Blair kept quiet about faith over 'nutter' tag

Published on Sunday 25 November 2007 00:26

TONY Blair avoided talking about his religious faith in public when he was running the country because he feared that voters would see him as "a nutter", he reveals today.

In an interview for BBC1's The Blair Years, the former Prime Minister concedes that his Christian belief was "hugely important" to the way he conducted himself in Number Ten.

In the programme, aides recall that, every Sunday, wherever they were in the world, they would have to find a church where Blair could worship.

In the programme, Blair recalls the infamous comment by his former spin doctor Alastair Campbell that "we don't do God."

Blair says it was not because Campbell was opposed to his boss's religious beliefs but because "you always get into trouble talking about it".

While in the US and some other countries, it is considered natural for politicians to be open about their faith.

"You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter," says Blair.

Voters tended to think that religious politicians "go off and sit in the corner and... commune with the man upstairs and then come back and say, 'Right, I've been told the answer and that's it'," he said.

Asked how important his faith was to his work, he replied: "If I am honest about it, yes of course it was hugely important. There is no point in me denying it. I happen to have religious conviction.

"I don't actually think there is anything wrong in having religious conviction. On the contrary, I think it is a strength for people."

He added: "To do this, the Prime Minister's job, properly you need to be able to separate yourself somewhat from the magnitude of the consequences of the decisions you are taking the whole time - which doesn't mean to say, and let me emphasise this, that you're insensitive to the magnitude of those consequences or that you don't feel them deeply.

"If you don't have that strength it's difficult to do the job, which is why the job is as much about character and temperament as it is about anything else.

"For me having faith was an important part of being able to do that."