‘Huge responsibility’ stopped Blair from enjoying job as PM
TONY BLAIR has said he did not enjoy being the UK Prime Minister due to the huge responsibility it entailed.
Mr Blair, who was prime minister between 1997 and 2007, also said it was “crazy” that the experience required for the role is so “nugatory”.
The comments were made during an interview with BBC Radio 4 for The Prime Minister at 300, focusing on how the role of prime minister has changed over the past 300 years.
“I don’t think I did enjoy the job because the responsibility is so huge,” explained Mr Blair. “Every day you’re making decisions and every day you’re under massive scrutiny as is your family.
“So I didn’t know if I enjoyed it. The paradox is that you start at your most popular and least capable and you end at your least popular and most capable.”
The former Labour leader also compared his experience of becoming prime minister to that of a fan being appointed as manager of Manchester United.
He said: “The crazy thing about the job is that it’s the only job I can think of in which the importance of what you’re doing is so immense and the requirement of experience for doing it is so nugatory.
“The first job I ever had in government was prime minister. I use the analogy of a football team. If you’re looking for the new coach of Manchester United and ‘I tell you what we’re going to find the most enthusiastic and persuasive fan we can find and put in him charge of the team’. People would say you’re insane.”
The BBC programme also spoke to former prime ministers David Cameron and Sir John Major, as well as to the current PM Boris Johnson. Mr Johnson paid tribute to the teams which help support prime ministers in their role at Downing Street.
■ The first The Prime Minister at 300 will air on BBC Radio 4 at 11am today.