Five Americans who changed Tony Blair

1. Will Marshall. In 1992, the President of the Progressive Policy Institute was visited by two young British Labour politicians. One of them was Gordon Brown, he forgot the name of the other.

But the impact on Blair of Marshall and his colleagues in the Democratic Leadership Council was greater. Brown and Blair were visiting to get tips from Clinton associates. The PPI was one of the most fruitful sources. Their working papers helped new Labour get started on a new policy agenda - with a Centre Right bent.

The identity of thinking became so great that Marshall now says that the balance of intellectual payments has changed and that the Democrats are drawing from new Labour. Blair became a new Southern Democrat.

2. Bill Clinton. The election of Clinton profoundly altered Blair and his associates. Philip Gould, Blair's pollster and one of the biggest influences upon him, spent time working on the campaign and absorbed its lessons.

Clinton changed Blair in three ways. First, the Blairites copied Clinton’s "War Room" and began combating the Tories in every news cycle. Second, Tony Blair learned from Clinton's immensely effective rhetorical style. He too began to feel the pain of the middle class. And finally, Clinton's failings hardened Blair. He reacted against the criticism that Clinton avoided hard choices by becoming harder himself. This trait first showed itself during the Kosovo conflict.

3. Rupert Murdoch. Your estimation of the influence of the proprietor of The Sun and The Times on the Prime Minister depends very much on what you think of Tony Blair. Do you think that his politics are on the Centre Right anyway or do you believe that he moved to the Right simply to win the support of the tabloid press? Perhaps it's a bit more complicated than that. Mr Blair provided his own assessment of the relationship last summer in a speech to a gathering of News Corp executives:

Rupert, it’s great to be back at the News Corp conference after all these years. When I first met you, I wasn’t sure I liked you, but I feared you. Now that my days of fighting elections are over, I don’t actually fear you, but I do like you.

This captures perfectly the way Blair has changed during his period in office - what he may have started out doing through necessity, he ended up doing though conviction.

4. Dick Morris. When Bill Clinton was choosing his holiday destination, he turned to his pollster for advice. He ended up in Wyoming. The obsessive use of focus group polling became part of Tony Blair's working method too.

In his book, Behind the Oval Office, about his work for Clinton, Morris set out his methods for developing policy. Morris suggests neutralising the Right on their strong issues - crime and the economy - leaving them to fight where they are weak - education, the environment and so on. Blair followed Morris's methods and ideas very closely.

In fact, Behind the Oval Office, written as a memoir of Morris’s time advising Clinton, remains one of the best texts on Blair's political methods.

5. George W. Bush. The partnership of Bush and Blair, the linking of their names in the public imagination, is an unlikely one. It happened because of Tony Blair's natural liberal interventionism and his view of the importance of the "special relationship". If George Bush had not chosen to invade Iraq, Tony Blair almost certainly would not have advocated doing so. But once the US President had made up his mind to proceed, the British prime minister was never going to allow the Americans to act alone.

Acting together with George Bush has changed Tony Blair in two ways - it has reinforced his interventionist instincts, making that a more prominent part of his political make-up; and it has made him a harder, more ideological politician. He became less reliant on popularity, less concerned about it. And lucky for him that he did, since at the same time he also became a great deal less popular.

Comments

[Realist]

Rupert Murdoch is not an American.

F'duh!

[Rob Riches]

For myself, the stereotype that most completely describes Tony Blair is The Apprentice. Coming into an immensely powerful position at such a young age, could only mean learning: Education, Education, Education wasn’t addressed to the education of our sons and daughters, but his very own, and what an education it has been. Becoming apprentice to these powerful Americans he has, as your article pointed out, become hardened, more convicted, and more conversant with the commitment required to successfully accomplish the third way (balance of intervention, i.e. control, and market forces, i.e. freedom), about which we hear so little these days, and which he appears to have abandoned. Tony Blair is an earnest young man determined to make Britain great again. Too bad he tried the old methods: war and taxation

[Jim]

Realist --
Murdoch is a U.S. citizen.

[M. Bouffant]

To Realist: Loath as I am to admit it, Mr. Murdoch is an "American." As it is illegal for non-citizens to own broadcast properties here in the U. S., Mr. Murdoch was granted American citzenship by an act of Congress (wonder how much that cost him?) to bypass the usual five year naturalization period so he could acquire the Fox network, movie studio, etc., as soon as the deal closed. I don't know if he still holds his original Aussie papers, but he is at least a kind of American.

[Curious]

Rupert Murdoch is Australian.

[Ptrick]

Actually Rupert Murdoch is an American. Though born in AUS he is now an American citizen and lives in the US as well

[Ranald]

M. Bouffant is right, but there's even more wheeling and dealing to it: to become a USA citizen he had to renounce his Australian citizenship. But there are laws in Australia about foreigners owning media, so he managed to `persuade' the Australian government to change those for him before he made the switch!

[Dr MIBarton]

His eminence The Pope has some Father figure or image to help the Earth to progress and Xtians to grow instead of all the 20c conflict and destruction.
Modern mind is with the Great Creator and a good human mind on Earth. Modern science is near to true belief.
Blair was frquently at the london Cathedral but recently he has been at the Reform Synagogue. Protestant and RC are laughing in Eire!
Bush is newly methodist,Clinton had to Pope save him from Impeachment.
All the mighty media and leaders have little time for our modern science so dilligently tested and there is anarchy and low mind all over the world.
Can it all be improved and good maths and physics and economic figures etc. be shown to be the trend?
Mass war with nukes and bad religions and secularity without good theory known is not 21st .c

[David]

it's a shame that every time we read an article about murdoch in the times it is tainted and watered down for feat of offending the boss. Not real journalism.

[arthur marson]

The World Must Come Down To Earth.

St.Mathew Ch. 16 - V. 26

R U interested?

I need help!