To listen to Donald Macintyre’s interview with Tony Blair, click here

Soon after Tony Blair arrived in Jerusalem on 23rd July 2007, as a new international envoy to the Middle East, he called together his makeshift team in the understated glamour of the American Colony hotel. His staff had been hastily seconded from diplomatic missions across the US, Russia, the EU and the UN. Just days before he left 10 Downing Street for the last time on 27th June, countries from this so-called “Quartet” had appointed him to a post that promised to fill at least some of his time ahead. His task, which had defeated scores of diplomats before, was to pursue economic progress in the Palestinian territories, in the hope that this would help open up a road to peace with Israel.

In the mission’s improvised offices, occupying the entire fourth floor of the hotel, Blair told his