Clare Short herself, straight-backed, big-bodied, scarf trailing down, is also talking cheerfully. The subject is ‘new jobs’. She suggests that ‘We all soon may need one.’ For the moment, though, the Cabinet is intact. The International Development Secretary has not been sacked and the Leader of the House of Commons has not resigned.
Tony Blair takes the back stairs next to his den, the main staircase in this back-to-front house, and goes up, past the photographs of his predecessors, past the place where his own photograph will one day be (at this point, who knows how soon?) and into the White Drawing Room to see the envoy of the Indonesian President.
The Prime Minister sits facing his guest across a low table, accepts the Indonesian’s thanks for agreeing to see him at a ‘difficult time’, and, as he has been doing all morning, listens to worries.
‘Ours is the largest Muslim country in the world. Now the moderates are in control. If war breaks out and lasts a long time it could be extremely difficult.’
Tony Blair nods.
‘Is there anything that a third party can do? The non-aligned nations have had success before in convincing Baghdad. We have shown results.’
The nods turn to a polite but doubting gaze.
‘Is there any way we moderate Muslim countries can talk to both sides? We agree that Baghdad must stick scrupulously to the first disarmament resolution, 1441.’
Tony Blair thanks him for that final bit of his message and says what he has just told his Cabinet. ‘We are still pursuing every avenue. Everything is made much more difficult by France. It is only by the credible threat of force that Saddam has ever responded at all. We have set new tests. Anything that the Indonesians can do to get them through to Baghdad would be important.’
The envoy has done what he came for. He says he is going to Paris next. He wants to make sure that no signals are being misinterpreted.
The Prime Minister’s tolerance of diplomatic language is reaching its limits. ‘The bottom line has to be that a strong, united message to Baghdad from the rest of the world means peace. A weak message means war.’
Host and guest walk out into the upper hall. On one side of them is a huge painting of an empty cinema which bears an eerie resemblance to the front cover of the Labour-supporting New Statesman magazine this week. The cover, though not the item from the Government Art Collection, bears the slogan ‘Blair Bombs’.
Downstairs in the Campbell zone, the news has arrived of one of Robin Cook’s answers to routine Business Questions from MPs. There is to be a debate on war next week. ‘Would the Cabinet share collective responsibility on a decision to go to war?’ Cook was asked.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Collective responsibility will apply to all those who are in the Cabinet at the time of the debate.’ Those last thirteen words are given careful and fearful thought.
Robin Cook did not like losing his job as Foreign Secretary to Jack Straw, but he bore the demotion to Leader of the House of Commons with dignity. He has always been highly respected in Parliament. If he argues that the result of war will be a weakened UN, a collapse of moderate Muslim states from Indonesia to Saudi Arabia, more extremist places for terrorism to flourish, more dead Iraqis to enrage potential terrorists in Israel and elsewhere, he will be heard with more respect than many others mouthing the same views. The Leader of the House is pointing his way out – and may take others with him.
Tony Blair’s sense of what war will bring is wholly different. He sees a UN which frees itself from helpless torpor, a lesson to extremist nations that terrorism will be met by massive force, a message to Palestinians and Israelis that America will not tolerate conditions of permanent instability.
Neither man knows whether he is right or not. Each knows what he thinks.
The Prime Minister stretches his arms above his head, doing light exercises against the blue leather backdrop of the Cabinet Room doors. ‘It’s all the broad sweep of history now,’ he says to Campbell.
‘The papers say you’re in a lot of trouble,’ his adviser, the one who is in genuine athletic training, replies.
‘It will be tough,’ says his boss, picking up a green apple and wiping it on a napkin. Before he takes a bite he gives the skin two more careful wipes, polishing away every last spot.
History seems to be much on his mind. Two weeks ago he told a newspaper that ‘History will be my judge.’ He was not only drawing comparisons between those who want to appease Saddam Hussein now and those who appeased Hitler in the 1930s. He was also, and rather more usefully for himself, drawing attention away from the many adverse judgements on him at the present time to future verdicts, all of which are unknown and some of which may be better.
Historians will one day consider whether Tony Blair is more like a wise Winston Churchill or a rash Anthony Eden, just as historians are filling pages of newsprint now with argument about whether Saddam Hussein is a Nazi or a Nasser, whether we are in 1939 or 1956. But for the moment, it is better to call on judges who may not yet be born than on those who are waiting for him in the House of Commons.
It means almost nothing to say that history will be Tony Blair’s judge. But that does not make it a stupid thing to say. When Blair is safely retired, his decisions in these days will be analysed closely. Questions will be asked about his influence on George Bush and George Bush’s influence on him. This is familiar territory for students of the transatlantic relationship.
Churchill, it is generally agreed, had many great virtues. But honesty about the ‘perfect understanding’ between him and Franklin Roosevelt was not one of them. He exaggerated it – to others and to himself.
Harold Macmillan had an Ambassador to Washington who was part of the Kennedy family. Macmillan had clear influence on the young President but did not, as he claimed, take part in, and share responsibility for, Kennedy’s ultimatum to Moscow to remove its missile bases from Cuba.
Historians will examine Tony Blair and George Bush and judge them in the same light. Was the policy right? How much was it a British policy?
Tony Blair was both a political and a personal friend of the previous President, Bill Clinton, and had worked with him, publicly and privately, over many shared problems. Central to their understanding of the world and of each other was the task of persuading traditional left-wing activists and voters to support new, less collectivist policies.
These two men talked to each other for hours about the Third Way – and bored others for hours about it too. They shared the same thoughts, and similar student experiences at Oxford University. They both had academic lawyer wives whose lives had not always been made better by their own.
How was it possible that Tony Blair could switch so quickly to a close relationship with George Bush, a Texan conservative with whom he shared almost nothing in his life and barely a single belief about how a country should be taxed and run? The only powerful belief they seemed to share was Christianity – and surely, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, religious beliefs were the most dangerous of all?
Was it true that the two men prayed together? Did George Bush genuinely believe that God guided his hand? Tony Blair did not go that far. He was a more traditional English Christian, High Anglican, almost Catholic. He was knowledgeable about Islam and sympathetic to its adherents. What did he and the President say to each other about their religious beliefs, and what difference did it make?
History will judge Tony Blair, whether he asks it to or not. Today the immediate task is to write a speech for the House of Commons debate. The Prime Minister may need the comfort of history for that. He needs to build the case for a new approach on the success of approaches in the past. He needs to make the most effective historical comparisons just as he needs to give his troops the best weapons. It hardly matters whether those comparisons are justified or not.
He is not calling history to be his judge in any other sense than as a practical preparation for war. Every