Blair

379 Pages·2004·26.709 MB·English

by  Anthony Seldon

BLAIR
ALSO BY ANTHONY SELDON
Churr:hill's Indian Summer (1981)
By Word ofM outh (with Joanna Seldon, 1983)
Contemporary History (ed., 1987)
Ruling Performance (with Peter Hennessy, 1987)
The Thatcher Effect (ed. with Dennis Kavanagh, 1989) Anthony Seldon
UK Political Parties Since 1945 (ed., 1990)
Politics UK (joint author, 1991)
The Conservatitfe Century (ed., 1994) with
The Major Effect (ed. with Dennis Kavanagh, 1994)
The Heath Government 1970-1974(ed. with Stuart Ball, 1996)
Chris Ballinger, Daniel Collings
The Contemporary History Handbook (ed. with Brian Brivati, 1996)
and Peter Snowdon
The Ideas That Shaped Post-war Britain (ed. with David Marquand, 1996)
How Tory Governments Fall(ed., 1996)
Major: A Political Life ( 1997)
10 Downing Street: An Illustrated History (1999) .
The Powers Behind the Prime Minister (with Dennis Kavanagh, 1999)
Britain Under Thatcher(with Daniel Collings, 2000)
The Foreign Offta: An Illustrated History (2000)
The Blair Effect 1997-2001(ed.,2001)
A New Conservative Century? (with Peter Snowdon, 2001)
Public and Pnvate Education: The Divide Must End (2001)
Partnership not Paternalism (2002)
Brave New City (2002)
Old Labour New Labour (ed. with Kevin Hickson, 2004 ).
The Conservative Party: An Illustrated History
(with Peter Snowdon, 2004)
With gratitude for the inspiration I have received from
David Butler, Peter Hennessy and Dennis Kavanagh,
masters ofc ontemporary British history.
Copyright© 2004 by Anthony Seldon
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
All rights reserved.
The Free Press and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
The right of Anthony Seldon to be identified as the author of this
work has been assened by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
s
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Contents
Introduction
1X
1 Father's Stroke, 1953-71 3
2 F at/Jer and Mother 17
3 Oxford and Loss of Mother, 1971-75 25
4 Peter Thomson 39
5 Commits to Labour, 1975--82 47
6 Cherie Blair 61
7 Sedgefield, 1983 73
8 John Burton 85
9 The Closed Shop, 1983-90 93
10 Neil Kinnock 109
11 United States Visits, 1991-93 c11w9
f
12 hilip Goul.d
13 General and Leadership Elections, 1992 139
14 Peter Mandelson "-ill-
~LeadershiE Ei~~~ion1 1994 179
16 Derry Irvine 201
17 ... Clause IV, 1994-95 213-
18 Eric Anderson 231
©
General Election, 1995-97 237
20 Roy Jenkins 265
21 Death of Diana, 1997 279
@)
22 Alastair Campbell
V111 Contents
23 The Euro Decision, October 1997
315
24 Jonathan Powell
335
25 Good Friday Agreement, April 1998
349
Bill Clinton
~ 365
Kosovo, 1999
385
Introduction
28 John Presco//
409
, 29 'Scars on My Back', 1997-2001
423
'@>
Margaret Thatcher
441
31 General Election, 2001
453
32 Anji Hunter
471
$
9/11 and Aftermath, 2001-02
483 This is not a conventional biography detailing chronologically every
l God
J1S_ significant event in its subject's life. The obvious reason for this is that
35 'Cheriegate', 2002 there have already been two excellent biographies of Blair: an early
533
36 Charles Falconer volume by Jon Sopel (1995) and another by John Rentoul (1995, updated
555
@ in 2001). These books cover the ground extensively. They were both
lraq,2003
567
@ 'authorised' biographies in that their authors had a degree of consent
George W. Bush
605 from their subject when requesting interviews with family and friends.
, 39
The' New Deal, 2003-04 627 Although this book had very substantial access to those close to Blair, it
@
Gordon Brown is an unauthorised biography, and sees the subject through the eyes not
657
of the mid-1990s, but through those of one writing ten years later. The
concern of the early biographies was to explain how Tony Blair rose up
Conclusion
690 to his exceptional hegemonic position. The objective of this book is to
Acknowledgements
697 explain what he did with his power and how, by his tenth anniversary as
Notes party leader, he had lost the extraordinary authority that he had acquired.
701
Bibliography Whether the loss is temporary or permanent is yet to be seen.
735
I sought an alternative model to conventional political biography.
Index
741
Having written a book of some half a million words on Blair's prede
cessor as Prime Minister, I realised that I had produced less a biography
of a man than a history of his government. My focus here is Tony Blair:
what he thought, what he did, and why he did it. I decided to home in
on the key events and the key people who have influenced him and
made him who and what he is. Even here I had to be selective. I pared
it down to twenty events and twenty people. Not all the episodes or
people chosen are equally important, and the text indicates which are
the seminal.
The 'people' chapters are not necessarily chronological, though th~!!,
placing is roughly dictated by their relevance to an episode just
discussed. The 'political' backbone of the book is provided by Chapters
10, 20, 30 and 40. The first of these is on Neil Kinnock, who was
x
Introduction
Introduction Xl
responsible for Blair's promotion but whose Labourite prescriptions were
fi ld All substantive po.m ts b ar the most recent
to be rejected by Blair. Chapter 20 is on Roy Jenkins, who offered him between the two ie s. Where interviewees wished to
. h dnote references. ' F h
two ground-breaking ideas, neither of which he carried through. It was addit10ns ave en . . 1 titled 'Interview . or t ose
thus to be neither his Labour nor Liberal Democrat mentors who had remain confidential, the note is si_rr:1P yhen ource the full interview list
. ted in knowmg t e s ' f
the real influence on Blair: it was Margaret Thatcher, the subject of who might be _mteres . . for consultation in the distant utur~.
Chapter 30. Chapter 40, the last in the book, is on Gordon Brown, Blair's will be placed man archive library ll . questions about Tony Blalf:
The book addresses itself to the fo owmg
fellow architect of New Labour, but also the figure who repeatedly
blocked Blair from carrying out his agenda once in power, and whose
personal achievements after 1997 rivalled his own. • Who have been the b i· ggest infl.u ences. on .h 1. hm..? s life?
The 'episode' chapters are given odd numbers and are strictly • What have been the major turnmg pomts m I
chronological. Again, the chapter order foHows a pattern. Those ending • What are his main beliefs?. . . ?
in seven thus see him at his boldest: Sedgefield (Chapter 7), seizing a • What moti.v a tes him and his poht?1 cs.
seat against all reasonable odds; Clause IV (17), his most daring domestic • Is he Lab our,. i· f so, in what form. . . h. r fi ?
initiative; Kosovo (27), where for the first time he risked isolation on the • What is the role of religion!mo~ahty I~ di:oi b: Labour leader?
world stage; and Iraq (37), the decision on which he knew judgements h n and why did he decide e wan e . . ?
•• WW hea t have been t h e h"i gh a nd low points in his hfe.
on his premiership would turn. Some repetition has been inevitable to
make each chapter comprehensible on its own, but it has been cut to a • What does he think about ~urope? . . ?
minimum. • Wh t did he want to do as Prime Mm1ster.
a · hanged him?
More than many premiers, Tony Blair, like the barrister he once was, • How has power c h why (and for what)?
gave attention to one issue at a time, which makes the 'episode' • Wh has he relied on most; w en, . . ?
Who h s he become so involved in foreign issues.
approach, I hope, panicularly appropriate. The focus on key people is • y a . h" ?
• What might be his legacy m istory.
also, I believe, peculiarly suited to the subject. Most premiers have been
rooted in a party or body of thought. Blair, by contrast, has travelled
ts to use images in a fresh way.
lightly in terms of ideology and tribe, but has been influenced al~o atte:i~
The biography. aid to print journalism but have not sat
throughout his life by a series of powerful people. Each of the twenty Photographs are a~ md.1spensa. In lace of the traditional formula of
individuals described in the 'people' chapters shaped his personality, his as comfortably with biographies: p 1 te section, each chapter opens
. h raphs together m a P a h e
thinking, or his behaviour. My hope is that this approach helps make r
groupmg p otog ht on or reflects t e natUf
sense of my subject, even if it means important areas have inevitably had with a photograph which eithe~ she.ds so~e ig
to be omitted. d 1 tionship m discussion. . h
of the episo e or re a . f rr. Blair will be written m t e
d b b"ograph1es o .iony · d
The book was written while on a sabbatical in the last ten weeks of Longer an etter i . . t of his personality an
I h to have provtded a portra1 h
2003 and was added to and revised in the first five months of 2004. It is years to come. ope . f h. becoming leader oft e
. he tenth anmversary o is . h
based very largely on 600 interviews in aJJ 'camps' and in many
place in history on t ovided an alternative approach tot e
countries. Some 90 per cent of the book's content was derived from Labour Party, as well as to hav~ ?r . hies
interviews: remaining sources in order of importance were unpublished current mod e l Of narrative polmcal b10grap .
diaries and papers, books and the press. The book has also benefited
ANTHONY SELDON
greatly from sending our chapters or pans of chapters to those who took
May2004
part in events, and assimilating their comments as appropriate. This has
also been essential in checking accuracy, and ironing out the very
frequent differences over fact or interpretations. The practice is
eschewed by most journalists and marks a dear line in the sand between
journalism and contemporary history. Endnotes are another distinction
BLAIR
I
Father's Stroke, 1953-71
Very high achievers, the theory goes, often encounter difficulties in their
early lives, difficulties which may help to forge their extraordinary drive
and ambition. Tony Blair's childhood has oft en been raked over for clues
to explain his later actions and character.1 In reality, Blair's ambition only
developed after the years covered in this chapter, and his exceptional
self-belief after he became party leader. But what of his politics?
Leo Blair's stroke in July 1964 was the most important single event in
the first eighteen years of his son's life. But did it propel the young Tony
Blair into a life in politics? John Rentoul's first words in his thoughtful
and well-informed biography are .'Tony Blair's political ambition began
at the age of eleven, when his father Leo's ended'. Peter Stothard wrote
during the 2003 Gulf War that the conventional wisdom is that after his
stroke Leo transferred his political ambition to his son.2 To understand
whether this episode was indeed the formative personal and political
experience that has been claimed, this chapter will look at the event in
the context of Blair's first eighteen years.
His parents, Leo and Hazel, had grown up in Glasgow and were
married there in November 1948. Their first child William, known as
Bill, was born in March 1950, while Tony was born three years later, on
6 May 1953. Bill was b<;>rn in Glasgoyv .and To!ly .~n Edinburgh, where
Tony Blai~ at Fel/es in about 1967. The photograph captures him on the turn Leo was working by day in the tax office. Leo's heart and mind,
from the biddable buy he was when he arrived at the school into the surly and however, were elsewhere: by night he was completing a law degree and
knowing adolescent he was to become. subsequently a doctorate at Edinburgh University, where he was also a
part-time tutor. Leo was not only very bright; he was also unusually
determined. He wanted his own family to be spared the insecurity and
deprivation he had experienced, and he was set on taking his family up
4
Blair
Father's Stroke, I9SJ-7I 5
the social ladder. The law meant prosperity; and academia, status. No
suitable openings then existed in Britain, so on Christmas Eve 1954, . f h local Conservati. ve Assoc1· at·t on, with excellen. t
became chalfman o t e . eat Growing economic
with Tony just twenty months old, he bundled the family on board the P f · · g a parliamentary s ·
rospects o acqumn th f: ·1 from the centre of Durham to
ocean liner Iberian foe a journey to Australia, where he had secured a bl d ove for e amt y . h
prosperity ena e a m tate on the city's outskirts, wit a
position as lecturer in administrative law at the University of Adelaide. a
four-bedroom house on a new es d coming well-to-do family-
'My first real memories of my younger brother,' Bill Blair recalled h Bl · ere an up-an - '
double garage. T e airs w h h"ldren popular with neighbours
years later, 'are from when the family moved to Australia . . . The f; . therathome t reec I , h
ather working, mo , doubt who underwrote t e
journey took about four weeks. I have a very clear recollection of leaving . th ·n r There was no d
and respected m e ct.,. . d relentlessly ambitious an
Glasgow, and our grandmother waving to us from the door of our house. · r Charming motivate ,
family's fortunes. , h" lffrom a Glasgow tenement to
I don't think she really expected to see any of us again, certainly not for . L Blair had taken tmse . . d t
3 hardworking, eo . f E l d's leading univers1t1es an mos
a very long time. ' Their time in Australia was to be a golden period for . . 1 ce m one o ng an . th
a prom1smg p a . B he had no intention of stoppmg ere.
the family. Leo prospered in Adelaide's law department, while Hazel respected profess10ns. ut
bore her third and last child, Sarah, in July 1956, and Bill and Tony
thrived in their new environment. One can imagine the stark contrast for
Happiness Punctuated
the young family between South Australia in the 1950s, full of space,
light and opportunity, and the dark north of Britain, full of memories for
both Leo and Hazel of hardship. Although Tony was still young, . Independence Day, 4 July 1964, was a typ~cal
The day before Amencan h . 't ble consequence ofholdmg
Australia affected him deeply. Australian people, and culture, were to 1 king day t e mev1 a h
one Leo had a ong wor , . . . the evening - anot er
have a profound influence on him throughout his life. . · · · b with a dmner party 10 .
4 down two full-time JO s, d H l did not return home untt
The idyll lasted three years. In January 1958, on the eve of the new · th ladder. He an aze 1
key to steppmg up e . In the middle of the night he got up.to go
Australian academic year, the family returned to Britain. A Qantas z
30 that Saturday mornmg. h h d fall Hazel immediately
Constellation transported Hazel and the three children - a journey . b t on the way e a a . . h
to the bathroom, u h" h h d him to hospital. At t e age
which took three days with an unscheduled stop in Athens because of ti bulance w tc rus e b h'
telephoned or an am , k Tony was woken y ts
engine trouble. Leo, meanwhile, travelled home via the Pacific and the h h d ffered a severe stro e. k
of just forty, e a su . He later recalled how he new
United States. A lectureship in law at Durham University beckoned, I th next mornmg. . ' "bl ,
mother ear y e h' ther that somethmg tern e
meaning fresh opportunities for Leo back in the motherland; he was . 1 h ment he saw ts mo , Th
instinctive y, t e mo , oken and I was in tears. en
anxious also to develop a career in the Conservative Parry. Not a natural d 'My mother hadn t even sp .gh ,, d
choice, one might have thought, for a fostered child brought up' by an shh a ed shaat'd p·.p "eDnea d.d y's not very we1 .1 , som•5 et hing happened in the nt t, an
active Communist in Govan, one of Glasgow's poorest ar.ea.s, between
I knew it was dreadful and senous. ·11 sent off for his regular
s~lr-rdia(lce
the wars - but Leo was attracted now by t:J:ie qualities of ai:id ~ nevertheless, st1
The next day ony was, d that his father was
rig~t. i
self-advancement which pushed his thinking firmly towards the . hool Staff were warne
Saturday mornmg sc . l 6 He recalled kneeling down to
The family settled for a few months into an empty flat above The
dangerously ill and to treat Tony gent yh. G Headmaster of The
Chorister School, an independent prep school whose boys sang in the d (I Canon) Jo n rove,
pray with the Rev ater ·1 Fenton later Professor of Poetry
choir in the adjacent Durham Cathedral. Bill joined the school Chorister School. Fellow pup1 Ja~es h 'me time before. 'Grove
immediately, followed three years later by Tony (though neither was a . h d I t his mot er so
at Oxford University, a os . Id h been very understanding of
Cathedral chorister) after a stint at Western Hill, a nearby 'pre-prep' became very c Io se to me. He. w1o u ·na pvaey ing attention to him. •7 Tha t
school. These were to prove stable and increasingly prosperous years for d" t and mettcu oust . h'
Blair's pre tcamen, m Leo's bedside to see Tony play m ts
the family. Characteristically, the academic world did not satisfy Leo's
rushed,g~d
afternoon, Hazel is robably going to live,'8 she told her
ambitions. Theorising about the law was no longer enough: he wanted
Saturday rugby fixture. : g At the age of just eleven years and
to practise it and make some moriey. Leo was called to the Bar and soon anxious son. It had been a closet m 1. h" f:ather
built a thriving practice from chambers in nearby Newcastle. He also Bl · h d almost ost ts ·
two months, Tony au a . th precise impact of this event on
No one will ever know for certam e
6
Blair
Father's Stroke, I 953-71 7
the young Blair's stable world. With his older brother Bill, a lifelong
little money from butcher.s' shops in Glasgow, helped with school fees.
confidant, away at Fettes College, a boarding school in Edinburgh, his
· immediate sense of isolation must have been heightened. Anxiety too Tony Blair later recaJJed, 'On an emotional level, I was suddenly made
are that nothing is permanent,' an innocent phrase that launched a
would not have been eased by the well-intentioned if common practice
::Ousand theses.13 But, as Bill said, 'the family picked itself up, as
then of children not visiting seriously ill parents in hospital. Hazel
wanted to protect her three children from seeing their once dynamic families do•.14 Tony looks back on his early life in Durha~ not as~ pl~ce
father lying 'full of fear and silent rage in hospital'.9 When Leo of anxiety and instability, but as a hugely happy groundmg to his hfe.
Above all, Hazel was the vessel who bore Tony through these turbulent
eventually came home some months later, Tony had a 'terribly vivid'
memory of going in to see him in his parents' bedroom. His father could waters, depositing him safely on the other side, ont~ the shores of
ask for a cup of tea, and say 'good'. But that was about all. The man who adolescence. For young Tony, Leo's stroke was not happmess punctured:
had built his career through the power of speech could no longer talk. it was happiness punctuated.
Hazel spent the next three years nursing Leo back to health.
Painstakingly, Hazel taught him to speak again. He kept his job at the
Fettes College, l 966 -7 l
university, and gradually returned to teaching duties. But Leo's ability
to practise as a barrister was badly impaired and there was no disguising
the reversal of fortunes. One of the cars in the garage had to be sold. The 'Butter wouldn't melt in his mouth' was how one teacher described the
family was no longer sought-after in the locafsocial hierarchy. Hazel also young Blair in his first year at Fettes College. IS He had arn:ed from The
had to cope at this time with her daughter Sarah being hospitalised for Chorister School with an Open Exhibition. Fettes thought tt had sec~red
two years with 'Still's disease', a form of infantile rheumatoid arthritis. another pupil as accomplished as brother Bill, who was widely admired.
o
But - and this is most important - Tony Blair showed no outward sign, e member of staff wrote 'I liked his brother Bill. He was a thoroughly
then or later, of being severely disturbed by what had happened to his denc ent, responsible fellow, 'a nd a dt. h. gent, genu.m e sch o1 a r. •16 F or '11o ny' s
father. A period of introversion or other neurotic signs would have first year, indeed, all went well. He was charming, a keen s.portsman who
indicated that it had been traumatic for Tony. But he continued to be his layed in the school's 'Under 14' rugby and cricket sides, and was
~elpful
usual smiling self. Teachers and friends at The Chorister School do not to all. 'I remember Blair as very popular,' recalled the Up.per
remember him becoming withdrawn, or suffering anxiety states. In the Sixth-former for whom he 'fagged', 'running everywhere, very active,
supportive, nurturing atmosphere of a small prep school, he had the best slightly immature, engaged all the time in some kind of act_ivity._'171:'he
conceivable pastoral care. Bill, who has always been the calm one, notion of a boy, severely neurotic and disturbed, or one ':1th his mmd
returned soon after from school for the long summer holidays of 1964, already fixated on a career in politics to achieve what his father no~
and normality reasserted itself. Tony went on to have a happy final two Id not, does not fit the facts. The general impression of the early Blair
cou . . lik
years at Choristers, from 1964 to 1966. 'A. C. L. Blair', or 'Blair 2' as he at Fettes was 'an extremely cheery, dandy young boy, gnnmng away e
was known, was popular, and contributed widely, though surprisingly he mad with his attractive smile, very popular right from the word go,
did not excel in debating, acting or music. IO He featured prominently in because he was so likable and enth us1. ast1.c 'I. 8
school sports, particularly rugby and athletics. In the classroom, his Tony Blair was to spend five years at Fettes: three ~ears to:~· levels
strongest subjects were English and Latin. I I Blair later said he looked · 1969 and a final two years in the sixth form studymg for A levels,
m ' · b L
back at the school with 'affection and gratitude' for the 'comfort, help which he sat in 1971. The selection of Fettes was instructive a out eo.
and belier it gave him. 12 The popular choice from Choristers was Durham School, the local
Hazel managed her recuperating husband and her sick daughter in independent senior school. Fettes College, founded by _a wealt~y
her efficient and reassuring way. Economic concerns were not the least Edinburgh merchant in 1870, and built in imposing Victonan Gothic
of her worries: income from the Bar in Newcastle dried up, and, but for style with commanding views over Edinburgh, was regarded a.s
the university, which maintained his salary, the family would have been Edinburgh's, and Scotland's, most prestigious boarding ~chool. A pupil
in severe straits. William McLay, Hazel's stepfather, who had made a from Tony Blair's house at Choristers had won a scholarship to Fettes the
year before him. A tradition existed. I9 But it was a school sought out by
8 Blair Father's Stroke, I 953-71 9
~ocially aspirational parents with Scottish roots, and regarded itself as the Performances followed in a number of school productions or revues. But
. Eton ~f S~otland'. It was a big social step for Leo. Once he had chosen it was as Captain Stanhope, the tragic hero of R. C. Sheriff's First World
it for ~di, it w~s a formality that Tony should follow three years later. War classic, Journey's End, produced in his final year, that he found his
~hde Chonsters was, without qualification, a positive experience for hour. It was his first experience of leadership, albeit acting, and he liked
Blau, Fettes most certainly was not. The boyish bonhomie of the first it. The play made a deep and lasting impression on hini. On the eve of
few te~ms soon gave way to a surliness and an increasing resentment of the war against Iraq, he recalled the plight of the whisky-sodden Captain
au~onty. One contemporary recalls, 'Tony was in the school fast track surrounded by hostile forces: 'That play had a real effect on me ... You
until abo~t the age of fifteen. Then he fell off the Establishment ladder.· have to isolate yourself when people are dying from what you yourself
He c?ntmued to climb, but on a different ladder, the anti have decided to do.'23
~stabl~sh~ent on~. '20 Was this abrupt change a belated reaction to Leo's Blair's two principal parts came in the two plays directed by his
illness. It is possible, but unlikely. Leo was well on the road back to successive housemasters: Eric Anderson, an impressive figure who went
health by the ti~e Tony began to undergo this change, and was back at on to become Headmaster and later Provost of Eton College, and who
work_. even ma~mg coun appearances where strenuous advocacy was not is discussed in Chapter 18; and the little-known but in his own way no
requued: Leos story was an optimistic one. A much more likely Jess remarkable Bob Roberts, latterly Headmaster, poet and publisher.
explanation for Tony's change in outlook is a combination of three Anderson had become housemaster of a pioneering new house, Arniston,
factors: adoles~ence, during which many become withdrawn and opened in September 1967. Blair had been exceptionally anxious to
quarr~lsome; his restless, questioning personality, which with growing transfer to it, with its fashionable and liberal new master, and was
matun~, he Starte~ to flex; and his being confined in a panicularly delighted when his wishes were granted. One friend said, 'Fettes was
~onvent10nal boardmg school at the time of an explosion of youthful incredibly tough, fagging and cold showers, but Arniston was
irreverence to~ards authority without precedent in post-war Britain. comfortable and easy-going. It had duvets, unheard of at the time.'24
Sport, a~ which he ~ad excelled at Choristers, was a harbinger of the Anderson, a subtle manager of wayward adolescents, eyed Blair's
change. Still representmg the school in his second year, by his third, he theatrical and histrionic talents, and though his protege was only in his
~o lo~ger wanted to play rugby and cricket, which were the second year, gave him the major part of Mark Antony in the house play.
Esc:ibhshment' sports, 21 preferring instead the attractions of football and Anderson later recalled that he had never known a pupil to change so
p~rticularly basketball, which he captained, and where his height gave much in front of an audience: 'He lit up, and became almost a different
him an advantage. It was a highly effective and enjoyable way of putting person.'25 The school magazine described him as 'a very promising
two fi~gers up to the school's hierarchy. While not a top sportsman with actor'.26 The following year Anderson, alive to channelling his wandering
a phys1_que that would lend itself to first-team rugby, he had good natural energies into positive outlets, encouraged Blair and some friends to set
ball skills and was thought to be 'very brave' .2 2 He mi·g h t easi·1 y h ave up a society, named in self-parody 'The Pseuds', to perform vogueish
gone o~ to represent the school at second-XV level at rugby, and second- modern plays. 27
XI at cricket, ~ source of some adulation in the eyes of other schoolboys When Anderson left Fettes before Blair's final year, Bob Roberts also
an_d of later pnde that many carry through_out their lives. Blair forsook all saw plays as a good way of instilling an esprit de corps into his new house.
this, an~ the approva! ~f his masters, for basketball; one can, even today, As an experienced director of schoolboy drama, Journey's End seemed
sense his defiance shmmg out from the grainy photograph of the school's the ideal choice - even if it meant that Blair, as the most experienced
basketball t~am: It was an early example of him wanting to do things his senior actor in the house, had to be cast as Stanhope. 'We all thought
own "":ay, re1ectmg the conventional paths laid out before him. Blair agreed to do it so he could smoke on stage,' recalled one member
Acting was _one activity where Tony excelled, and was happy to excel. of the house. 'When the curtain rose for one act, it looked like dry ice:
He had been m plays at Choristers, but only in minor parts, and he was you could barely see the actors for the clouds of cigarette smoke. '28
fo~unate that he went to a senior school with rich acting traditions Roberts found Blair predictably tricky to handle. During one rehearsal
His name as a thespian was made when he played Mark Antony i~ he repeatedly mimicked Robens' attempts to direct him, but then he
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, put on by his house in his second year. overheard one of his friends say from the shadows, 'For God's sake,