Servants of the People [antikvár]

Preface to the Penguin Edition At the outset of Tony Blair's campaign to win his second term, 1 interviewed the Prime Minister in his functional office at party headquarters in the Millbank Tower. Towards the end of the conversation, 1 offered him the use of a time machine. Imagine he could hurtle back four years to offer some retrospective advice to the untested Blair who had triumphantly brought New Labour to power in May 1997. What was the one thing that Blair wanted to warn his younger self not to do? While the Prime Minister pondered on the question, from the back of the room there came the heckle: 'Not to co-operate with books!' The source of this mischievous interruption was the Prime Minister's press secretary. Alastair Campbell laughed. I laughed. Tony Blair laughed, albeit a touch ruefully. I embarked on this project - to use one of New Labour's favourite words — to satisfy my own curiosity and in the belief that there was a public thirst for a book which penetrated the façade to explain how its government really worked behind the closed black doors of Downing Street. From the outset I had the suspicion that neither the claims made for itself by New Labour nor the daily headlines were telling the complete story. I was also coming to a view that the image which had for long beguiled the media and the public of a seamlessly united government under the absolute command of the leader was an illusion. More, it was a myth that was actually proving counterproductive for New Labour. I hoped to show that we were governed by human beings, themselves ruled by mortal strengths and weaknesses, men and women driven by ambitions and emotions which entangled with the governing of the country sometimes productively, at other times damagingly. The book is based on extensive and candid conversations with people at all levels of government, including the Prime Minister. 1