At about 11.30 a.m. there is the sound of singing from the cleaners upstairs. The words are ‘Good morning, Tony’, to the tune that fans used to sing outside rock stars’ hotels, and ending ‘Oh, Tony, we love you.’ This noise is accompanied by the sound of mops and brushes and a sharp supervisory retort: ‘You mustn’t call him that. He likes to be called Prime Minister.’
There is a moment’s quiet, and then the ‘Good morning, Tony’ song begins again, just as the man himself almost runs along the corridor, holding a cup and saucer in front of him as though in an egg-and-spoon race. Immediately behind, and in exactly the same posture, is Alastair Campbell.
Tony Blair is not one who seems to mind too much what he is called. Some refer to him as ‘TB’, some as ‘the boss’, many as ‘Tony’. The diplomatic knights call him ‘Prime Minister’, but the phrase ‘Yes, Prime Minister’ has been destroyed by television comedy, and is never used except as a joke.
For the next twenty minutes the Downing Street ‘pagers’ receive blow-by-blow messages from inside the Parliamentary Labour Party meeting about how Jack Straw is faring against the critics. By the time the Prime Ministerial motorcade is ready for the two-hundred-yard ‘dash’ to the Commons, the news is already seen as ‘quite good’. There are ‘lots of dismissals of a Special Conference’, the mechanism necessary to change a Labour leader’, and ‘lots of rudeness about the French’.
At 11.40 a.m. the ‘dash’ has begun. After a blur of journalists’ flashbulbs, protesters’ flashbulbs, gates that are normally kept closed, mirrors in underground tunnels, Tony Blair and his Questions squad reassemble on foot among post-workers and sandwich-makers for the last walk up to the Prime Minister’s Westminster office. Jack Straw is waiting outside, buoyed by the success of his ‘anti-French’ card. He holds out a page of Le Monde as a possible prop for his boss: ‘It’s the Napoleon route – and remember who won.’
Tony Blair checks his tabulated answers for a few minutes under the stern oil-painted eyes of Sir Walter Scott. He rejects the copy of Le Monde. The offending page falls down onto the pink carpet and stays there, propped against the golden gothic dragons on the wall.
Outside in David Hanson’s office, which for these few minutes each week is like ‘feed the animals day’ at a zoo, there is a Junior Whips’ convention. These are the ambitious young MPs whose routine job is to ensure that Labour MPs vote Labour. They want to catch the boss’s eye with their imagination, devotion and skill.
They are swapping names about which doubters are likely to vote for the war (‘He had a meeting with Cherie the other day which was very helpful’) and which will definitely be against them (‘He’s a runner; you can tell it in his face’). There are fashion edicts: ‘Never trust a man in a pinstripe suit if the white stripe is thicker than the blue one.’ There is coded abuse: ‘That man’s a woodentop – and that’s a Whips’ Office technical term.’
The Americans are said to be abandoning their efforts at the UN. Is there a phone for calling the White House? The question is posed by Campbell, but is not answered. These secure phones are called ‘Brents’, and have operators who seem normally to be scrabbling on the floor for the right socket. There is not a ‘Brent’ here.
‘Don’t eat that,’ Morgan tells the horde around her, pointing to a bruised and not very appetising banana. ‘It’s his lunch.’
The Prime Minister and his personal spy sweep out, and into the Chamber. There is just a minute to spare before the Speaker calls for the first Labour MP to question ‘US pressure for precipitate action against Iraq’.
The Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith asks all his questions about Iraq, but not the one which Tony Blair fears. He does ask about Donald Rumsfeld and Clare Short, as predicted. The noise from the Labour benches is not of loyal hoorahs; but there are no boos either. The big parliamentary day is not yet come. There are questions too about lost jobs in farming and lost education in Leicestershire, each of which gets a neat tabbed reply from the file.
Back in his room, Tony Blair begins his lunch, feet on the table, eyes on the whisky bottles and birthday cards which he signs for MPs at this time every week. Once every ‘Best wishes, Tony’ is done he turns to the letters to world leaders. The knights of Downing Street think that extra reassurance to large Islamic nations like Pakistan and Indonesia might be wise.
‘Dear Pervez …’ says the Prime Minister, as his pen glides along the top of a letter. ‘I’m never quite sure what name to use to Muslims,’ he says, looking up at his staff and down dubiously at his handiwork so far.
‘“Dear General” normally goes down well,’ says a voice from behind. Tony Blair keeps doggedly signing.
Campbell has some urgent pager messages. ‘Who was the first black footballer to play for England?’ he asks. The name of Viv Anderson is offered from the room outside.
‘John Toshack,’ says Morgan, not prepared to be left behind on a macho quiz afternoon.
‘He wasn’t black; he was Welsh,’ says Campbell with scorn.
‘There are lots of black Welsh people,’ says Morgan, moving onto the safer territory of what is politically correct.
Tony Blair has finished his signings but not the blacker bits of his banana. He is to stay in the Commons till it is time for today’s call from the den to President Bush at 3.15 p.m.
‘Don’t be late,’ says Powell as the team returns to the people-carrier. The driver takes one of the more circuitous security-approved routes back to Downing Street, giving a tourist ride around a selection of London statues that are boarded up to protect them from anti-war protesters. ‘I wonder where we’re going to put the statue of Donald Rumsfeld,’ jokes the cheery Chief of Staff.
In the evening Tony Blair is to have dinner with the German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. To the relief of the team’s junior members, whose lives are regularly tormented by instructions to find the finest Indian restaurant, the perfect country pub, the best riverside table at which Prime Minister and foreign guest can just ‘drop in’, the meal will be in Downing Street.
Now is not the time for long, relaxing public appearances. Tony Blair does not have his country with him. The German Chancellor, with votes in mind, has declared himself against the British and American stance. But British protesters might not know that.
First the two leaders visit the Royal Academy’s exhibition of ‘Masterpieces from Dresden’, paintings by Canaletto, Dürer and Velasquez which survived both the British firebombing of 1945 and the flooding of the Elbe eight months ago. This gives Schröder a chance to make generalisations about the international message of art, the President of Saxony to praise Saxony, the sponsor to praise himself, and museum curators the opportunity to hope that the art treasures of Baghdad are equally successfully protected.
Tony and Cherie Blair stand together, holding hands, listening to the speeches and looking at Tiepolo’s Vision of St Anne. When it is his turn to speak, he says that this is the best part of his day. No one doubts him.
Morning headlines … Tony Blair gives six tests for Saddam Hussein … Washington threatens Moscow with consequences of veto … Tony Blair denies that British place in war depends on new UN resolution …
‘It’s Cabinet time,’ says a voice from the diplomatic knights’ zone.
‘Oh, yes,’ comes the unenthusiastic response.
The arrival of some twenty-five men and women from various government departments, however regular on a Thursday morning, is not welcomed with