Blair Does God in Interview to Launch Inter-faith Foundation

Tony Blair declares today that he wants to devote the rest of his life to promoting understanding between the world's religions as he recalls how his Christian faith gave him the strength as prime minister to take tough decisions.

In his most detailed description of the central role of faith during his decade in Downing Street, the former prime minister says religion inspired him even when he thought he had little political support.

Blair's remarks appear in an interview with Time magazine on the eve of today's launch in New York of his Faith Foundation, which aims to increase dialogue and practical work between religions.

The former prime minister, who travels the world as a Middle East peace envoy, as a £500,000-a-year adviser to the investment bank JP Morgan and as one of the highest paid speakers on the global lecture circuit, says fostering inter-faith dialog is now his most important work. He says of his foundation: "This is how I want to spend the rest of my life."

Blair was wary of talking about religion during his time in Downing Street for fear of being seen as "a nutter", as he told a BBC documentary last year. Alastair Campbell, his former communications director, famously told an interviewer from Vanity Fair: "We don't do God."

The former prime minister, a committed Anglican since his days as a student at Oxford in the 1970s who converted to Catholicism after his departure from No 10 last year, has opened up to relate how religion helped him during difficult periods as prime minister.

Blair says he did not wait for daily advice from on high. "You don't put a hot line up to God and get the answers," he says.

But he adds: "The worst thing in politics is when you're so scared of losing support that you don't do what you think is the right thing. What faith can do is not tell you what is right but give you the strength to do it."

The former prime minister does not mention his most difficult period in office, the build-up to the Iraq war in March 2003, when he told aides that he would resign if he lost a Commons vote authorizing military action. But he makes clear the central importance of faith when he says: "I think faith gives you a certain strength and gives you a support in doing a job as difficult as leading a country."

Blair will announce today that his Faith Foundation, to be run by his former No 10 aide Ruth Turner, will bring together six faiths: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism. But he says his foundation will be doing more than promoting dialog: it will encourage practical work by religious groups to help tackle poverty and disease. His first target will be malaria, which kills about 850,000 children a year.

He also has a swipe at western Europeans who scoff at people who profess their faith: "Europe is more exceptional than sometimes it likes to think of itself."