Blair

[Gonnagle]

Dear Gonnagle,

( A poster totally bewildered by Lapsed Atheists thinking )

Was Blair a successful Prime Minister, surely we should look back and wonder at his legacy, apart from a brief period of prosperity, nothing!!

His war legacy ( innocent until proven guilty ) he had the mindset of a tinpot President, oh look at me I am a world leader.

Gonnagle.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Remember ''Tony's cronies'' when Blair was accused of cronyism? The press seem to have ignored the presence of Dave's Dressing up club in Government in the UK.

[Sassy]

While I have to declare that Blair never was my favourite politician - and that opinion has gone down as the years have passed - I have to acknowledge his successes. In particular he made Labour electable.

Following the defeat in 1979 the Labour party was a shables and when they elected Michael Foot it just became a national joke. The Tories loved Michael because they realised that he posed no threat to them whatsoever - and the Welch Windbag wasn't much better.

So I'd like to pose this question:

What would have become of Labour if they hadn't elected Blair in 1994?

What might the 'alternative history' have looked like?

Fortunately there is absolutely no way of knowing...

[dadvokat]

Nice work if you can get it. Helps if you are an ex-pm of Britain.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/11671685/tony-blair-business-broker-china-abu-dhabi.html

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Quite the opposite - it would be better if the electorate had an actual choice between parties, not (as it was and remains) between Tory A in a suit and blue tie and Tory B in a suit and red tie.

The argument in favour of the socialist one party state was that under socialism one had a choice between candidates who all offered everybody food, a home, and a job, whilst capitalism offered a choice between candidates who all promised to make things unequal.

[wigginhall]

Some savage cartoons this w/e about Blair.  This is one of the tastiest.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/download/file.php?id=12671

[L.A.]

Was Blair a successful Prime Minister, surely we should look back and wonder at his legacy, apart from a brief period of prosperity, nothing!!

Hi gonnagle,

the questions you ought to be asking are:

Was Foot a good PM ?
Was Kinnock a good PM ?
was Milliband a good PM ?

[floo]

Was Blair a successful Prime Minister, surely we should look back and wonder at his legacy, apart from a brief period of prosperity, nothing!!

Hi gonnagle,

the questions you ought to be asking are:

Was Foot a good PM ?
Was Kinnock a good PM ?
was Milliband a good PM ?

Milliband, Kinnock and Foot were never PMs!

[jeremyp]

Was Blair a successful Prime Minister, surely we should look back and wonder at his legacy, apart from a brief period of prosperity, nothing!!

Hi gonnagle,

the questions you ought to be asking are:

Was Foot a good PM ?
Was Kinnock a good PM ?
was Milliband a good PM ?

Milliband, Kinnock and Foot were never PMs!

I think that is the point.  Blair is the only Labour leader to win a general election in the last 40 years.

[L.A.]

Was Blair a successful Prime Minister, surely we should look back and wonder at his legacy, apart from a brief period of prosperity, nothing!!

Hi gonnagle,

the questions you ought to be asking are:

Was Foot a good PM ?
Was Kinnock a good PM ?
was Milliband a good PM ?

Milliband, Kinnock and Foot were never PMs!

I think that is the point.  Blair is the only Labour leader to win a general election in the last 40 years.

Thankyou jeremy, this seems to be a detail that the Corbynites always have difficulty with.

[wigginhall]

It's true that Blair won 3 elections, and started an illegal war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people, and the disintegration of Iraq, and subsequent spread of terrorism.  Ah well, as Gordon Brown says, it's all been in the aid of international relations!

[L.A.]

It's true that Blair won 3 elections, and started an illegal war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people, and the disintegration of Iraq, and subsequent spread of terrorism.  Ah well, as Gordon Brown says, it's all been in the aid of international relations!

As I started off by saying wiggi, I'm not defending Blair : I'm just saying that he transformed Labour into a winning party and they might do well to remember that (and try not to screw things up)

[jeremyp]

It's true that Blair won 3 elections, and started an illegal war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people, and the disintegration of Iraq, and subsequent spread of terrorism.  Ah well, as Gordon Brown says, it's all been in the aid of international relations!

In relation to the Iraq war, he was overtaken by circumstances.  It was going to happen anyway and he made the judgement that it might go better if it was not an all American affair.  It turned out to be a bad call for all sorts of reasons, but it is slightly unfair to claim Blair started it.  GW Bush started it. 

[wigginhall]

It's true that Blair won 3 elections, and started an illegal war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people, and the disintegration of Iraq, and subsequent spread of terrorism.  Ah well, as Gordon Brown says, it's all been in the aid of international relations!

In relation to the Iraq war, he was overtaken by circumstances.  It was going to happen anyway and he made the judgement that it might go better if it was not an all American affair.  It turned out to be a bad call for all sorts of reasons, but it is slightly unfair to claim Blair started it.  GW Bush started it.

I just think that neo-liberals like Blair will often resort to war.    To say that Blair was 'overtaken' is being very kind to him - surely as a neo-lib, he was right beside Bush, to say nothing of his own messianic urge, which paradoxically has spread terrorism.  He is a dangerous man.

[jeremyp]

To say that Blair was 'overtaken' is being very kind to him

No it isn't.  It's exactly what happened. 

 

surely as a neo-lib, he was right beside Bush

I can't deny that but I think it was much more calculated than "I'm a neo liberal, let's have a war".

to say nothing of his own messianic urge, which paradoxically has spread terrorism.  He is a dangerous man.

What messianic urge is that?

[L.A.]

It's true that Blair won 3 elections, and started an illegal war, which led to the deaths of thousands of people, and the disintegration of Iraq, and subsequent spread of terrorism.  Ah well, as Gordon Brown says, it's all been in the aid of international relations!

In relation to the Iraq war, he was overtaken by circumstances.  It was going to happen anyway and he made the judgement that it might go better if it was not an all American affair.  It turned out to be a bad call for all sorts of reasons, but it is slightly unfair to claim Blair started it.  GW Bush started it.

I just think that neo-liberals like Blair will often resort to war.    To say that Blair was 'overtaken' is being very kind to him - surely as a neo-lib, he was right beside Bush, to say nothing of his own messianic urge, which paradoxically has spread terrorism.  He is a dangerous man.

There doesn't appear to be any inherent reason why 'Neoliberalism' would equate to 'Warmonger'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

[wigginhall]

Well, there is a lot being written about this, but off topic really.  Neo-liberalism craves resources and markets, for example, in Iraq the oil industry was a target, and other utilities were privatized, private military contractors were engaged (by the US, of course).  Of course, it was a mad scheme, since it also involved the disintegration of the country, the spread of militias and terror groups, and eventually the spill-over into Syria and so on. 

Neo-liberalism prizes the market above all other considerations, therefore tends towards anarchy, and anti-social tendencies.  It tends to disintegrate, rather than integrate societies.  However, another thread maybe.   

[L.A.]

Well, there is a lot being written about this, but off topic really.  Neo-liberalism craves resources and markets, for example, in Iraq the oil industry was a target, and other utilities were privatized, private military contractors were engaged (by the US, of course).  Of course, it was a mad scheme, since it also involved the disintegration of the country, the spread of militias and terror groups, and eventually the spill-over into Syria and so on. 

Neo-liberalism prizes the market above all other considerations, therefore tends towards anarchy, and anti-social tendencies.  It tends to disintegrate, rather than integrate societies.  However, another thread maybe.

Personally I find that very tenuous, I think you can only conclude that people will use all kinds of 'dogma' to justify aggression. That has certainly been true of the Left.

[Gonnagle]

Dear Lapsed,

His legacy, what did the Romans ever do for us, quite a bit actually, but can you point to a Blair legacy, a war maybe but little else.

I have been reading why the guy won his first election, one reason the Tories were useless, sleaze, and you had that charismatic figure Major.

Blair also used American style tactics, hey!! Maybe that's his legacy, find out all your opponents dirty little secrets and use them.

Whether you look at new labour or Tory, you have to ask what have they actually done for us, we don't own any of our national assets, water gone, power gone, transport gone, is the NHS next.

The Tories may pull us out of recession but it will come at a heavy price, the comfortably well off will be okay but the poor, well we will always have poor people, so that's okay.

Gonnagle.

[OH MY WORLD!]

Blaire and Bush are no war criminals. The UN has not declared the Iraq war to be illegal. It's charter allows it to do so. And no nation has asked for such a resolution.
Iraq had been in violation of 16 UN resolutions before your country invaded and Saddam, the Butcher of Baghdad, went to live in a hole in the ground.

https://culturalglimpse.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/saddam_1779370b.jpg

[wigginhall]

One further thing that struck me about neoliberalism, is that it will eventually lead to the break-up of the union.  This seems odd, since after all, the EU is trying to bring countries together, yet the dominance of the market means that something like the UK is a pointless exercise, and the atomization of market forces will win out.