The Blair epoch
With the Downing Street door closing behind Tony Blair, and because journalism is said to be "the first rough draft of history", it's best today to read "The long kiss goodbye", Martin Amis's profile of the departing Prime Minister, which ran in The Guardian earlier this month. This is an outstanding piece of literary journalism, marked by fine, durable writing. When it comes to the "Special Relationship", Amis notes: "One should not pretend it is a frictionless business, saying no to America. It is one thing to be 'a leading member of the EU'. It is quite another to be what Clinton called 'the world's indispensable nation'." He continues:
I was given a clandestine glimpse of this disparity in the Roosevelt Room, while chewing on a bonbongraciously offered me by a passing Karl Rove ("I think we need some glucose here"), and waiting for Harrison and Jeremy to make their next move. A few prime ministerial staffers were comparing notes with a presidential equivalent on the question of foreign travel. When Blair goes somewhere, he relies on a staff of 30 (and five bodyguards). When Bush goes somewhere, he relies on a staff of 800 (and 100 bodyguards); if he visits two countries on the same trip, the figure is 1,600; three countries, and the figure is 2,400. At the other end, Blair will settle for whatever transport is made available. Using freight aircraft, Bush takes along his own limousine, his own back-up limousine, his own refuelling trucks and his own helicopters. "Mm," murmured a chastened Brit. "You make our lives seem very simple." This was, shall we say, the diplomatic way of putting it.
After rounding viciously on "the semi-literate windbags of the blogosphere ('So! The poddle of Downing Street once again hear's his masters whissel')", Amis glides effortlessly from journalism to true descriptive writing as he observes Blair, Bush and hears, offstage, their maddened opponents:
The PM, for his part, gave a passionate restatement of his crystallised rationale: after September 11, the west had no choice but to unite against a planetary enemy; and he did what he did because he believed it was right. While the two men spoke, you could hear the distant bawling of the protesters on Pennsylvania Avenue. It was as if an incensed but microscopic goblin was off in the bushes somewhere, down by the ornamental lake, his voice strained to the maximum yet barely louder than the endless miaows of the cameras.
A remarkable PM, who was one of the most gifted politicians and communicators of our times, deserves a remarkable chronicler and Tony Blair has found one in Martin Amis. Bring on the biography.
