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Noel Gallagher says Tony Blair is “the last person who made sense”

By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 30 April 2021

Noel Gallagher has praised Tony Blair, saying that he was “the last person who made sense” in British politics. Gallagher, of course, became the poster boy for what was dubbed “Cool Britannia” at the start of Blair’s stint as UK prime minister, after he was one of the creative types invited to Downing Street following Labour’s election win in 1997.

Speaking to GQ, he says: “Because Thatcherism had coloured all our lives, which was still prevalent with John Major, when Tony Blair came along and I heard him speak I thought – and I still think to this day – he was great. He’s the last person that made any sense to me. The third way, or centrist politics, was a new thing. I was like, ‘That is fucking really clever’. I started meeting [Blair and his ministers] at various awards ceremonies. John Prescott was a bit of a cartoon character, but I thought the rest of them were alright”.

Clearly the last couple of decades have given Gallagher time to reassess how he feels, given that back in 1999 he was somewhat disillusioned with the fact he’d been used to boost Blair’s credibility. Back then he told the Observer: “Nothing really changes does it? Same shit, different day … I just thought, if the Prime Minister of England wanted to see me, then, fuck me, I must be a fucking geezer. I was convinced that I was going to get a knighthood that night. You live and learn, don’t you?”

Liam Gallagher has also been down on his brother’s Downing Street visit in the past, accusing Noel of “sipping champagne with a war criminal”. Although maybe he was just miffed that he wasn’t invited. Blair’s former spin doctor Alastair Campbell has previously said that Liam wasn’t included on the invite list for the Cool Britannia reception because no one was sure he’d behave.

Elsewhere in the new GQ interview, Noel gets even more dewy-eyed about the 90s, saying: “The 1990s now is revered as probably the last great decade when we were free, because the internet had not enslaved us all and driven the world’s neurosis to the point of fucking paralysis, where you can’t say or be or do or suggest or take the piss out of or be irreverent to anything or any fucking section of society. Whereas back then, it was fucking spontaneous. Everything was spontaneous and off the cuff, particularly in my life. I didn’t think about anything. And now everything is thought out”.

Anyway, Noel’s not actually supposed to be looking back as far as the 1990s, although he is currently milking the nostalgia pound. He’s back on the interview circuit because his High Flying Birds project has somehow been going for a decade now. And to mark the occasion, they’re releasing a greatest hits compilation – called ‘Back The Way We Came: Vol 1 (2011-2021)’ – on 11 Jun.

Commenting on the release, he says: “Ten years of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds? Blimey! Just think of all the things I COULD have done in that time! The title just came to me one afternoon, at the kitchen table. It’s a saying isn’t it: Back the way we came’? I actually thought it was a great title. Which is why it’s got Vol 1. Because if there’s another one, I’m not coming up with another title!”

The compilation will include a new track too, ‘We’re On Our Way Now’, which you can listen to here: