Sir Tony Blair has warned Andy Burnham over riding into No10 on a wave of popularity, saying he would have told himself after Labour’s 1997 landslide victory “you may think you're going to be loved, but you're not going to be”.
In a frank discussion with comedian Matt Forde at the Tony Blair Institute (TBI)’s summer drinks reception at the National Theatre in London, the former prime minister also said Mr Burnham needed to maintain a strong relationship with the US “whoever is president” because of the threat of an invasion to Europe from Russia.
And he warned Mr Burnham over continuing with energy secretary Ed Miliband’s net zero policies.
But arguably his biggest advice was “you are not going to be loved”.
The event, sponsored by Uber, was attended by leading figures from politics, business and the media including former Tory PM Rishi Sunak.
It took place as Mr Burnham vowed a change in culture within the Labour party to MPs at a one-candidate husting as he was effectively confirmed as the next prime minister with 349 nominations.
With Mr Forde doing impressions of Sir Tony, Donald Trump and Mr Miliband, Sir Tony, who was UK prime minister from 1997 to 2007, carefully navigated his advice for the incoming leader.
When asked what would have said to himself in 1997 when he first became PM, just as Mr Burnham is about to now, he said: “I think you may think you're going to be loved, but you're not going to be.”
Mr Burnham’s campaign has been styled on his personal popularity with the so-called ‘King of the North’ enjoying strong support across northern regions. Sir Tony also had huge personal popularity when Labour won the 1997 general election.
Sir Tony said: “I wish Andy well. I hope he succeeds. It's important for the country he succeeds. And actually, as a colleague, he was great as well.”
He added: “Andy's got a very sure political touch. He's a genuinely people person. You know, he's interested in people. I mean, it's one of the things that distinguishes politicians, I think over time, when you get to know them, is that all politicians have got to pretend to be interested in people. But you know, you do come across politicians that love humanity in general.”
But with a tricky relationship with Mr Trump to negotiate, Sir Tony, who was critical of the UK not taking an active role in the war against Iran, warned that Mr Burnham needed to maintain strong relationships with the US.
He refused to give advice on dealing with Mr Trump.
But Sir Tony said: “The thing that's important for me, though, is the American relationship, and that's important for a very, very specific reason, and it's not a very popular thing to say, but I do think it's important to say it, which is that we are entering a much more uncertain period.
“I personally don't think that President Putin will come back and try and invade a European country. I don't think that, but I agree that you can't rule that out because of the way he's behaved in respect of Ukraine.”
He noted “one extraordinary statistic” is that in the past month Russia has lost more people each day than the UK did in the entire Iraq and Afghan wars during his premiership.
He added: “If you think you've got the mentality of someone who's prepared to lose that number of people, you are not dealing with a mentality that's Western European.
“So if that is true, and we have to prepare for the possibility that there is a full-scale war in Europe, how do we win that war without America? So, to me, it's not about Trump or not Trump. It's about the American relationship.”
He noted that the US came late into both the First and Second World Wars and in the second a committee called “America First” - the same name as Trump’s movement now - led the efforts to stop US involvement in a war 3,000 miles away.
With Mr Miliband now the frontrunner to be Mr Burnham’s chancellor, Sir Tony also took a swipe at his policies on climate change.
While the former PM insisted that “the future is renewables and clean energy”, he also warned that the current drive to move to net zero rapidly is damaging the country.
“We're penalising our own businesses at the moment with this, and we can't afford to do that. It's as simple as that. And I don't, you know, it's not that I disagree with having the ambition over time to move to net zero,” he said.
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