Blair’s day

The vultures (sorry, press) began to gather early on the leafy street outside Quinton Kynaston School in St John’s Wood yesterday. The rumour was that Tony Blair was going to say something about his future. This was history in the making. You cannot be too early for that.

We were. We had been tipped off as to the location (covering the Prime Minister is like living in a very bad spy novel) by some disgruntled socialist teachers and had headed up to North London immediately. We arrived at lunchtime to scenes of chaos.

The police were everywhere. The men from the “barrier hotline” arrived and started throwing crash barriers down with alarming gusto. “Move or you’ll get hurt!” they grunted. Later they told us that this originally had been a 20-barrier job but then they had received a call to say “better make that 40”.

The satellite lorries were lined up in a row, spewing cables. The Stop the War protesters shouted into a wonky megaphone. The street was a sea of light blue, the colour of the QK school uniform. There were hundreds of pupils roaming around. “Shouldn’t you be in school?” I asked one little boy. “No, we’ve got a half day because of Tony Blair,” he said.

This seemed a bit strange. What is the logic there? The Prime Minister’s coming, clear the school of pupils. The school claimed that it was an induction day and so it was always going to end early for its 1,400 students. Only 50 (very well-behaved) pupils were allowed to stay for the great “My Future” speech.

By the time that Mr Blair’s silky grey Jag swept through the crash barriers a few minutes early at 2.13pm, everything about the event had been micromanaged for the television cameras. The police had moved the protesters and their enthusiastic band of pupils up the road, citing Section 14 of the Public Order Act. The press had been corralled into our very own vulture pen. We were not going to be allowed anywhere near the speech, obviously, for that could lead to something horrendous like an unscripted question. Downing Street allowed in one agency reporter.

On television this event may have looked good but, in reality, it was as cheap as fake Rolex. Mr Blair emerged from one side of the Jag. At first I thought he was glowing but that was only his tan. He gave us a wave. I don’t know why because we weren’t waving at him. Perhaps he is practising for his upcoming Legacy Tour or perhaps he has picked up this tip from the Queen: when in doubt, wave. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, popped out of the other side of the Jag. The PM still has one friend.

The 50 chosen pupils clapped and cheered. I began to wonder if they were being paid. Round the corner, I could hear a faint chant of “Out! Out! Out!” from the unchosen pupils and their Stop the War spinmasters. Mr Blair shook hands as he walked up the stairs and then disappeared inside for his historic moment.

It is very strange being on the spot at a major Tony Blair news event because it is possibly only there that you know nothing. “I’m going to call someone who can see a television,” said one broadcaster impatiently. Someone emerged from the school with a plate of chocolate digestives for the police.

I was sad to have missed the actual speech because, from what I saw, this was a vintage performance. He was on truly theatrical form. That furrowed brow and that air of faintly bemused puzzlement. This was TB as humble leader of the people. He did not talk to the camera so much as muse. There was no interviewer to upset things, just TB talking to himself about himself.

He began with an apology. He used to find these difficult (remember the trauma of the Iraq War non-apology?) but clearly things have changed. He apologised, on behalf of the Labour Party, for the entire week, which “has not been our finest hour, to be frank”. This set off alarm bells. When the PM says he is being frank, it is exactly when you know he is not being frank. Sure enough, he then said that this would be his last conference (I think we knew that) and his last TUC (no tears there). He definitely seemed to be signalling that he was going to set a date about when he was going to set a date. Is that progress? Still, it looked good on telly.

BLAIR’S STATEMENT

THIS is the full text of what Tony Blair said during his visit to the Quinton Kynaston School in St John’s Wood, northwest London:





‘The first thing I would like to do is to apologise, actually, on behalf of the Labour Party for the last week, which with everything that is going on back here and in the world, has not been our finest hour, to be frank.

But I think what is important now is that we understand that it is the interests of the country that come first and we move on.

Now, as for my timing and date of departure, I would have preferred to do this in my own way, but as has been pretty obvious from what many of my Cabinet colleagues have said earlier in the week, the next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader, the TUC next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us.

But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don’t think that’s right. I will do that at a future date and I’ll do it in the interests of the country and depending on the circumstances of the time. Now, that doesn’t in any way take away from the fact it is my last conference but I think the precise timetable has to be left up to me and got to be done in a proper way.

I also say one other thing after the last week. I think it is important for the Labour Party to understand, and I think the majority of people in the party do understand, that it is the public that comes first and it is the country that matters and we cannot treat the public as irrelevant bystanders in a subject as important as who is their Prime Minister.

So we should just bear that in mind in the way that we conduct ourselves in the time to come.

In the meantime, I think it is important we get on with the business. I was at a primary school earlier — fantastic new buildings, great new IT suite, school results improving.

I am here at this school that just in the last few years has come on by leaps and bounds, doing fantastically well.

We have got the blockade on the Lebanon lifted today. You know there are important things going on in the world.

And I think I speak for all my Cabinet colleagues when I say that we would prefer to get on with those things because those are the things that really matter and really matter to the country. So, as I say, it has been a somewhat difficult week, but I think it is time now to move on, and I think we will.’