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.

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Leading

Politics

24 November 2025

4 min read

Covid inquiry: Johnson, Cummings, and the cost of refusing to grieve

The report exposes mistakes, but our real challenge is learning how to face loss without denial

Jonah Horne

Jonah Horne is a priest, living and working in Devon.

Boris Johnson sits, giving evidence to an inquiry.

Boris Johnson giving evidence to the inquiry.

UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

I distinctly remember the sheer confusion of January to March 2020. Should we flee our flat in London? Should we cancel the lease on our workspace? Will I be able to continue breakfast with my friend on Thursday mornings? I ignorantly scoffed that a lockdown could conceivably take place and then, stood devastatingly corrected only a few months later. However, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry reveals that this ignorance induced confusion was not restricted to the personal level but instead enacted on a national stage.

What’s glaringly obvious as you read the recommendations is that the government acted too slowly and too indecisively. If the initial restrictions been introduced sooner, say in January or February, the first lockdown “might have been shorter or not necessary at all.” This, the report suggests, could have saved approximately 23,000 lives. Brenda Doherty, of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group, believes her mother could have been one of these. Instead, she and her sister stood by her graveside in March 2020 as her family members waited a few metres back sectioned off by red tape. The report and accompanying evidence call for sombre reading.

In response, those in charge at the time have understandably launched an attack in their own defence. Boris Johnson has labelled the inquiry "totally muddled,” which ironically sounds like the informal conclusion of his leadership in the report. Similarly, Dominic Cummings has hurled a 2,000-word response into the social media stratosphere, which feels almost as long as the 800-page paper itself.

What seems glaringly obvious about both men’s responses is the very thing Brenda Doherty displays with such elegance: grief. There is, in these men’s retorts, a stunning omission of any sense of responsibility or indeed any willingness to admit defeat. And what frightens me most, as we look towards the future, is our refusal to grieve over the things of the past. The threat on Europe from Russia is growing. AI’s disruption on our workforce seems to be being enthusiastically brushed aside. And another, potentially much more violent, pandemic is unsettlingly likely.

However, in the face of these disruptive forces grief is a remarkably generative power. Without grief we remain, much like Johnson and Cummings, frozen in time. Immovable in our ineptitude and ignorance. Grief, I’d argue, is the very thing that enables us to recognise our shortcomings and, when mixed with hope, energises us towards a future which lies on the other side of sorrow. Yet, when we exist in a place of fragility, the idea of imagining that life lies beyond my incompetency, if only I grieve it, is frightening. Devastatingly though, for us humans, this may be the only way to learn and move forward.

Our future and redemption is undeniably bound up in our ability to grieve. Grief is inherently futural. By grieving our ineptitude, we inevitably witness to the places that require growth, mercy and grace. When we fail to grieve, we remain frozen in time—precariously hiding behind the illusion of our infallibility. This is a deeply fragile state. From this position, any assault or critique on our mistakes becomes a personal attack rather than invitation to redemption. We find ourselves lashing out in fear, terrified of being exposed. Johnson and Cummings embody this predicament to a tee.

This situation however is not unique to the Covid iquiry and our late-prime minister’s response. Another character who lashes out in fear is St Peter, one of Jesus’s friends and disciples. There is a rather poetic story that illustrated this at the end of John’s gospel in the New Testament. One of Jesus’s friends Peter rejects him as he’s taken to be murdered. Peter attacks a guard, cuts his ear off and Jesus famously disarms him and heals the man. Moments later, Jesus is taken, Peter flees and we find him standing in a courtyard, by a fire and where claims not to know his friend and master Jesus. To make matters worse, he rejects him not once, but three times. However, when Jesus returns from the grave, he meets Peter again, at a fireside on a beach, and asks him “do you love me?” Not once but three times. The thing that I think is particularly remarkable about this meeting is that Jesus recognises Peter’s future in bound up in the redemption of his past mistakes. Jesus takes Peter to the place of failure, a fireside, and gives him an opportunity to declare his allegiance and love for him, the same amount of times he had rejected him. He reminded him of his wound to heal him for his future.

If we are to take seriously our response to the Covid-19 inquiry, we must take responsibility for our errors. Not begrudgingly but with a grace filled grief. Our future, one that is filled with hope, does not come to us without a confession of past errors. Instead, a hopeful future may only come to us when we confess, recognise and grieve our mistakes. Indeed, to freely grieve over my failures is to grieve believing in life beyond my defeat.

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