Interviewing Lord Butler

Lord Butler is best known for heading a 2004 inquiry into the use of intelligence relating to the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. However, Lord Butler’s career working
within the civil service spanned nearly four decades; he has been private
secretary to five Prime Ministers, served as head of the Home Civil Service
and, as I recently found out, is a happily married family man with three
grandchildren.

I wanted to interview Lord Butler after he came to give a talk about his famous inquiry at my school last year. We had discussed the state of international law and I had
been struck by how he approached the topic from a neutral stance. After his speech,
I asked him if he would grant a separate interview on the subject, and happily
he agreed.

Earlier this week, I headed over to Lord Butler’s Westminster flat accompanied by a photographer, film-maker and mentor. We entered into a spacious corridor and I heard floated
wisps of a telephone conversation, conducted in a strong voice that had clearly
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We went into a living room to set up and I noticed a neatly stacked bookcase, boasting political works and former prime minister’s diaries and shelves full of
episodes of “Yes, Minister”. Lord Butler came in and his energy was infectious.
We were soon on the sofa, camera rolling.

I had originally suggested that we would talk about international law in the interview, but I thought I’d be missing a rather large boat if I forgot to ask Lord Butler about
his eponymous enquiry. So I decided to start from the beginning with the
question: “Why did we invade Iraq in 2003?”

One thing that sticks in my mind is his response to the question: “What did Tony Blair do right?” He replied that he had stuck to his decision and defended it without
wavering. This was an angle that I had never considered before; everything I’d
heard before only served to vilify Blair to Bliar.

But what Lord Butler had said was true and is an admirable thing for Blair to have done - hardly something I could imagine Gordon Brown doing…

Nevertheless, when we broached the topic of international law I did see a clear mistake in Blair’s decision. Lord Butler told me that although the Attorney General had
told Blair that his decision to invade Iraq would not go against international
law, there had been plenty of lawyers who thought the decision would broach
international law.

Lord Butler also said that the current Iraq inquiry was a “truth and reconciliation act” by the government, remarking how important it is that the public are aware of the
decisions that go on in the heads of its leaders and that it served to placate
many families who had lost members during the war. I then asked him if he
thought it was just a PR move, which received a negative reply.

After this, we talked about the impotence of the UN, and I was slightly dismayed to hear him say that by nature it’s extremely difficult to have an effective international
peacekeeping organisation. Of course, this was the answer I had been expecting,
but the role of the UN seems to me to be such a huge flaw in the way our world
works, and I had been hoping to hear something on the optimistic side of the
coin.

All in all, it was one of the most interesting things I’ve done. The highest platform of democracy became transparent as a result and I learnt that you need a lot more
than a striped tie and a pair of breeches to become a politician.

What do you guys think about what we talked about? And feel free to comment on my expression of idiotic insight : )