Tony Blair Says He Didn't Pray With George Bush

Tony Blair Says He Didn't Pray With George Bush

Tony Blair told the Daily Telegraph that he and President George W. Bush did not pray together prior to the Iraq War.

"It wouldn't have been a wrong thing, but it didn't happen", Blair told Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph on Tuesday.

Blair was first asked this question by English journalist Jeremy Paxman in an interview for BBC Newsnight in 2002.

The Prime Minister responded with a smile, "No we don't pray together, Jeremy, no."

He was again asked the same question by David Frost in BBC's Breakfast with Frost in September of the same year:

DAVID FROST: But both you and he are are great, greatly men of faith and so on, I mean do you pray together?

TONY BLAIR: Pray together?

DAVID FROST: Uhm.

TONY BLAIR: How do you mean?

DAVID FROST: Do you say prayers together for peace, you and the President?

TONY BLAIR: Well we don't say prayers together no, but I'm sure he in his way hopes for peace and I hope for peace too.

However, as Blair told the audience at a debate in Westminster, he did pray with the Salvation Army while he was leader of the opposition.

"I remember the Salvation Army coming to see me when I was leader of the opposition," Blair told an audience of 450 according to The Guardian. "At the end of it, she said: 'We're all going to kneel in prayer'. There were two members of my office, who should remain nameless, who looked aghast. "I said: 'You'll have to get on your knees'. One of them said: 'For God's sake' and I said: 'Exactly.'"

It is no secret that Blair is a man of faith, something he shared openly at the debate.

"For me the resurrection in the sense of someone reborn is a very important, indeed essential part of Christian faith. Rather than see this as part of a debate about physiology or biology, I see it was what it tells us about human condition."

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