He just didn't want to say "I was wrong!" Would you call this "courage"? I think it's the opposite. A great man, a brave man will never be afraid of admiting his own mistake. He's going to be bullheaded, pigheaded, and stiff-necked. But in his heart he knew he's wrong by step-locking with Bush. Why? Look at him, in a short six months, he has aged and shrank like a dried prune like one would have in sixteen years. It's called the burning of conscience. Tony Blair is weak, morally weak. He doesn't deserve it. What a waste of British talents!
60% of Britons don't trust him, according to a recent survey. He was the key to the Labour brand. Will the Labour party ditch him? He could look like re-heated Gray Davis.
My admiration for Tony Blair in boudnless. I consider him a truly great leader and a profile in courage. While the war, and espeically the inability to find WMDs, has hurt his populatiry in Britain, he is at the very least entitled to the admiration of every American. Save your venom for George Bush and not for the man that has preserved and strengthened one of the greatest alliances in the history of mankind.
Pass Ben the Kleenex, someone. Ask yourself what Tony Blair will be chiefly remembered for. Will it be a rejuvenated Health Service? Will it be a national transport infrastructure - and attendant management policy - that finally gives Britian railways and roads that don't make us the embarrassment of Europe? Will it be care and welfare for the elderly that does not require them to hock their every last possession to pay for it, despite a lifetime's contributions to the NI system? Will it be bold electoral reform to ensure the devolution of power is achieved in more than name only? Will it be the contrary maintenance of British sovereignity in Europe, even as we embrace our existence as Europeans? Or will it be a strong trans-atlantic relationship with both Clinton and Bush? Democrat smart-ass and Republican ass? No ... in Britain it will be that he finally made the Labour party electable. After 18 years of the worst government this country has suffered this side of William Pitt the Younger and as the leader of the only other party large enough to actually get elected to lead the country. And he did it by forcing the Labour party to become the Tory Party. He did it by watering down every Tory policy he coud lay his hands on and repackaging it as centrist progressiveness. He didn't even have the balls to present a Tory policy as a Tory policy. He sugar-coated it and pretended it was all his idea in the first place. Abroad, it will be that he embarked on a series of rash foreign adventures to disguise his incompetence as a leader of Britain, culminating with this farce in Iraq. A great man, our Tory Bliar. Tell you what Ben. You can have him. With our compliments. You like bosses over there. We prefer leaders.
Some journalists are comparing Blair with David Blaine, because he is unliked here and admired in the USA. Perhaps we should put Tony in a glass box and make him go without food for 44 days?
If he had to take over Tory policies to get elected, what does it tell you? Maybe that the British population wants those policies, only in a prettier package?
No, the point is that he DIDN'T have to adopt Tory Lite policies to get elected. He could have stood on a platform or mandatory pink pantaloons for all able-bodied men and the outlawing of chocolate and he would have got elected after 18 years of the Tories. If me and my cat had made a late bid, we'd have come no worse than third, behind New Labour and the Lib Dems. The point is that he CHOSE to adopt Tory Lite policies and dress them up as something altogether more progressive and intelligent because he is too fucking shallow, ideologically constipated and weak to actually take the bull by the horn and LEAD this country. Oh ... unless he has an American president and the good men and women of this country's armed forces to hold his hand, that is. To pretend that Blair is being 'tough' because he is sticking to his guns on top-up fees and foundation hospitals is disingenious in the extreme. What else is he going to do? Another New Labour U-turn? He's a coward, not an idiot.
But next to Bush he comes off as dynamic, strong-willed and morally clear. Kind of like looking up to your babysitter when you're five or so, when unbeknownst to you, she was a pot-smoking, moonpie-eating slut.
Well yes. But please ... is that what world leaders get credit for these days? Standards have fallen ...
Yes, well, that's essentially what people said in the early 90s and things didn't work out that way in 92. It's funny how things seem completely inevitable after they happen.
Utter crud. The Labour party under Neil Kinnock in 1992 had more or less nothing in common with the New Labour party in 1997 under Tory Blair. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. And, I might add, an insult to the memory of John Smith. As to Tony Blair for President, I'm all for it, as I have said. You are more than welcome to him. Just don't try and send us Chimp Boy in return.
Who is pretending otherwise? In fact, my point is precisely the opposite. I'm arguing with your view that a 1997 Labour victory was inevitable (and by implication, Blair deserves no credit). People were thoroughly sick of the Conservatives by the early 90s. Major had some of the worst numbers in the history of polling. And yet Labour lost.
Sigh ... You may not be pretending otherwise, but you are saying otherwise. Does Tony Blair deserve credit for making Labour electable? No, because he didn't. John Smith did that. Tony Blair finished it off by killing Labour and erecting New Labour in its place. What - you believe the Mandelson spin about OMOV? And if you seriously think that a 1997 victory for them was anything other than inevitable, then you know even less about UK politics than most of us think you do. Like I said - 1992, Kinnock, Labour 1997, Blair, Noo Labah! Different planet. Residual conservatism was always likely to get Major into office (by election time 1992, the numbers were predicting a solid but unspectacular Labour win - Major shaved it like Dubya and got in). By 1997 'residual conservatism' was something the blue rinse brigade talked about with a whistful tear in their eye. Hague had as much chance of winning that election as Screaming Lord Sutch did. A Blair/New Labour victory was inevitable.
So do you now excpect the Lib Dems to get a lot of the votes from the disappointed old Labour supporters? How many seats do you think they can get in the next election?