latter's new documentary about democracy, available on iPlayer. The clip was played on this morning's Today programme, and in a matter of hours, political observers were able to watch Blair himself seeking to demonstrate this vision of what a politician should be.
The permatanned former PM had been hauled before the Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee to answer questions about the On The Runs Scheme (OTRS). The scheme formed part of the peace process in Northern Ireland and involved sending about 200 letters to Irish Republicans reassuring them that the UK authorities weren't pursuing them. It has recently provoked controversy after it emerged last year that a letter was accidentally sent to a man charged with carrying out the murder of four soldiers in Hyde Park in 1982, which meant his prosecution had to be stopped.
In Blair's appearance today, he didn't go far beyond what he'd already said—an independent review published last year had already ruled that the scheme didn't break the law but had problems in its implementation, and Blair accepted this conclusion at the time.
Read more on Northern Ireland:
Northern Ireland: No more answers
What if…the army hadn’t gone to Northern Ireland
Still Trouble?
Divided city
But today was notable because it saw the former Prime Minister defending his legacy with a ferocity which was at times quite frightening to watch. He told the inquiry that he had made more “effort” “than any prime minister before me or since me has done on Northern Ireland.” He claimed that he forced himself to make difficult decisions involving the release of prisoner despite feeling “repugnance.” Happy to fight to the end to defend the controversial scheme he was there to discuss, he said “without dealing with this issue, we would not have had a Northern Ireland peace process.”
Blair is only too aware of the disdain with which his premiership is viewed by many Britons. Today, he was determined to fight his corner. “You're questioning me as the decision maker,” he challenged the committee's Ian Paisley Jr, son of one of Britain's most famous Unionists, after suggesting that he would not have been willing to vote through the potentially unpalatable final peace deal. “You sit in the decision making seat for a moment.”
The Northern Irish peace process seems particularly relevant this week: As Blair pointed out today, had peace not been achieved in Northern Ireland, we might be dealing with “lone wolf” attacks from a source much closer to home. As our troubled relationship with the Middle East returns once again to prominence, particularly in the wake of last week's attacks in Paris, the former Prime Minister is determined that a relatively untarnished aspect of his legacy stays that way.
Northern Irish peace process in pictures:
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