gordondaviesmoustache
Well-Known Member
Interesting account.The name Guy D’Oyly-Hughes sounds like a character out of the Beano.
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Dr Kelly
- Thread starter Scottyboi
- Start date
Fame Monster
Well-Known Member
To go to Iraq in the first place was the right thing to do, mistakes were made pulling out too early but he had little choice because the Americans were leaving regardless. He made a mistake making about the WMD’s when there was plenty of reasons to go without them.
Again he has regrets about the whole thing but not going in the first place, it was done with the best intentions and Saddam needed removing earlier than when he eventually was. As I say the mistakes were how we left it but Blair didn’t have sole control over this and it wasn’t clear what would happen next.
Blair doesn't get a free pass because Saddam was an evil man and he went with good intentions. There are lots of murderous dictators that I don't like (Assad, Kim Jong Un, Putin, the Myanmar Junta) but if toppling them causes more chaos and far more deaths than would otherwise have been caused had we never gone then it's always a bad idea. Blair, like all leaders, will be judged with hindsight. And the fact is, he spent billions on a legally dubious war that undermined and alienated the international community, inspiring hate against Britain and the West, and almost certainly left Iraq, Syria and the world in a much worse place.
“Idolising Thatcher” is a throw away comment and anyone on this thread (I know you haven’t ) using Thatcher’s admiration for him as a negative for Blair is a fucking idiot as far as I’m concerned.
It's not about Thatcher adoring Blair, it's about Blair adoring Thatcher (which he constantly mentions), leading to crippling and failed privatisation experiments that's bleeding the country dry and will continue to do so for another 30 years until these contracts come to their conclusion.
All levels of living standards were the greatest this country has seen under his leadership, no one has done it better in the modern era (arguably ever).
That's not hard. We had a booming global economy (not because of him in the same way that the crash wasn't because of him or Brown) and he still borrowed us into debt up to our eyeballs. When you're spending all that money, all of the outcomes on your outdated list (more nurses, higher welfare, more teachers etc) will be achieved. Abandon all sense of budgetary responsibility and living standards will go through the roof. The problem is, it's short-termist and burdens future generations with enormous debt and when the economy isn't doing so well and the interest needs to be paid down, people start to suffer.
Immigration saw a boost in the economy, with many contributing rather than taking away. It’s important for you to realise that rather than just bringing up the housing crisis he didn’t start.
Holding him responsible for Brexit is what a right-wing idiot would say. He said the levels of immigration may have had some impact with certain people but it’s not why we left, we left due to a pack of lies about immigration and what Brexit would do for this country. Blaming Blair is like blaming Mancini every time we lose a game now.
Immigration is all well and good (and obviously immigration will lead to total economic growth) but they need houses to live in and there needs to be a concomitant, long-term rise in living standards for all for the policy to be popular. The houses never got built and his policy (and absent of policy) led to an enormous housing crisis that's stoked anti-immigrant sentiment which has culminated in Brexit.
Where’s the policy he introduced to lock people up without trial?
Sorry I said 42 days - that was Brown. Blair tried to lock people up for 90 days without charge, leading the House of Lords to declare the law incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
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Blair doesn't get a free pass because Saddam was an evil man and he went with good intentions. There are lots of murderous dictators that I don't like (Assad, Kim Jong Un, Putin, the Myanmar Junta) but if toppling them causes more chaos and far more deaths than would otherwise have been caused had we never gone then it's always a bad idea. Blair, like all leaders, will be judged with hindsight. And the fact is, he spent billions on a legally dubious war that undermined and alienated the international community, inspiring hate against Britain and the West, and almost certainly left Iraq, Syria and the world in a much worse place.
It's not about Thatcher adoring Blair, it's about Blair adoring Thatcher (which he constantly mentions), leading to crippling and failed privatisation experiments that's bleeding the country dry and will continue to do so for another 30 years until these contracts come to their conclusion.
That's not hard. We had a booming global economy (not because of him in the same way that the crash wasn't because of him or Brown) and he still borrowed us into debt up to our eyeballs. When you're spending all that money, all of the outcomes on your outdated list (more nurses, higher welfare, more teachers etc) will be achieved. Abandon all sense of budgetary responsibility and living standards will go through the roof. The problem is, it's short-termist and burdens future generations with enormous debt and when the economy isn't doing so well and the interest needs to be paid down, people start to suffer.
Immigration is all well and good (and obviously immigration will lead to total economic growth) but they need houses to live in and there needs to be a concomitant, long-term rise in living standards for all for the policy to be popular. The houses never got built and his policy (and absent of policy) led to an enormous housing crisis that's stoked anti-immigrant sentiment which has culminated in Brexit.
Sorry I said 42 days - that was Brown. Blair tried to lock people up for 90 days without trial, leading the House of Lords to declare the law incompatible with the Human Rights Act.
I’ve never said he gets a free pass. We went with good intentions and the operation would have been a success had we stayed the course. We didn’t, partly due to America being certain on pulling out, which in turn forced us to do the same, which left it to the mob. He couldn’t have policed Iraq without Bush.
Legally dubious is a term you’ve used to make it sound like there was some criminality involved but without committing to that statement - it means fuck all and he’s had no charges to answer for.
I didn’t say it was about Thatches adoring Blair, part of that point was other idiot comments on this thread using that as a negative towards him. You’ve just described Thatcher’s reign there and not Blair’s, it’s a nothing point really.
The borrowing helped the economic boom that we saw, you’re touching upon really specific points about NHS contracts and have said this is why he was “atrocious” yet removing any praise he deserves for implementing policy that improved everyone’s lives in this country.
House building actually rose during the early 2000’s and only stopped in 2008 because of the crash, which obviously massively impacted what became the housing crisis. Immigration has not nearly come down to the levels needed under the Tories since - https://fullfact.org/economy/house-building-england/
Any evidence for that policy?
Who do you think has been a good Prime Minister? If you think Blair is atrocious I’d love to hear who isn’t?
Really well set out mateHow long have you got?
To start, the war in Iraq was an expensive and humanitarian disaster. Saddam Hussein didn't have WMDs, and the removal of the security forces in Iraq led to a brutal civil war that brought about the rise of one of the most evil groups this world has seen - ISIS.
Idolising Thatcher.
Privatising parts of the NHS and saddling hospital trusts with huge debts to PFI consortia. Even the Conservative Party has abolished these scandalous contracts which saddled the country with enormous levels of national debt.
Same applies to the expensive academisation of schools.
Half-destroying grammar schools, thereby reducing social mobility for many children, despite half the front bench sending their kids to grammar schools.
Overspending when we should have been paying off the national debt, leading to us paying eye-watering interest rates when the crash occurred.
Increasing immigration to unprecedented levels that exceeded the number of houses built in this country every single year thereby causing a housing crisis that's left thousands on the streets (once it became clear that pre-crash budgets were unsustainable). Housing benefit subsequently skyrocketed (due to the explosion in rental costs) which is another budget drain. The only profit to be made was by buy-to-let landlords of which he is one and makes millions from it year-on-year while people have to wait 15 years to be moved into social housing.
His immigration policies also paved the way for Brexit (which he has part acknowledged) which could potentially be disastrous for the country if it doesn't get a good deal.
Locking people up for 42 days without a trial.
Being complicit in torture.
And many many more that I've not mentioned.
Fame Monster
Well-Known Member
Blair couldn’t police Iraq with or without Bush. Some of the worst violence was while we were there and the longer we stayed, the more extreme anti-Western sentiment became. Staying longer would have meant someone even worse than Malaki being in power (Saddam part II) and more and more people would have died. We were in a lose, lose situation because Blair and Bush were ideologues who had no idea how long and how much money it would take to rebuild a nation as religiously, politically and ethnically fractured as Iraq. It was an absolutely disastrous war and if the lies about WMDs weren’t spun by Blair in the first place, we would never have gone into it.
Housebuilding rose from 2000? So what? It didn’t rise in line with net migration, population growth or more simply, demand, which is why rents and house prices skyrocketed hence the housing crisis we find ourselves in (not helped by successive Governments either).
The 90 days without charge law was notorious in this country so if you’ve missed that, you’ve probably missed an awful lot of the other dreadful policies he’s responsible for.
House building actually rose during the early 2000’s and only stopped in 2008 because of the crash, which obviously massively impacted what became the housing crisis. Immigration has not nearly come down to the levels needed under the Tories since - https://fullfact.org/economy/house-building-england/
Housebuilding rose from 2000? So what? It didn’t rise in line with net migration, population growth or more simply, demand, which is why rents and house prices skyrocketed hence the housing crisis we find ourselves in (not helped by successive Governments either).
Any evidence for that policy?
The 90 days without charge law was notorious in this country so if you’ve missed that, you’ve probably missed an awful lot of the other dreadful policies he’s responsible for.
Blair couldn’t police Iraq with or without Bush. Some of the worst violence was while we were there and the longer we stayed, the more extreme anti-Western sentiment became. Staying longer would have meant someone even worse than Malaki being in power (Saddam part II) and more and more people would have died. We were in a lose, lose situation because Blair and Bush were ideologues who had no idea how long and how much money it would take to rebuild a nation as religiously, politically and ethnically fractured as Iraq. It was an absolutely disastrous war and if the lies about WMDs weren’t spun by Blair in the first place, we would never have gone into it.
Housebuilding rose from 2000? So what? It didn’t rise in line with net migration, population growth or more simply, demand, which is why rents and house prices skyrocketed hence the housing crisis we find ourselves in (not helped by successive Governments either).
The 90 days without charge law was notorious in this country so if you’ve missed that, you’ve probably missed an awful lot of the other dreadful policies he’s responsible for.
The actual war lasted several months, post war was several years. The chances of violence breaking out over several years compared with several months are obviously skewed and if you really believe worse violence happened following the war then that A) suggests the operation went well during the war B) it was poorly managed following it... which is my stance.
There wasn’t a crisis until after the crash and house building was set to continue. Was it in line with net migration? No. Was it continuing to rise until the arse fell out of the economy? Yes.
What other dreadful policies? So far you’ve got me on NHS contracts and post war Iraq and the fact that house building was a bit shorter than net migration.
You’ve still not said who had done better, are you going to keep ignoring that?
Over 10 years of leading one of the richest countries in the world is always going to produce big mistakes but looking at the overall picture he did a lot more good than bad.
Fame Monster
Well-Known Member
The actual war lasted several months, post war was several years. The chances of violence breaking out over several years compared with several months are obviously skewed and if you really believe worse violence happened following the war then that A) suggests the operation went well during the war B) it was poorly managed following it... which is my stance.
There was no such thing as post-war. The war we entered into against Iraqi forces led to a subsequent civil war. Blair, Bush and the rest share a huge portion of moral responsibility for that because the consequences flow from the initial action. You can't separate the two. Iraq has had 15 years of chaos because of Blair and Bush's decision and many of them problems were exported to Syria on a much worse scale than Iraq because of the rise of ISIS in Western Iraq. It's been an unmitigated disaster based on a false justification and it will rightly be the decision that defines his tenure more than any other.
What other dreadful policies? So far you’ve got me on NHS contracts and post war Iraq and the fact that house building was a bit shorter than net migration.
It's not just NHS contracts, it's his entire legacy of public sector reform that, domestically, he wanted to be defined by. So that means the enormous number of operational contracts with private consortia for public projects that he entered into over his 10 year tenure (which he didn't invent but proliferated under him). We now know they were ludicrously over-priced and have been universally condemned for ripping the country off. It's going to cost the country £200billion up until the 2040s (off-the-balance sheet of course) all because he was brainwashed by utterly stupid Thatcherite ideology that private structures always produce better outcomes than public ones. It simply isn't true.
You’ve still not said who had done better, are you going to keep ignoring that?
I would say almost all Prime Ministers have done better than him taking into account domestic and foreign policy (although he deserves a lot of credit for the minimum wage) but that's not to say I don't strongly dislike many of the recent ones we've had either.
gordondaviesmoustache
Well-Known Member
Totally agree. Brilliant word structure and beautiful and passionate narrative.Really well set out mate
gordondaviesmoustache
Well-Known Member
Plus this post too. Superbly structured arguments.There was no such thing as post-war. The war we entered into against Iraqi forces led to a subsequent civil war. Blair, Bush and the rest share a huge portion of moral responsibility for that because the consequences flow from the initial action. You can't separate the two. Iraq has had 15 years of chaos because of Blair and Bush's decision and many of them problems were exported to Syria on a much worse scale than Iraq because of the rise of ISIS in Western Iraq. It's been an unmitigated disaster based on a false justification and it will rightly be the decision that defines his tenure more than any other.
It's not just NHS contracts, it's his entire legacy of public sector reform that, domestically, he wanted to be defined by. So that means the enormous number of operational contracts with private consortia for public projects that he entered into over his 10 year tenure (which he didn't invent but proliferated under him). We now know they were ludicrously over-priced and have been universally condemned for ripping the country off. It's going to cost the country £200billion up until the 2040s (off-the-balance sheet of course) all because he was brainwashed by utterly stupid Thatcherite ideology that private structures always produce better outcomes than public ones. It simply isn't true.
I would say almost all Prime Ministers have done better than him taking into account domestic and foreign policy (although he deserves a lot of credit for the minimum wage) but that's not to say I don't strongly dislike many of the recent ones we've had either.