Blair on David Miliband: ‘He might win’
By Ian Dunt
Tony Blair told David Miliband he could beat Gordon Brown if he stood against him in 2007, according to his memoir.
The former prime minister reveals that he thought Mr Miliband would have been able to take on the then-chancellor and prevent him from entering No 10.
“I think you might win, not obviously, but very possibly,” Mr Blair told Mr Miliband when he sought his advice.
“I didn’t blame him at all [for not standing], but I did say he should be prepared in case the issue arose again, sooner than we might think.”
Mr Blair wrote that while Mr Miliband was “fundamentally uncertain” in 2007, he was “a different calibre of politician, with clear leadership qualities” two years later.
Mr Blair stops short of offering an outright endorsement of David Miliband in the book although his actions – and specifically his assessment of how Labour lost the election by giving up on ‘New Labour’ mean the support is quite plain.
Mr Blair is also generous with Ed Miliband, the younger brother and fellow leadership contender, who was positioned firmly in the Brownite camp.
According to the memoir, he was the only figure in the camp who did not plot against Mr Blair.
“[Mr Brown] played along with the policy part of ‘Pathways to the Future’ [a strategic review] and intermittently he switched on, yet I knew that behind the scenes his folk – with the exception of Ed Miliband – were denigrating it as a vanity project and treating it with scorn,” Mr Blair wrote.
The memoir, A Journey, was released today. A one hour TV interview – the first since Mr Blair left office – will be shown at 19:00 BST tonight on BBC 2.
