Ex PM uses Labour performance in 2010 to knock Gordon Brown while revealing regret at missing European job
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The Guardian, Friday 5 April 2013 19.09 BST
Old foes Gordon Brown and Tony Blair in 2010: Blair said he ‘would have given Cameron a run for his money’ if he'd had fourth election. Photograph: Tim Ireland/PA
Tony Blair has demonstrated that his rivalry with old political foe Gordon Brown remains undimmed by time by claiming Labour would have stood more chance of winning the 2010 general election if he had stood against David Cameron.
Blair, whose popularity had plummeted before he stepped down as prime minister, took a very public swipe at his New Labour successor in a wide-ranging interview with Bloomberg Markets magazine.
He stopped short of claiming he could have won the election, but insisted it would have been a closer call. "Frankly, if I'd had a fourth election, I would have given Cameron a run for his money. I am not saying I would have won, but it would have been tighter than it was," he said.
Blair, whose 1997 election victory saw a 179-seat Labour majority ending 13 years of Tory rule, once enjoyed a satisfaction rating of above 70%.
But, tarnished by the Iraq war his ratings had slumped below 30% in his third term. By the 2005 general election the Labour majority had dropped to 66.
His leadership was also troubled by in-fighting between factions loyal to him or Brown, who took over as prime minister in 2007.
Under Brown's leadership, Labour lost 91 seats in the 2010 general election. But the result was still closer than some had predicted for a prime minister deemed deeply unpopular, with the election eventually resulting in a hung parliament with Cameron's Conservatives the largest party, propped up by the Liberal Democrats.
Blair, who has been involved in a string of business and charity projects since leaving office, also revealed his regret that he was not offered the job of president of the European council. Despite lobbying by Brown's government, the post was eventually filled by Belgium's Herman Van Rompuy, who was supported by German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy.
"If the European job had been offered to me, I would have taken it," Blair told the magazine. "But it wasn't."
Blair now works as a UN Middle East peace envoy, and has built up a multimillion-pound business advising banks and foreign governments, which helps to fund a network of charitable foundations.
He said: "The motivation is not the accumulation of personal wealth. If I'd wanted to do that, I could do it a lot simpler with a lot less time."
He added: "There's a myth that just because you used to be British prime minister, people give you lots of money to play with. No, they don't."
He revealed he had given more than £5m to charities since 2008. "I wanted to create a different type of post prime ministerial career altogether. From the outset, I had a very clear view of what I wanted to do. I wanted to create my own set of institutions," he said.
