Saviour complex: Jonathan Powell is still trying to change the world
In 2011, the Hampstead theatre put on an autobiographical play about a marriage strained by lies, betrayal and, as the exasperated wife says, the presence of ‘three of us’ in the relationship. The play was Loyalty by the journalist Sarah Helm, the third person was Tony Blair and the principal male character was a barely disguised Jonathan Powell, her husband and Blair’s chief of staff. The lies are about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and the betrayal occurs when the Powell character goes along with the war despite not ‘really’ believing in it, siding with Blair over his partner. Two decades on, Powell is Keir Starmer’s national security adviser and
