Did Tony Blair really get heckled during his Women’s Institute speech?

Blair is seen making an ill-advised speech in The Crown season 6 episode 6, Ruritania.

By James Hibbs

Published: Thursday, 14 December 2023 at 08:00 AM

Now that the final season of The Crown is available to stream in full on Netflix, fans can see that it does not go right up to the present day in its dramatisations, but instead stops in 2005.

This means that the last prime minister to be portrayed in the series is Tony Blair, who has been played by Bertie Carvel in both season 5 and season 6 of the show.

While he may not get as much focus as some previous prime ministers have in the series, episode 6 examines the relationship between Blair and the Queen in detail, while also assessing the reforms he made to the monarchy.

The episode also dramatises one of the prime minister’s less successful speeches, when he was heckled when talking to the Women’s Institute in 2000. But how true to life is this moment?

Read on for everything you need to know about Tony Blair’s speech to the Women’s Insititute.

What happens in The Crown season 6 episode 6?

Bertie Carvel as Tony Blair in The Crown standing at a lectern outside 10 Downing Street
Bertie Carvel as Tony Blair in The Crown.
Netflix

In The Crown season 6 episode 6, Ruritania, the Queen is seen making a successful speech to the Women’s Institute (WI), which is greeted warmly.

However, nationwide and internationally, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s popularity is seen to be surging, while the royal family’s is diminishing.

The Queen brings this up with Blair in one of their meetings, and asks him what he would do to turn things around for the monarchy.

Blair goes away and comes up with a host of suggested reforms, including cuts to staff and spending and ensuring primogeniture, meaning no longer would a male heir be considered the successor even when they have an elder female sibling.

The royal household conducts a review and agrees to some of his suggestions, but not others. The relationship between them seems frosty.

The Queen is later informed that Blair would be giving a speech to the WI. The Queen remarks that she wouldn’t have thought they were his crowd, but says she has always had to admire his unerring judgment.

However, the crowds soon turn against him, slow-clapping his speech as he promotes radical change, and later heckling. The Queen is seen watching the speech on television.

She later tells him in one of their audiences: “He can charm America, indeed the whole world, but comes up short with the Women’s Institute.”

She tells him he was political with them, when the WI prides themself on never being that.

Did Tony Blair really get heckled when giving a speech to the Women’s Institute?

Tony Blair in a suit in front of a purple background
Tony Blair.
Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images

He did. In June 2000, Blair took to the stage at the Women’s Institute’s national conference, but the audience of 10,000 women did not respond well to his speech.

Blair was at first welcomed to the stage, but he had been advised ahead of time by the WI that he should make sure the speech remained non-political.

The heckling began when Blair started to list examples of government action to extend opportunity, and was followed by slow clapping when he started talking about NHS reform.

The WI’s chair appealed for calm, but when he started talking about interest rate cuts and got further heckled, he responded, saying: “Well, I’m glad we’re having a good debate, anyway.”

His response was reportedly tut-tutted, with audience members saying it was a party lecture and not a debate. There were more shouts when he started talking about collective responsibility and gave his support to the WI’s campaign to save rural post offices.

Then-Conservative leader William Hague would go on to remark on the response to the speech in the Commons, saying: “It is the mark of an out of touch prime minister that you don’t know why you’re out of touch.”