Bill Clinton turned down tea with the Queen: Five things we learned from newly declassified papers
Bill Clinton turned down an invitation to have tea with the Queen because he “wanted to be a tourist” in London, newly released official papers show.
The US president was visiting the UK in 1997 – four weeks after Tony Blair came to power – and said he wanted to hit the shops and eat Indian food.
Previously classified documents show Mr Clinton, Mr Blair and their wives Hillary and Cherie ended up dining at a French restaurant in London Bridge – complete with beer and fine wine.
The Clintons and the Blairs headed for dinner instead
Memos between Whitehall aides show Mr Clinton was invited to Buckingham Palace to 5pm tea.
But a letter written by Downing Street private secretary Philip Barton said: “The Americans said that the president and Mrs Clinton were very grateful for HM The Queen’s invitation to tea at the palace, but would wish to decline politely.”
The restaurant bill racked up by the Blairs and Clintons is also among the series of files released by the National Archives in Kew, dating back to Mr Blair’s first few months in government.
They spent a total of £298.86 at Le Pont de La Tour – and the bill featured £20 wild salmon, £19.50 grilled sole, £18 halibut, a £2.95 Budvar beer, and a bottle of Mas de Duamas 1995 wine priced at £34.75.
Tensions were high between Gordon Brown and Tony Blair’s aides
Blair and Brown tensions
The latest tranche of official papers from 1997 also shows that Mr Blair’s aides wanted Gordon Brown‘s spin doctor “out on his ear” amid fears that unauthorised briefings were damaging the new Labour government.
Files suggest officials struggled to manage tensions between the administration’s two most dominant figures right from their early days in office.
Peter Mandelson – one of Mr Blair’s ministers – repeatedly complained about the actions of Charles Whelan, who served as Mr Brown’s press secretary.
Mr Whelan was accused of planting a series of hostile stories about Mr Mandelson that were making the government “look foolish, and worse”.
A frank note written to Mr Blair also suggested that Mr Brown was using his chairmanship of cabinet committees to “bludgeon through” his own policies.
A referendum on Scottish devolution was held in 1997
Scottish independence worries
The now-unclassified documents from 1997 also show that Downing Street advisers had conceded that Scotland could have a referendum on “anything it wants” without Westminster’s consent.
Even back then, key aides to the prime minister said “a couple of very worried Scottish MPs” were concerned about “the slippery slope to independence”.
Scotland voted in favour of devolution in September 1997, with Labour pledging that the country would be able to set up its own parliament responsible for education, health, transport and other matters.
It was not until 2014 that an independence referendum was held, with 55% voting against proposals for Scotland to break away from the rest of the UK.
Tony Blair greets well-wishers at Downing Street after winning the 1997 election
Blair’s Irish famine message ‘written by aides’
The documents also reveal that Mr Blair’s headline-grabbing admission that the British government was culpable for the Irish Famine was actually hastily ghost-written by his aides.
At the 150th anniversary commemoration in Cork, a message was read on the prime minister’s behalf that said: “That one million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful nation in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today.
“Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy.”
A request from remarks from Mr Blair was made at the last minute, and they were approved by his private secretary because the prime minister was “not around at the time”.
The Millennium Dome cost £758m and opened on 31 December 1999
Millennium Dome could have been tribute to Diana
Records also reveal that plans had been considered to make the Millennium Dome a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales – and also faced the prospect of being scrapped altogether.
According to the PM’s director of communications Alastair Campbell, a member of the Dome’s board had proposed that the “Millennium project be completely refashioned, the site extended, to accommodate, for example, a hospital, businesses, charities, private residences, and the whole thing named ‘the Princess Diana Centre’.”
Separately, one of Mr Blair’s aides said: “Diana’s death could give us a semi-plausible excuse to cancel.”
The attraction cost £758m and opened on 31 December 1999, but it only drew 6.5 million visitors in 2000 – far fewer than the 12 million that had been budgeted for.
It was later closed and replaced with The O2, which has hosted concerts, sporting events and other entertainment since 2007.
Rishi Sunak will try to convince the public he is the person to “fundamentally change the country” and fix Westminster’s “broken system” – despite the fact his party has been in government for 13 years.
In his speech to the Tory Party conference, the prime minister will present himself as a reformer who is prepared to take difficult decisions, unlike opponents, who take “the easy decision, not the right one”.
Mr Sunak will tell the conference hall that politics “doesn’t work the way it should” and that his Labour opponent, Sir Keir Starmer, is “betting on voters’ apathy.”
The speech will round off what has been a chaotic four days at the party’s annual conference in Manchester – an event that has been overshadowed by the announcement that the northern leg of HS2 will not go ahead as originally envisioned.
Instead, services will run between Birmingham and Manchester but they will not be high speed and they will use the existing West Coast Mainline track.
The development prompted Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to accuse the government of treating people in the north as “second-class citizens”.
Election would be ‘massive distraction’ – Tory conference latest
He warned the government: “To pull that plug here in Manchester would show complete contempt to the city region and to the north of England as a whole.”
The Tory mayor for the West Midlands, Andy Street, also warned it would be “an incredible political gaffe” allowing opponents to accuse Mr Sunak of having decided to “shaft the north”.
In his speech, Mr Sunak will rail against “30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one – 30 years of vested interests standing in the way of change”.
He will reflect on his first year in Number 10 and acknowledge a “feeling that Westminster is a broken system”.
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No high speed link north of Birmingham
“It isn’t anger, it is an exhaustion with politics,” he will say.
“In particular, politicians saying things, and then nothing ever changing.
“And you know what? People are right. Politics doesn’t work the way it should.”
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Sunak: ‘No one wants an election’
And he will say: “Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it.
“Our mission is to fundamentally change our country.”
Read more:
Sunak to announce £30bn of transport spending in conference speech
Braverman says Andrew Boff should be allowed back into conference
As well as the HS2 announcement, Mr Sunak has also been undermined by his predecessor Liz Truss, who drew big conference crowds as she demanded immediate tax cuts to “make Britain grow again”.
Mr Sunak has instead compared himself to the late Baroness Thatcher, who tackled inflation before cutting taxes during her premiership between 1979 and 1990.
While Mr Sunak has repeatedly sought to dodge questions over HS2, he did say on Tuesday that the costs of the project had gone “far beyond” what had been predicted, and the sums involved were “enormous”.
The HS2 scheme was given a budget of £55.7bn in 2015 but costs have ballooned, with an estimate of up to £98bn – in 2019 prices – in 2020.
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