Speaking for Myself (48 page)
I remember going through the pros and cons with Tony way into the night. I don’t know what decided him. Perhaps the gut feeling that his presence could tip the balance, that we’d come so far, it was really important to give it a final push. Or perhaps the sense that if he didn’t go and we lost, he would always feel that he could have made the difference. It was a bit like athletics itself. There is no point in competing if you don’t want to win, even though you know you may not — and in this case, the odds were definitely against us. The risk of failure, however, has never caused Tony to back down. He would rather stick his neck out and risk success, which ultimately is what makes him a great leader.
The roll call of support in Singapore covered a spectrum unimaginable in any other world: from Princess Anne to London Mayor Ken Livingstone to soccer star David Beckham, looking wonderful in an extraordinary white and silver tracksuit. We knew we were running neck and neck with Paris, and as this was the third time Paris had been in the last six, there was a real sense that its time had come.
The voting was done by a process of elimination. Round by round, the lowest-scoring city was eliminated. The dark horse was Madrid, which would be heavily supported by Spanish-speaking South American countries, but should it go out before us, the feeling was that those South American votes would come to us rather than Paris.
Tony’s determination to leave no stone unturned — or in this instance, no committee member unspoken to — was extraordinary. Of about 110 IOC delegates, he was scheduled to meet 40. Sitting in adjacent suites, we divided them up between us, one every twenty minutes. With my husband turning on the charm and determination as only he can, I was very happy dealing with the smaller fry — but of course their votes were worth no less.
People really wanted to meet Tony and were genuinely astonished that he was so approachable — very different from Chirac, whom I watched sweeping presidentially through the hall, not staying to mingle, there just to be seen, as if he were doing them a favor simply by turning up. Tony made people feel they were doing
him
a favor by letting him come along. There was a definite sense that the contrasting styles might make a difference. Chirac’s final blunder may have been Paris’s undoing: on remarking that British cuisine was second only in ghastliness to Finnish cuisine, he waved good-bye to Finland’s two votes.
We could not stay for the announcement of the winner. Rushing on our way, we flew directly from Singapore into Glasgow airport, arriving at Gleneagles at eight in the morning, when Tony went straight into a meeting.
The G8 moves from country to country. We had hosted our first in 1998, in Birmingham. It had been a baptism of fire for me in terms of hosting the spouse program. By then I had two examples to consider. The first was Hillary Clinton’s G7 in Denver, where, in addition to our ride on the train, the wives had been to a craft fair and had had a group discussion. From that I knew we were all intelligent, interested, and, on the whole, educated women. I was determined that when it was my turn, I would treat the ladies as though they had a brain rather than just a husband.
The second example had come just three months later, when Britain had hosted the annual Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Edinburgh. Here were fifty women from fifty-two Commonwealth countries, where many of them operated like First Ladies. In Africa, in particular, the role is more like that of a queen: the wife can have real power, initiating and funding really important work, particularly in relation to women, children, and disability. That the Foreign Office had considered us worth only a visit to a tartan factory, a cookery demonstration, and a fashion show was, frankly, patronizing.
Thus, for my first G8, I decided to give the wives a rather more serious program. After dinner a group from the Royal Shakespeare Company performed extracts under the title “Shakespeare’s Women,” which went down very well. Obviously Hillary Clinton and Aline Chrétien (Canada) had no problem with the language. Nor indeed did Flavia Prodi. Like her husband, the Prime Minister of Italy, she was a university professor, and her English was excellent. Although Mrs. Hashimoto and Mrs. Yeltsin needed interpreters, I felt that it was better to aim high than be patronizing.
The next day I had been given permission to use the royal train, and I took everyone to Chequers for lunch. Sticking with what I knew, I invited Rosalind Higgins, a professor at the LSE (later a judge at the International Court of Justice), to talk to us about international human rights. (I don’t believe I am the only wife of a leader whose husband expects her to be able to discuss things with him.)
Now, in 2005, my general attitude remained the same. After two days of nonstop IOC campaigning, followed by a twelve-hour flight, I was shattered and jet-lagged. Sleep, however, seemed impossible. The vote from Singapore could come in at any time, so I decided to have a massage to calm down. Lying there, oiled up and generally not fit to be seen, I was finally drifting off to sleep when there was a knock at the door. It was Gary, the ’tec.
“Mrs. B? Just thought you’d like to know, we’re in the last two.”
I lay there, the guy pummeling away, every muscle tensed. Another knock.
“Mrs. B? I’m sorry to have to tell you, but . . . we’ve won!”
If I’d been stung by a swarm of bees, I could not have leapt higher. Pulling on my sweatshirt, I hopped to the door and started running down the corridor, Gary laughing behind me, continuing through the public areas to our suite and my wonderful husband.
We were both nearly delirious. “It was all down to you,” I said when we finally stopped laughing. And it was true. However many representatives I had been nice to, it was Tony who had made the difference.
A moment of panic flitted across Tony’s face. “Oh, my God,” he said. “What am I going to say to Chirac?”
The relationship with the French leader was already strained because of Iraq. “Whatever else we do,” he said, wagging his finger and giggling, “there must be no crowing!”
That night the Queen was hosting the dinner. Toward the end of the first course, my Elvis-loving friend Mr. Koizumi leaned across the table, waving his fork.
“What do you think, Jacques?” he piped up, loud enough for everyone to hear, including the Queen. “Very good food here!” At which he began laughing. I looked round at the various faces. Chirac’s was a study in diplomacy. The Queen’s reflected total mystification.
“I didn’t say it,” Chirac explained to Her Majesty.
“Say what?” she replied.
Prime Minister Koizumi was in relentlessly high spirits throughout the meal, finally getting everyone to sing “Happy Birthday” to George Bush, whose birthday it was.
As the evening was winding down, the Queen and Prince Philip caught my eye. “Marvelous news, Mrs. Blair,” she said quietly, giving Chirac a covert look.
“Of course,” said the Prince, “I’m so old, I won’t be here then.”
“Oh, sir, please don’t say that. I certainly hope you will.” And I did. I’m actually quite fond of the old boy.
“Well, one needs to be realistic,” added the Queen. “It’ll be for Charles and the boys, not for us.”
How terrible,
I thought.
How can we possibly have the Olympics without the Queen?
She smiled and moved away. I found the idea that the Queen might not be there quite upsetting.
The spouses’ program was surprisingly royal, I realized. The following morning we were going to Glamis Castle, where the Queen Mother was born and brought up. In line with the G8’s theme of Africa and climate change, I had arranged that a tree be planted in the name of each spouse, mirroring a plan in Burkina Faso that encouraged the planting of income-producing trees.
The following morning I was chatting with André as he was trying to restore some order to my hair, when his cell phone rang. He listened, said nothing, and then crossed to the TV and turned it on. It was his boyfriend, he told me, saying he was okay, but there had been some kind of explosion in London. Like any mother, my first thought was for the safety of my children. I called Jackie but couldn’t get through on her cell phone. The Downing Street phones were working, however: Leo and Kathryn were fine. The ’tecs had picked them up from school, and they were on their way home. Next I got hold of Nick, who was in Oxford, and finally Euan in America. Although the two older boys weren’t in any more danger than they had been a day or a week before, when something so terrifying strikes at the heart of all you hold dear, there’s comfort to be found in just hearing your family’s voices. As the enormity of what had happened began to come through, I felt both angry and numb.
A series of four coordinated bombs had gone off during rush hour, killing fifty-six people and injuring seven hundred. Among the dead were the suicide bombers. These were streets I knew. The bomb on the Piccadilly Line was beneath Russell Square, where the first meetings about Matrix had been held. The bus that was so callously targeted after the underground was closed was in Upper Woburn Place, where the old industrial tribunal building used to be.
The summit was to go ahead, it was decided; otherwise the terrorists would be seen to have won. But all the leaders immediately understood that Tony had to go to London, leaving our Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, to chair the climate change session that morning.
The spouses’ program also went ahead, but the atmosphere was far from the one I had planned and expected. Among the guests I had invited that evening was Alexander McCall Smith, author of the popular No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series and emeritus professor of medical law and bioethics at Edinburgh University. We ended up discussing the finer points of moral philosophy.
That night I lay in a luxurious hotel, surrounded by every kind of security imaginable, and it was dreadful. I thought of all those hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people who tonight wouldn’t sleep because they had lost someone close to them, someone they were never able to say good-bye to. To go from the euphoria of the previous day to this terrible tragedy was beyond comprehension.
Benediction
W
hen tragedy strikes, there’s a profound need to make sense of it. It wasn’t long, however, before my “What are we doing here?” turned into “What am I doing here?” Increasingly I knew I needed to find my own voice.
One of my last conversations with Fiona in the summer of 2003 had made me acutely aware that something had to change. “You have to go underground,” she said. “Go back to being a mother and a barrister and nothing more. The press all hate you. They have all the cards, and you will never win.” But how could I do anything in terms of the press if that was how she felt? Once the team changed, things gradually got better.
Decisions often emerge from negative experiences, and at least I knew now what I was
not
prepared to do. I was not prepared to spend the rest of my life worrying about what people thought about the way I dressed. It didn’t matter in real terms, and it certainly didn’t matter to me. What did matter to me, I realized, was helping other women find their voices. Women make up half the world’s population and yet continue to be underused at best, and abused and defiled at worst.
By the summer of 2005, Laura Bush and I had known each other for more than four years, and although our politics were different, we were definitely friends — always delighted to see each other and catch up.
At the Gleneagles summit, Laura had proposed that I join her on a visit to Africa immediately following the G8. She was going with her daughter Jenna to visit South Africa, where her other daughter, Barbara, had been working in an AIDS clinic. They were then going on to a number of other countries before visiting Rwanda. Having been involved with the International Criminal Court, I was interested to see what impact the Rwanda tribunal had made, and everyone — which is to say Tony and the Foreign Office — seemed keen that I should go. Then came the inevitable question: who was going to pay? Laura’s offer of a lift was rejected as “inappropriate,” and in any event, I couldn’t do the whole trip, as I had legal commitments. Obviously Rwanda was too poor even to think about paying. The Foreign Office said it wouldn’t pay. Downing Street said, “We don’t have a budget.” So after going round the houses, Sue Geddes was informed that I would have to pay my own way.
This was the final straw. “You claim to want to highlight the cause of Africa, yet you won’t back it up,” I told the private secretary concerned. “And as for handing over two thousand pounds of my own money for Sue and me to represent Britain, I am simply not doing it. I shall tell Laura Bush that I can’t go because the British government doesn’t think it sufficiently important.”
It was ridiculous. The UK was Rwanda’s main development partner, with direct aid running at more than £34 million a year. On many levels it was a success story, an oasis of stability and economic growth, and if we wanted to have influence in the areas of concern — democratization and human rights — then it made sense for me to visit at the same time as the First Lady of the United States. Not to go would be a wasted opportunity to fly the flag for Britain. Fortunately Gus O’Donnell, Cabinet secretary and head of the Civil Service, finally decided that the visit should be paid for by the British government. Once that was agreed, everything fell into place.
I flew via Nairobi and, following the success of our Olympic bid, decided to visit a project for young soccer players in a local township. I took as many 2012 T-shirts and soccer balls as I could stuff into my suitcases and, with a local hero by my side — the great marathon runner Paul Tergat — consolidated the message that the Olympics weren’t just about London but about sports round the world, and that they have the ability to lift the impoverished everywhere. That night, at a dinner at the Kenyan High Commission, I met both the Chief Justice and human rights lawyers and learned firsthand about the rapidly deteriorating situation in the country. At that point this situation was not generally known, and I left the next morning feeling thoroughly depressed. When I’d landed, I’d been quickly spirited along, but now, back at the airport, I realized the inroads China was making when I saw every sign translated into Chinese.