Tony Blair

[ClaudioDeyna]

I liked him

Me too.

 

[ClaudioDeyna]

1) An end to decades of strife in Northern Ireland, and a return to devolved government
2) A return of London government
3) Low interest and mortgage rates
4) National minimum wage made law
5) Free nursery places for every 3 and 4-year old
6) Devolved powers to Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
7) A doubling of funding per pupil in schools
8) Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission
9) Crime rates reduced by a third.
10) Introduced statutory paternity leave
11) Introduced the independence of the Bank of England
12) Kept us out of the Euro
13) A significant improvement in gay rights
14) Freedom of information act
15) Stopped Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
16) Significantly increased spending on the NHS
17) Removed the tyrant and maniac Saddam Hussein from Iraq
Apart from that, not much really

Don't forget Sierra Leone and the Human Rights Act.

 

[SWP's back]

I can't wait to piss on his grave.

not really

 

[Blue Mist]

1) An end to decades of strife in Northern Ireland, and a return to devolved government
2) A return of London government
3) Low interest and mortgage rates
4) National minimum wage made law
5) Free nursery places for every 3 and 4-year old
6) Devolved powers to Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
7) A doubling of funding per pupil in schools
8) Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission
9) Crime rates reduced by a third.
10) Introduced statutory paternity leave
11) Introduced the independence of the Bank of England
12) Kept us out of the Euro
13) A significant improvement in gay rights
14) Freedom of information act
15) Stopped Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
16) Significantly increased spending on the NHS
17) Removed the tyrant and maniac Saddam Hussein from Iraq
Apart from that, not much really

Can we look at the list.
1. Sorry Blair was there at the end to milk the glory, From Wikipedia "On Wednesday 15 December 1993, the Joint Declaration on Peace (more commonly known as the Downing Street Declaration) was issued by John Major, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Albert Reynolds, then Taoiseach (Prime Minister of the Republic of Ireland), on behalf of the British and Irish governments." The Peace process including Sinn Fein and the IRA had been underway for years before Blair.
3,4,5, I accept they are good sound bites but who pays for them ?
6. What has that actually achieved and who has borne the brunt of the costs?
8. One of the biggest beneficiarys of the Equal Rights Act was his own wife who just happened to be a lawyer who sued her own husband (in his position as the head of the UK) That was no more than lining their own pockets.
9. Crime rates were reduced because the police with government acceptance manipulated the figures, Robberys became theft from the person, a totally different type of (lesser) crime.
10. Paternity leave, yeh ok but again who pays for it?
11 One reason the banks got into so much trouble was because the Bank of England lost control
12. As did previous governments
13. That I accept was good decent long awaited legislation.
14. Again I accept that was good legislation
15. stopped ethnic cleansing, accepted just a shame he later copied him
16. Spin and left us skint but yes he did.
17. The last ones a joke right? Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called Blair a war criminal like Milosevic. More people are dying now than they ever did under Saddam and if the war was so just why the lies, WMD as an example.

 

[W12]

Don't forget the open border policy that allowed millions of people to enter the country unchecked to enjoy our green & pleasant land.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

1) An end to decades of strife in Northern Ireland, and a return to devolved government
2) A return of London government
3) Low interest and mortgage rates
4) National minimum wage made law
5) Free nursery places for every 3 and 4-year old
6) Devolved powers to Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
7) A doubling of funding per pupil in schools
8) Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission
9) Crime rates reduced by a third.
10) Introduced statutory paternity leave
11) Introduced the independence of the Bank of England
12) Kept us out of the Euro
13) A significant improvement in gay rights
14) Freedom of information act
15) Stopped Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
16) Significantly increased spending on the NHS
17) Removed the tyrant and maniac Saddam Hussein from Iraq
Apart from that, not much really

Thank you for reminding me of some of the good things that Blair oversaw.

I thought he was in the main a good PM. Quite close to me politically he certainly made the Labour party electable, but more notably, re-electable, but in spite of this he is viewed with general distrust by the Labour rank and file, as he was never really one of them.

For me, however, his record will be ever tarnished by Iraq. The inescapable fact is that we went to war on the pretense that there were weapons of mass destruction and there conspicuously were not. It was the big call of his tenure and he got it spectacularly wrong. I think , having been proved right on Sierra Leone and Kosovo, he thought his judgement was infallible and I think those two crises gave him a taste for being a saviour. An addiction to being the white knight. This blinded him to the overriding duty of any PM to avoid military action unless there is absolutely no other alternative. Sending young men and women into battle should not be something that is done on the piss poor evidence that he had at his disposal.


I read his autobiography and he put a fairly convincing case for justifying going to war, but to my mind that is hardly the point. He made a call and got it wholly wrong and he should have paid the price for that much sooner.

 

[Rascal]

I think comparing this to the Thatcher thread, a lot more people hate Thatcher than Blair and Blair is far more recent.

Blair is hated for mistakes abroad, Thatcher is hated for mistakes at home.

Thatcher lost power over 20 years ago, it will be interesting to see how Blair is viewed in 2027.

What i will add is both Thatcher and Blair were political titans compared to the butch Cameron, who will undoubtably be thought of as one of the worst PMs in our history.

 

[ifiwasarichfan]

1) An end to decades of strife in Northern Ireland, and a return to devolved government
2) A return of London government
3) Low interest and mortgage rates
4) National minimum wage made law
5) Free nursery places for every 3 and 4-year old
6) Devolved powers to Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
7) A doubling of funding per pupil in schools
8) Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission
9) Crime rates reduced by a third.
10) Introduced statutory paternity leave
11) Introduced the independence of the Bank of England
12) Kept us out of the Euro
13) A significant improvement in gay rights
14) Freedom of information act
15) Stopped Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
16) Significantly increased spending on the NHS
17) Removed the tyrant and maniac Saddam Hussein from Iraq
Apart from that, not much really

A slight disagreement from me over number 1. A lot of the work for this was already in place from the previous Major Government and the person really responsible for peace in the provence is the first Drug dealer who introduced E's and whizz - would you rather Dance or Fight ? (so bluemoon told me anyway and I dont buy the papers)
Number 17 has to be a piss take surely ? - No logical reasons for Britain holding America's hand in military matters.

I fully agree with all the others.

Thatcher is responsible for a divided Britain. Cuddly, cute, stylish and modern Britpop Tony: despite Iraq, despite the spin, despite his betrayal of the much maligned Gordon Brown was the most successful PM since Atlee.

 

[hgblue]

1) An end to decades of strife in Northern Ireland, and a return to devolved government
2) A return of London government
3) Low interest and mortgage rates
4) National minimum wage made law
5) Free nursery places for every 3 and 4-year old
6) Devolved powers to Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly
7) A doubling of funding per pupil in schools
8) Introduced the Equality and Human Rights Commission
9) Crime rates reduced by a third.
10) Introduced statutory paternity leave
11) Introduced the independence of the Bank of England
12) Kept us out of the Euro
13) A significant improvement in gay rights
14) Freedom of information act
15) Stopped Milosevic's ethnic cleansing of Kosovo
16) Significantly increased spending on the NHS
17) Removed the tyrant and maniac Saddam Hussein from Iraq
Apart from that, not much really

A slight disagreement from me over number 1. A lot of the work for this was already in place from the previous Major Government and the person really responsible for peace in the provence is the first Drug dealer who introduced E's and whizz - would you rather Dance or Fight ? (so bluemoon told me anyway and I dont buy the papers)
Number 17 has to be a piss take surely ? - No logical reasons for Britain holding America's hand in military matters.

I fully agree with all the others.

Thatcher is responsible for a divided Britain. Cuddly, cute, stylish and modern Britpop Tony: despite Iraq, despite the spin, despite his betrayal of the much maligned Gordon Brown was the most successful PM since Atlee.

I am serious about no 17. Saddam was an evil tyrant and mass murderer, and I fully support Blair's decision to help America remove him. I don't particularly care whether he had WMD or not.

 

[ClaudioDeyna]

Labour was the natural party of opposition until Blair came along. And now he's gone, they still are.

It was easy for Labour to say in opposition 'we hate everything they do' because they knew they'd never be in power while Thatcher was around.

Then Blair came along and won the vote in the South where it had to be won because the Tories had rigged the boundaries through 'electoral reform' through the Boundary Commission to favour the Southern vote. (The film 'The Deal' was accurate at least from that point of view.)

It's easy to complain in opposition when you're not accountable for anything, but once you have power then what are you going to do with it? And imo, Blair did lots, much of it good (see list above).

(Anyone who thinks Kosovo was wrong, btw, should read Brendan Simms' excellent book 'Unfinest Hour' where among many things Malcolm Rifkind excoriated John McCain telling him 'You Americans don't know the horrors of war', the one being a Scottish lawyer, the other having been tortured in Vietnam.)