/ PA Archive/Press Association Images)
With a group of school children in Hartlepool.
With guest speaker Mo Mowlam and friends at a constituency summer barbeque in Hartlepool.
With Prince Charles at a reception in St James’s Palace.
Planning the 1997 general election campaign with Margaret Beckett, Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. (© Tom Stoddart/Getty Images)
New Labour’s kings of spin: with Alastair and David Hill prior to our 1997 election manifesto launch. (© Fiona Hanson/PA Archive/Press Association Images)
A new dawn: the election victory party at the Royal Festival Hall on the morning of 2 May 1997. (© Brian Harris/Rex Features)
Minister without Portfolio: outside the Cabinet Office on my first day at work.
At the Millennium Dome site with Chris Smith, Michael Heseltine, Tony Blair and John Prescott. (© John Stillwell/PA Archive/Press Association Images)
John Prescott in conversation with his mate ‘Peter’. (© Ben Curtis/ PA Archive/Press Association Images)
Relaxing in the company of Sabrina Guinness and Mick Jagger.
With Bobby and Jack on the steps of Hillsborough Castle.
At Stormont with Tony and Bill Clinton, December 2000.
The Queen visits Hillsborough. Housekeeper Olywn McCarthy keeps hold of Bobby.
Making my resignation statement outside Number 10 after leaving the government for the second time, January 2001. (© Alastair Grant/AP/Press Association Images)
With Tony in Hartlepool, September 2001. This was the first time we had been photographed together since my second resignation. (© Owen Humphreys/PA Wire/Press Association Images)
Supporting the campaign for justice for the families of the victims of the Omagh bombing, 2000. (© Topfoto.co.uk)
With my constituency agent, Steve Wallace, in Hartlepool.
Anxiously awaiting the result at the Hartlepool count on the night of the 2001 general election. (© Carl Rutherford/PA Archive/Press Association Images)
Jubilation with my supporters after my victory is announced. (© Ian Hodgson/Reuters/Corbis)
At the Progressive Governance Conference in London, 2003 with President Lula of Brazil, Tony and President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa.
With Tony at the EU–China political summit in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. (© Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP/Press Association Images)
Arriving at the WTO talks in Geneva, July 2008. (© Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
Irish farmers protesting in Dublin against the proposed WTO deal. (© Collins Photo Agency, Dublin)
‘Cashmering my way into Number 10’ on my return to government for the third time, October 2008. (© Fiona Hanson/PA Wire/Press Association Images)
At the Cabinet table with Alan Johnson, David Miliband, Alistair Darling, Douglas Alexander and Ed Balls. (© Anthony Devlin/AP/ Press Association Images)
Gordon and I see the funny side during a question-and-answer session with local business people in Kent on 21 October, shortly after I rejoined the government. (© Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/Press Association Images)
Resplendent in my robes on the occasion of my introduction to the House of Lords, with Roger Liddle. (© Gary Lee/Photoshot)
On a return visit to Brussels, with the President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso.
In a military aircraft during my visit to Iraq, April 2009. (© Peter Nicholls/The Times)
Comeback kid: delivering my speech to the Labour Party conference, September 2009. (© Mirrorpix)
The Mirror headline the next day summed up the mood of delegates in the hall. (© Mirrorpix)
Dancing with Hannah Rita-Mackenzie in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom during the general election campaign, April 2010. (© Graeme Robertson/Guardian News & Media Ltd 2010)
On our final day in Downing Street with Douglas Alexander, Alastair, Gordon and Ed Balls. (© Martin Argles/Guardian News & Media Ltd. 2010)
This may seem an odd admission from someone who once embodied New Labour’s reputation for spin and control freakery, but almost everything about this book is different from what I had imagined it would be.
Alongside Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, I helped to found the modernising project that became New Labour, and to win the party an unprecedented three terms in government. I was not just a witness to, but a participant in, the highs and the lows of those years. In the early days of our modernising project, journalists dubbed us ‘The Three Musketeers’, and the remarkable bond that linked Tony, Gordon and me was at the heart of all that we achieved, and failed to achieve.
When I decided to call this book The Third Man, it was not out of feigned modesty. No matter how influential each of us was, at different times and in different circumstances, in the creation and achievements of New Labour, there is an obvious distinction between us. Tony, and then Gordon, became leader of our party and Prime Minister of our country. By contrast, through much of our time in government, my influence was exercised largely behind the scenes, sometimes even in the shadows – another reason why the title’s echo of Graham Greene’s story of post-war Vienna seemed appropriate.
I first met Tony and Gordon in 1985, when I started work as Labour’s youthful campaign director at the party headquarters in Walworth Road and they were recently-elected MPs. I have a clear recollection of when I first brought the three of us together as a team. I was looking ahead to the coming general election in 1987, and had already identified both of them as very gifted politicians – they shared an appetite for hard work, a deftness for identifying political opportunities, and an ability to communicate with an electorate that was still very sceptical about Labour. Above all, they were attuned to voters’ feelings rather than simply to what our activist base wanted to hear. The role I had in mind for them was to work with me to develop campaign grenades for us to lob at the Tories when the election was called.
The two of them needed little encouragement. In the coming months we prepared our lines of attack, and when the election starting pistol was fired, I scheduled a press conference to enable them to release the first salvo. It turned out to be both the first and the last such occasion. Chaired by the sometimes acerbic but media-savvy frontbencher Gerald Kaufman, the event was organised so that Gordon would launch the initial attack on the Tories, before Tony stepped in to finish them off. Instead, he came close to finishing off his own political career almost before it had begun. Momentarily departing from the prepared script, he described Mrs Thatcher as ‘unhinged’. The journalists’ ears pricked up at the sound of the Prime Minister, then at the height of her powers, apparently being described as deranged or worse. To his credit, Tony’s antennae, even then, were in full working order. He quickly spotted the danger, and glanced at me from the platform with a pained expression that I was to become very familiar with in the years to come. It was ITN’s super-sharp political editor at the time, Michael Brunson, who leapt on the gaffe. ‘That’s a good line to lead the Ten with,’ he said, smiling, to me when I went over to the press pack to see what story they were likely to report. I managed to get Tony off the hook, telling Michael firmly that ‘unhinged’ did not mean mad, that it was Mrs Thatcher’s policies that Tony was describing, not her mental state, and that anyway, it would not be fair to embarrass a newcomer who was sure to be going places, and was therefore someone Michael would want to befriend.
This was the sort of incident that