Channel 4 (UK) Documentaries

The Rise And Fall Of Tony Blair (part 1) (2007x10)

Air date: Jun 23, 2007

The Definitive Assessment Of The Blair Decade In a landmark series, the policies and personality of the man who has ruled Britain for the last decade are examined by Andrew Rawnsley, the award-winning broadcaster, author and commentator who is widely regarded as one of the most authoritative chroniclers of New Labour's time in power. This major two-part series both provides the definitive assessment of the Blair decade and tells the inside story of New Labour over the past ten years. The series features exclusive interviews with senior Cabinet members, civil servants, generals, and allies, opponents and intimates of Tony Blair, who speak to Rawnsley with extraordinary candour about the Prime Minister's greatest successes and his gravest misjudgements. The series includes interviews with close friends of Tony Blair who have never before spoken on the record and to camera. The programmes deliver a comprehensive, revelatory and incisive examination of the events at home and abroad that shaped the Blair premiership. Rawnsley analyses the political relationships forged by Blair, the opportunities, threats and challenges he has faced from 1997 until his final days at Number 10, and the successes and disasters of his period in power. Rawnsley shows that Blair was hugely daunted by power and arrived at Number 10 with deep inner anxieties about whether he was up to being Prime Minister. He soon found that his promises were not matched by detailed strategies to fulfil them. Senior members of Blair's Cabinet admit to Rawnsley that the Government suffered from a lack of worked-out policies. Blair's closest aides and allies express regret that they too often concentrated on the spin at the expense of the substance.