Review

Books

Culture

Leading

Politics

20 November 2024

5 min read

Blair’s revelatory sermon to Starmer

What can the former Prime Minister teach about leadership?

Krish Kandiah

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

Tony Blair at rest.

The 1990s are enjoying a revival—from the return of baggy jeans and bucket hats to the reunion of Oasis, and, perhaps most significantly, a Labour government in power once again. Unlike the fervent optimism of 1997, when Tony Blair swept to victory with D: ream’s hit song Things Can Only Get Better as an anthem, today’s Labour government faces criticism for a perceived lack of vision. Luckily, Tony Blair has just released his new book: On Leadership—perhaps a timely read for the current Prime Minister.

Blair's leadership credentials are, at one level at least, pretty impressive: he won three consecutive elections and was the first Labour Prime Minister to do so. His achievements include playing a crucial role in the Northern Ireland Peace Process, reducing NHS wait times, and making a substantial investment in public services. Blair also took a courageous stance with U.S. President Bill Clinton by intervening in the Kosovo conflict against the advice of the UN. He remains however indelibly associated with the controversial 2003 invasion of Iraq that resulted in the deaths of 179 British personnel, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

In this climate of scepticism toward political leaders, Blair's reflections on leadership invite critical questions: Who is this book for? Where is the vision? And even, intriguingly, do we now 'do God'?

Who's it for?

Blair’s book is not a typical guide to general leadership principles; rather, it’s an insider’s view on leading a country. For the average reader, it’s like overhearing a high-level seminar on statecraft—a glimpse into the “room where it happens.”

Maybe there’s a bit of an audience reality check going on in the same way that a TV documentary on what-it’s-really-like-to-be-the-England-football-manager might deliver. Many football fans are happy to shout at our televisions when most have not got even the remotest clue of the challenges and pressures national coaches are under. So perhaps if Blair can tell us how hard it is to handle the myriads of competing challenges as the leader of a nation, readers might better understand the weight of leadership and approach politics – and politicians -with greater humility.

One of the most helpful reflections the book offers was Blair’s self-analysis on three stages of leadership. The first is the new leader listening eagerly; the second comes when they think they know everything, and finally, there’s a third stage of maturity when “once again, with more humility, they listen and learn”. He argues that his book’s purpose is to shorten the learning curve and get leaders to the third stage more quickly.
This a noble cause, but there are times when this book feels like a sermon preached by a slightly unscrupulous vicar, in a church where everyone knows there’s only one person the preacher has in mind. This can make everyone else feel they are there just to fill up the pews so that the message gets delivered. For Blair, his message and his book seem to be very much for Sir Keir Starmer; a plea to him to listen and learn from others.

Where’s the vision?

Blair encourages leaders to make a meaningful impact with their time in office. Recalling a conversation with Shimon Peres, he writes, “Do you want to be in the history books or the visitors’ book?” For Blair, leadership is about pushing boundaries, meeting resistance with persistence, and making difficult choices when others hesitate. He writes, “If you, as a leader, are not a changemaker in this world, it is you who will be changed.” His words on taking risks and demonstrating resilience are certainly inspiring. However, he often focuses on how to lead effectively, with limited exploration of what motivates us to seek positions of leadership in the first place — a disappointing missing focus on moral purpose.

This emphasis on strategy over ideology is evident in chapter titles: The Supreme Importance of Strategy versus The Plague of Ideology. Blair is critical of rigid ideologies, advocating instead for flexibility and pragmatism. He contrasts ideological rigidity with a more agile and pragmatic approach, which could sound like its own simply going-with-the-flow ideology, - a situational ethical approach. This feels very different to the Tony Blair that took on the United Nations over the Serbian genocide in Kosovo. He appeared to take a moral stance driven by a commitment to human rights rather than going with a more pragmatic laissez-faire solution. Blair’s emphasis on pragmatism, while useful, may leave readers wanting more on the values that shape a visionary leader.

Blair includes a joke, a very good one, that feels accidentally pertinent: some people die and the Devil appears and asks them, before they settle for Heaven, to take a look at Hell, because it’s not as bad as they’ve heard. When they see the “drinking and debauchery” in Hell, they ask to be damned. But then they wake up in the real Hell – “cold, miserable and horrible” – and demand to know why it looks nothing like what the Devil showed them. “Ah well,” says the Devil, “back then I was campaigning.”

He meant it as a joke, but the lack of moral clarity in the book made me feel he was sharing more than he intended about the state of political leadership right now. Perhaps sharing to many more than just those he wrote this sermon for. It certainly encapsulates the growing chasm between political promises and reality, as well as illustrating the reason why many people feel disdain, distrust and disappointment in all politicians who say whatever they need to say to get elected.

Are we doing God now?

Famously, when asked about his faith while Prime Minister, Blair was interrupted by his press secretary, Alastair Campbell, who declared, “We don’t do God.” Yet in this book, Blair invokes Moses as an example of leadership under difficult circumstances: “Never underestimate the degree to which people crave leadership. Back to Moses again. The Israelites simultaneously hated and craved his leadership. If you remember, they reached the promised land (though, yes, I know, he didn't).”

Blair sees in Moses a leader who maintained strength and conviction, even in the face of public criticism—a relatable comparison for politicians navigating the pressures of modern social media. Whether or not Blair is “doing God” in this book, he draws inspiration from Moses as a model of resilience and substance, inviting readers to consider leadership as a balance between staying grounded in one’s values and withstanding external pressure.

In the end, On Leadership is a reflective, sometimes provocative take on leading a nation, full of insights that swing from the practical to the idealistic. But it also raises important questions about the ultimate purpose of leadership and the need for a clear moral compass. For a public that remains sceptical of political motives, Blair’s leadership lessons may provide timely, if imperfect, revelation.

Article

Culture

Film & TV

21 February 2025

5 min read

A tale of two Romes

The Gladiator sequel’s dream of equality is baloney but telling.

Matt Lewis

Matt is a songwriter and musician, currently completing an MA in theology at Trinity College, Bristol.

Chariots thunder into a Roman amphitheatre.

Scott Free Productions.

I left the theatre quite disappointed by what I had witnessed. The original Gladiator, the Ridley Scott masterpiece, remains one of the most captivating historical epics in cinema. Every time I watch it, I feel I am stepping into another time. The sequel, by contrast, baffled me by how out of time it was, jarring me out of the action by its historical inaccuracies.

Whether it was the sharks in the Coliseum or newspapers a thousand years or so before their invention, these moments reminded me I was not witnessing an entirely truthful representation of Roman society. Perhaps I am asking too much - a movie is after all, a representation, and may tell us more about ourselves than the era it portrays.

But Gladiator II’s biggest anachronism isn’t newspapers or sharks, but the presence of Christian values in a pre-Christianised Rome.

The backdrop for the film is that the evil and insane twin Emperors Geta and Caracalla, have spread chaos across the world, relentlessly conquering foreign lands, imposing their will on others - in other words, doing what Romans usually do.

Against the emperors are a group of Romans who are tired with all this conquering and violence and want to build a new Rome. Throughout the film, they remind the audience constantly of Marcus Aurelius, the historic Roman emperor from the first film, who had a dream - ‘the dream that was Rome’. Rome would be a republic. But not just any republic.

Lucius, the hero of the sequel, in his final speech to the Roman army, sets forth what this dream could look like: ‘A city for the many, and refuge to those in need.’ The entire legion lay down their arms and cheer triumphantly for the dawn of this new Rome.

All of this is starting to sound rather close to home. Perhaps Lucius should march to the US border next.

We can imagine offscreen, Lucius walks into the Roman equivalent of the World Humanist Congress, to write a charter to declare the worth and dignity of every individual, and their right to freedom.

Anyone watching who didn’t know their history might be forgiven for assuming that this would mean an end to all the conquering, and the beginning of a just and equal society for all, regardless of gender, social status and nationality.

Unfortunately, this was not the dream of the Roman republic, even before ‘tyrannical’ emperors started ruling. Many of Rome’s biggest conquests happened during the era of the Republic. Likewise, democracy in Rome did not extend to all people. Slavery was rife. The dream that was Rome, was to have a group of men subjugate the world, rather than just one or two.

To be fair to Ridley Scott, his Rome has a little bit more nuance than I give him credit. Denzel Washington’s character Macrinus, the gladiator master, stands as a reminder of the hypocrisy of Marcus Aurelius’ ‘dream’. Macrinus was made a slave under Aurelius’ rule, bearing the brand of Aurelius’ visage on his chest, a reminder that he was Roman property.

The only real equality Rome has – Macrinus points out – is that a slave can violently overthrow an emperor. If equality is going to happen in Rome, it won’t be through reasonable persuasion, but violent revolution. And even then, equality won’t have the final say, but rather the oppressed simply becomes the next oppressor. This is the true spirit of Rome: the survival of the strongest.

Gladiator II reminds us that the values we find self-evident today, that Ridley puts into the mouth of Lucius and the other protagonists, were not self-evident to Rome. The dream that was Rome is a dream that we have. But how did we come to have this dream?

We have been shaped by this history in more ways than we know.

There was another revolution, that Gladiator II does not portray (at least not explicitly). This revolution explains why we look back on history wanting to see ideals of equality and justice. The German philosopher Frederick Nietzsche, atheist and nihilist, writes about it in his work The Genealogy of Morality.

Nietzsche describes a war that happened between Judea and Rome. Rome was undoubtedly defeated, Nietzsche claims. Now, before we might accuse Nietzsche of further anachronism (the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Jewish Temple in AD70 come to mind), Nietzsche is in fact speaking of a revolution in values.

He saw that the Roman ideal of ‘the prerogative of the few’: a small group of strong men imposing their will and subjugating others as the master race, was overthrown by the ‘prerogative of the many’ in the ‘slave revolution’. This revolution was brought about by a Jewish man, Jesus of Nazareth, followed by his group of unlikely revolutionaries.

At the centre of this movement was one central image: a man dying on a Roman cross, a punishment meant for slaves and criminals.

God in human flesh dying as a victim of oppression, was an image that gave power to the powerless.

Nobility was no longer be found in inflicting suffering, but in enduring it for the sake of others.

Historian Tom Holland writes in his book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind:

‘The spectacle of Christ being tortured to death had been bait for the powerful. It had persuaded them … that it was their natural inferiors, the hungry and the humble, who deserved to inherit the earth’.

Holland traces this revolution and the ways in which this counter-narrative slowly seeped into Western culture, implanting a concern for the powerless. The welfare state, universal human rights, movements like #MeToo all find their source in this world-rupturing event.

Holland writes elsewhere: ‘The wellspring of humanist values lay not in reason, not in evidence-based thinking, but in history.’

We have been shaped by this history in more ways than we know.

Our generation suffers from cultural amnesia. We forget the reason for how we reason today. Our desire to see Rome (and our own nation, for that matter) become a home for the many and refuge to those in need, is a desire that has been shaped by Christian values.

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