Taking a break during a typically busy day inside 10 Downing Street, Tony Blair confides that "nothing prepares you for the difficulty of being Prime Minister".
Read the transcript for the film below:
Shots of the Prime Minister leaving Downing Street to visit a local hospital and school.
The Prime Minister:
Morning. Morning. Hello. Good to see you. Morning, or afternoon I should say.
……..Cut to the Prime Minister is sat at his desk.
There is never a typical day, all days are different. There are any number of different issues that can come up in a day and then you can always have something completely unexpected that translates one type of day into a completely different one.
…..Cut to shots of the Prime Minister’s visit and address to the CBI.
Sometimes what can happen, like when I went to the CBI, is that something totally unexpected happens, like the guy’s hanging from the rafters making a protest and then everything changes and you have to, not merely the nature of the event changes, but your reactions
……Cut to the Prime Minister sat at his desk.
and how you have to deal with the particular situation. The important thing is, is to be able to compartmentalise, to be able to switch from one subject into another.
…..Cut to the Prime Minister at the House of Commons for Prime Minister’s questions.
Speaker of the House:
Questions to the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister:
Mr Speaker, sir. This morning I have meetings with ministerial colleagues and others, in addition to my duties in the House. I will have further such meetings later today.
…….Cut to the Prime Minister sat at his desk.
Prime Minister’s questions, funnily enough, is a very, very good way of mugging up on everything that’s happening around government. I mean, I know you should know everything that’s happening around government anyway, but I remember Mrs Thatcher once saying to me that the most important thing about Prime Minister’s questions is that it gave you the opportunity to know exactly what was going on in all the different nooks and crannies of government.
…..Cut to the Prime Minister addressing members of the press.
Hello everyone.
……Cut to the Prime Minister sat at his desk.
The thing about this job is that everything you say is on the record and is then subject to the most minute scrutiny so, if suddenly, you end up getting a fact wrong, or even just get hold of the wrong end of the stick, and it’s happened to me on several occasions, then you can end up in a lot of trouble and people then either ascribe meanings to your words that you never intended them to have or you have to go and eat humble pie and say you got it wrong.
.……Cut to the Prime Minister at ministerial briefing at Downing Street
It’s very important, I mean, I always say in here whenever I’m getting briefed on anything - facts, facts, facts. Get the facts first, because then
…….Cut to the Prime Minister sat at his desk.
you can work your way round both the policy and also how you answer difficult questions, but the quality of the research you get is very, very important.
……Cut to the Prime Minister sat at his desk interspersed with footage of PM attending the EU Summit and greeting, receiving heads of state, etc.
Nothing quite prepares you for either being leader of the opposition, which is certainly a step up, but being leader of the opposition does not prepare you quite adequately for the difficulty of doing the Prime Minister’s job, just because it’s completely a different order of stress, challenge, pressure. The hours are very ….long. I’ve never actually totted up the hours I do in any week, it’s probably not lawful under some directive or other. What is worthwhile is getting things done. And when you get things done and you see results, and you think, well, in part, that happened as a result of something I did, or we did, or decisions that were taken here, that’s what makes everything worthwhile and it’s an enormous privilege to be able to do it.
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