Tony Blair led the first in a series of seminars hosted by his Faith Foundation on Monday night. Judging by the reaction so far, anything useful he might have said in his speech at the RSA in London is being drowned out by a chorus of outrage that he should think himself fit to have delivered it. Now that Blair is openly “doing God”, there are indeed many questions.
If his faith is so important to him, why did he wait until he left Downing Street to convert to Catholicism? I raised this at the time in the New Statesman, and Blair’s subsequent response in a BBC interview — that it would have caused a “palaver” if he had done so in office — does not begin to answer it. No daring Daniel he, evidently.
Most obviously, how on earth could he square his Christian beliefs with his bellicose actions? (My former colleague at the Independent on Sunday, the great Alan Watkins, regularly used to refer to him as “the young war criminal”.) And to what extent were these beliefs guiding his politics?
Leaving all that aside, he appears to have made a quite astonishing admission in a Q&A at the end of his speech. According to Andrew Brown in the Guardian, “he mentioned that he had not properly understood the role that religion played in the Middle East while he was prime minister. Only once he had moved to Jerusalem did he see this.” This is such jaw-on-the-floor stuff that it’s difficult to know what to say, although it will only confirm the view of those who are sickened by the very idea of a Tony Blair Faith Foundation. (Isn’t there also something rather embarrassingly self-aggrandising about naming a foundation after yourself?)
And yet, whatever one thinks about all this, the work and purpose of the foundation should not be dismissed because of justified reservations about our former prime minister. The TBFF is not out to proselytise, but to increase interfaith understanding and, most importantly, to act in partnership with religious and non-religious development organisations such as the UK’s DfID. “The Foundation will use its profile and resources to encourage people of faith to work together more closely to tackle global poverty and conflict,” says its mission statement.
The foundation is, for instance, already very active in the fight against malaria in Africa. It may irritate some that health care is being provided by faith agencies, but I doubt that it matters to those whose lives are saved. No one should let cavils about the means stop them welcoming the ends in this case.
Lastly, Blair was correct to point out in his speech that “to ignore the role of faith is to be blind to a dimension of the world that plays a part in the thinking and attitudes of billions of people”. Recognising and engaging with this fact matters — even if you think those billions are deluded, and you can’t stand the man behind the statement.
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