Blair’s 2002 exit strategy
Tony Blair considered resigning as prime minister before the Iraq war in 2002, former spin doctor Alastair Campbell has claimed.
In an interview with the Sunday Times prior to the publication of his diaries tomorrow, Mr Campbell – who held the controversial director of communications post in Downing Street from 1997 to 2002 – reveals how Mr Blair believed it was not possible for him to achieve a third term in power.
“Two terms is all you get in the modern world,” Mr Blair told Mr Campbell, before he subsequently led Labour to a historic third term in power in the 2005 election.
It was nine months before the outbreak of the Iraq war when Mr Blair made his resignation suggestion to his inner circle, Mr Campbell says.
He thought that by confirming his early exit he would be able to concentrate on unpopular but necessary reforms, unhindered by the forthcoming election.
“I wasn’t totally opposed, but I advised him that it would make him a lame duck,” Mr Campbell said.
The diaries appear to underline Mr Blair’s conviction about the importance of going to war in Iraq, portraying the prime minister as being prepared to take on criticism from those comparing him to a poodle in the hands of US president George Bush.
“He was just prepared to live with that,” Mr Campbell added.
“I said to him, ‘Look, if, when all this is done, you are history before your time, is it really worth it?’ And he said, ‘It’s always worth doing what you think is right. America has been attacked. It’s important they don’t think they’re going to stand up to this on their own.'”
