MPs’ mixed reception over Blair’s memoirs
11:00am Thursday 2nd September 2010 in News
BOLTON’S MPs have expressed mixed views over the publication of former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s memoirs, which hit the shelves — and the headlines — yesterday.
Mr Blair’s book, A Journey, reveals the depth of the rift between him and Gordon Brown.
In it he acknowledged the strengths that made Mr Brown a formidable rival, and suggested his power base within the party and media would have made it difficult to remove him.
But he also said: “Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely.
Emotional intelligence, zero.”
Yasmin Qureshi, MP for Bolton South East, said she was always “suspicious” of the agenda of people who wrote memoirs similar to Mr Blair’s.
She said: “Tony did say a lot of good things about Gordon but it is the negative things that are picked up by the press. I am never sure that it is very helpful making these things public. That said, these are the tensions you expect from two powerful men at the top of a government who have visions that they both believe in. It is not a tea party at the vicarage.”
David Crausby, her Bolton North East counterpart, took a different view and said that Mr Blair’s acknowledging the “anguish” he feels about the Iraq war was as close as he would ever come to admitting the invasion was a mistake. He added: “I always think the truth is useful. I think the first term, from 1997 to 2001 was very successful but the Iraq war was always going to be Blair’s downfall.
“I, as a backbench MP, could see that it was a mistake and he should have been able to see that too. It was a sincere mistake and I have always believed that.”
Bolton West MP Julie Hilling said it was time to “move forward”.
She said: “I think it is time that we moved forward with the election of a new leader and renew the party to fight the awful Con-Dem coalition.”
Leigh MP Andy Burnham, one of the five candidates to replace Gordon Brown as Labour leader, said he was “saddened” that Mr Blair and other senior figures were “re-running the battles of the past” during the leadership contest.
He said: “Most are not Blairites or Brownites, Old or New Labour. They are just Labour.”
