London, England - He famously didn’t do God while in power.
But Tony Blair has revealed he had once wanted to finish a speech while he was Prime Minister with ‘God bless Britain’ – until concerned aides told him ‘this is not America’.
The former premier said the idea of using the rhetorical flourish that echoed the U.S. presidential sign-off ‘God Bless America’ cause consternation among aides.
He said:‘I had to do some address to the country when I was Prime Minister.
'You know the American president finishes an address to the American people by saying “God bless America”, Mr Blair said
‘I had the idea of finishing my address by saying “God bless Britain”. This caused consternation in the whole system.
'A committee was convened, and we had to discuss it.
'I remember we had this debate on and off but finally one of the civil servants said in a very po-faced way “I just remind you Prime Minister, this is not America” in this very disapproving tone, so I gave up the idea.
'I think it is a shame that you can’t since it is obviously part of what you are.
‘I think God and religion can also be abused by politicians too so you have got to be careful.’
Mr Blair also told a conference organised by a leading evangelical church that a world without religion would be on the road to tragedy and disaster.
Religious belief protects people from doctrines that put people in second place to political objectives, Mr Blair said.
He said that faith is 'fundamentally a belief that there is something bigger and more important than you, that you are not the only thing that matters, that there is something that is greater and transcendent.
'I think that essential obligation of humility for humanity is deeply important,’ Mr Blair said.
'It is what allows us to make progress, it is what keeps us from ideology or thought processes that then treat human beings as if they were secondary to some political purpose,’ he added.
The speech set out Mr Blair’s views on religion nearly five years after he converted to Roman Catholicism shortly after leaving Downing Street.
His declared Christian beliefs caused controversy from his days as Labour opposition leader - when he was rebuked by the Catholic leadership for taking communion with his family while he was still nominally an Anglican - right through to the end of his premiership.
Mr Blair was at odds with the Catholic church over his gay equality regulations, which led to the closure of Catholic adoption agencies which refused to deal with gay couples, and over his liberal attitude to abortion.
His Downing Street spokesman Alastair Campbell tried to end speculation about the Prime Minister’s religious motivation by telling journalists ‘we don’t do God’.
Yesterday Mr Blair told 4,000 people at a conference organised by the influential Anglican evangelical church Holy Trinity Brompton that he did try to do God.
Mr Blair said: ‘For a long period of time, what people thought was that as society became more developed and as we became more prosperous, that faith would be relegated, that it would become a kind of relic of the past - what kind of ignorant people do but not what civilised, educated people do.'
‘I think a world without faith would be a world on the path to tragedy and disaster, I really believe that.’
He added: ‘What is the essence of our faith besides all the things we believe, certainly as Christians, about Jesus Christ and his place in our lives?’
Mr Blair told the audience that his ‘journey of faith’ had started in choir school in County Durham at the age of 10 when his father Leo, a convinced atheist, had suffered a serious stroke.
‘I remember going to school that day not knowing whether he was going to live or not,’ he said. ‘The headmaster of the school called me into his study and he said,
“I think we should kneel and say a prayer for your father.” ‘ I said to him, ‘I should tell you my father does not really believe in God.’
‘I will never forget what he said to me - he just said to me “but God believes in him, so let us kneel and pray.” That made a big impact on me.’