‘THERE was a lot of time for networking,’ Conseiller Roger Berry must have told me over a barrier in the spacious surrounds of the Royal Jersey Showground out in the wilds of Trinity.
The British-Irish Council was doing its usual thing... meandering through a not particularly interesting workstream – the knowledge economy, in this instance – which has never really appeared to make any significant difference to any of the eight jurisdictions around the table.
Except in Jersey, in June 2002, the event, and the atmosphere, away from the day-to-day business of the BIC, was crackling.
What was Tony Blair doing there?! Oh, there’s John Prescott. Is that Martin McGuinness coming through the doors? And David Trimble. And the UK Northern Ireland Secretary John Reid. Recently re-elected Bertie Ahern was also present. My goodness.
And with an hour’s delay to the start of formal proceedings – my fragile memory seems to remind me it was to accommodate Mr McGuinness’ late arrival – there was plenty of time to gossip and speculate. And, to learn that local media (we extended to Channel Islands as I was the only Guernsey representative present) would be allowed to ask Mr Blair a question. This was a game-changer, and has remained a career highlight. But what to ask?
At the time Jersey was embroiled in quite a serious wrangle with the UK over the ‘EU Tax Package’. The island had accused the UK of ‘bullying’ them. So two, if not three, local media wanted to ask about that. Channel TV opted out, and wanted to go last, but wouldn’t say why.
So... the moment was approaching. What could I ask the PM, the first serving premier to visit Jersey – and, I presumed, the wider Channel Islands – for more than 100 years?
The rules were that we would line up. He’d walk along the line, one question only, no comeback, he’d answer it, and move on. With regards to that bullying of Jersey, he spoke of ‘persuasion’.
I thought it best to try to keep him talking. I came up with some mush about the value to other jurisdictions of having the Channel Islands in the room, and vice-versa. Mr Blair said something deep and meaningful, which I managed to get on the front page the following day, and moved on.
Channel went last, as agreed. A fame-hungry gelled-hair journo asked: ‘Have you got a good luck message for our boys before they play Denmark tomorrow, Mr
Blair?’
It was a calculated gamble to get on the News at 10. Not sure what his news editor might have thought. And of course Mr Blair wished England well for the World Cup Round of 16 clash on Saturday night. They won 3-0, by the way.
He went back to sorting out the fragility of the Northern Ireland peace process, which had dominated the day away from the BIC business, and was to hold a further press conference at the airport a couple of hours later.
I jumped in a taxi, also heading to the airport, and rang my editor from the back seat. ‘I got to ask a question to Mr Blair!’ ‘What did you ask him?’
I explained. ‘You stupid dolt! You should have asked him “why have you got it in for us?”’
Our front page story the following day was a lovely hybrid of what I had, and what he wanted. Under the headline ‘We are not out to hurt islands’ – Blair, I wrote: ‘Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that he and the Labour Government were not seeking to damage the Channel Islands.’
The British-Irish Council notwithstanding, that relatively fragile position still holds, 24 years on from a day I’ll never forget.