![]() ![]() Then there is the sight of the great man dressed in yellow and green underpants in the flat above the Downing Street shop. He wrote his New Year’s message beneath the palm trees, vowing that Labour would “tackle the problems of poverty”. Just after Christmas 1997, Blair visited the Seychelles where he was a guest of Branson’s for dinner. The book is replete with priceless vignettes. That was, for virtually everyone at the time (including a generation of mesmerised Conservatives), unconscionable. There were only two conclusions that could be drawn from the mess: either I had conducted a bad interview and was not bright enough to tease out the gems, or the Blair project was an empty shell. We decided to bulk up the programme with various political scientists versed in the “third way”. The conversation was an exercise in charm-laden vacuity. I’m not sure there is anything to salvage from it.” On the way back to the studio, I allowed myself a smile, only for my producer to retort: “That was useless. Instead Blair spoke eloquently for more than an hour, answering my questions with effortless gusto. Alastair Campbell had been unenthusiastic (“pretentious bollocks”), but had relented on the proviso that I had half an hour, max. I had interviewed him for an Analysis programme on Radio 4 dedicated to unearthing the philosophy behind the “new” politics. ![]() I t was December 1995 and I had just left Tony Blair’s parliamentary office feeling rather pleased with myself.
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