Blair's memoirs and current interview(s). Impressions?

[commandlinegamer]

I still don't agree with much of what TB did; but on watching the Andrew Marr interview he doesn't come across as quite as smarmy as before. I used to think he was quite poor at communicating sincerity and general 'trust me'iness. I'm more inclined now to think he did do what he thought was right. Doesn't mean I like him any more.

 

[Rolfe]

Watching him on Newsnight now, I'm irresistibly reminded of the Tragedian in Lewis's The Great Divorce. He has become the part and the part has become him, and there's no actual Tony Blair left any more.

Rolfe.

 

[Fiona]

There never was any Tony Blair. He has lost nothing and gained a fortune.

 

[manxman]

I think i like those 2 replies alot.

I am one of the ones marr referred to when he talked war crimes tribunal.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

There is always a disclaimer that 'he did some good things in his first term'. The more I think about it, the majority of Labour's work in 1997, Minimum Wage, Devolution, Lords reform was John Smith's legacy and his ghost term. Now that I hear Blair was trying to sabotage the Fox Hunting Bill, is more hawkish than Bush on Iran, and wishes the Labour Party would spell out 'more radical cuts' than the Conservative Party, I'm just curious as to why he hasn't torn up his Labour card and joined the Tories.

I really don't like him. The news today that David Miliband was an avid campaigner for socialist candidates in the Labour Party in his youth is welcome news when considering Labour's next move.

 

[Guybrush Threepwood]

Whenever I see or hear him, the same thought comes into my mind, which just shows my age and the reading material available when I grew up.

Pass the sick-bag, Alice.

Although I can't really decide what John Junor would have thought of TB.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Unbelievable:

In a passage which prompted one member of the shadow cabinet to lambast Blair as "so right wing", Blair wrote: "If governments don't tackle deficits, the bill is footed by taxpayers, who fear big deficits now mean big taxes in the future, the prospect of which reduces confidence, investment and purchasing power. This then increases the risk of a prolonged slump."

The former prime minister offered some support for Alistair Darling, the former chancellor, who won a battle with Gordon Brown in government to pledge to halve the deficit in four years.

"Fiscal consolidation has to proceed with care," Blair wrote. "I agree entirely that a precipitate withdrawal of stimulus packages would be wrong."

But Blair wrote that Brown lost the election after abandoning New Labour by raising the top rate of tax to 50%, signalling a "return to tax and spend", and increasing national insurance to tackle the deficit. "We should have taken a New Labour way out of the economic crisis: kept direct taxes competitive, had a gradual rise in VAT and other indirect taxes to close the deficit, and used the crisis to push further and faster on reform," he wrote.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/sep/02/david-miliband-tony-blair-economy

 

[commandlinegamer]

There is always a disclaimer that 'he did some good things in his first term'.

Ah, yes; the Millenium Dome. Hold on though, wasn't that a Tory idea?

 

[Fiona]

I'm just curious as to why he hasn't torn up his Labour card and joined the Tories.

.

He was always a Tory: that is what "new labour" means. His project was to make sure we had two tory parties: and he was extremely well paid for doing so.

 

[Debaser]

There is always a disclaimer that 'he did some good things in his first term'. The more I think about it, the majority of Labour's work in 1997, Minimum Wage, Devolution, Lords reform was John Smith's legacy and his ghost term.

Ah yes, but as He said in the Marr interview, He woke one morning with an unshakeable belief that it would be Him who led Labour to victory, not Smith.

I mean, I always though He had some sort of Messiah complex, "...a new dawn has broken, has it not?" and all that, just like Maggie and her sermon, but to have Him actually say that He basically thought He was somehow 'chosen'?

It also feeds in to what I felt at the time, that the PLP colluded in a sort of cult of personality, the number of times we were told by various MPs how lucky we were to have Him leading us, as if alone among His generation Tony B. was 'The One', the only person who could lead the country to a New Jerusalem.



Ah well, that's just venting from another 'lefty' who really did think a new dawn had broken, and who within a year or two was left to remember the lesson of Animal Farm.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Another surprising aspect of the interview was his messianic belief that Labour should not deviate "one millimetre" from New Labour, despite the fact that John Smith was 20 points ahead in the polls by the time he died.

He's kind of like the guy who does something really inappropriate at a college party. The next day you think they are going to sober up, apologise to everyone with their tail between their legs. Instead, they reappear more of a jerk than ever.

 

[Debaser]

..is more hawkish than Bush on Iran...

That part of the interview sent a shiver down my spine.

Thesedays it sounds like lunacy I know, but I always thought part of being a citizen of a liberal, western democracy was the knowledge that actually 'they might do it to us, before we did it to them'. That is, we might be the victim, but we would never be the aggressor. Certainly not on the premise of what we believed some other nation or group might potentially do, as opposed to what they evidently were doing.


I can't remember any mainstream politicians in the UK and certainly not in the US encouraging us, for example, to have roveing teams of SAS troopers wandering around the Republic of Ireland offing suspected members of the Republican paramilitaries because of what they might do. And look at the outcry there was at the time over our pre-emptive actions on Gibraltar, in that respect.


As for being 'up there with Churchill'*...only in His and Cherie's dreams.
* http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2008/11/cherie200811?currentPage=2

 

[Virus]

Tony Blair is a great man. Better than dicks like John Major who was too scared to take on some drunken Serbs committing genocide in Europe's backyard.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

You're a great fan of Bill Clinton then?

 

[geni]

Tony Blair is a great man. Better than dicks like John Major who was too scared to take on some drunken Serbs committing genocide in Europe's backyard.

Oh don't worry. Blair was scared to get involed in Sierra Leone (which unlike the balkans doesn't have a massive negative history of involvement for western europeans) untill one of the officers on the ground forced his hand.

 

[Belgian thought]

[quote=Virus;6292839]Tony Blair is a great man. Better than dicks like John Major who was too scared to take on some drunken Serbs committing genocide in Europe's backyard.[/quote]

Had Clinton not pulled the strings (i.e. had enough with EU procrastination), then I very much doubt if Blair would have gone to war on his own. (Hmmm, seems to have been the start of a pattern...).

Currently in his book and subsequent interviews, the way Blair seems to be taking full credit for the peace process in Northern Ireland, omits the groundbreaking work John Major did in setting up the whole process. I am pretty sure future historians will credit Major rather than Blair for this. Blair rubber stamped it, Major created it.

I liked neither of these UK PMs very much, but credit must be given where it is due.

 

[plumjam]

He was always a Tory: that is what "new labour" means. His project was to make sure we had two tory parties...

Indeed, as George Carlin said, it's the illusion of choice.
Society's owners get their way, and the politicians are just malleable actors who are subsequently well rewarded for their lack of beliefs and scruples.
The mainstream political to-and-fro is about as meaningful as a Punch and Judy show.

 

[Undesired Walrus]

Indeed, as George Carlin said, it's the illusion of choice.
Society's owners get their way, and the politicians are just malleable actors who are subsequently well rewarded for their lack of beliefs and scruples.
The mainstream political to-and-fro is about as meaningful as a Punch and Judy show.

Who has their hands up their backsides?

 

[Virus]

Oh don't worry. Blair was scared to get involed in Sierra Leone (which unlike the balkans doesn't have a massive negative history of involvement for western europeans) untill one of the officers on the ground forced his hand.

Whatever. He got the job done and is now their national hero. They even asked to become a British colony.

 

[geni]

Whatever. He got the job done and is now their national hero.

Dirrectly ordering the job not to be done now gets you credit for it's sucess?

They even asked to become a British colony.

Very briefly and that was again due to events that happened before london was even told the truth about what was going on.