Tony Blair: a great Labour man and PM

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http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/9/5/1315228091579/blair-murdoch-007.jpg


The former prime minister was reportedly present in March last year when Murdoch’s two daughters by his third wife were baptised on the banks of the Jordan.

The information was not made public and its disclosure in an interview with Mrs Murdoch in Vogue will prove highly embarrassing for Mr Blair.

His close ties to the Murdochs could explain his reluctance to condemn the News International phone hacking scandal.

In July, it was reported that he asked Gordon Brown to put pressure on Tom Watson, the Labour MP who helped expose the scandal, to drop his investigation.

No mention was made of Mr Blair’s role as a godfather to Grace and he did not appear in pictures of the ceremony, which took place at the spot where it is said that Jesus was baptised.

However, the facts emerged in an interview with Mrs Murdoch in the fashion magazine.



What a great guy! And one of Britain's best PM's ever........and a staunch Labour man at that!

I allways knew that OUR secret service were a bunch of fannies but this goes beyond the pale

(tinaturnerblog.com)

Surely they are both Tina Turner...?

What Tony Blair did

First and foremost he got the Labour Party elected after 18 long and miserable years of Tory government, and much to the cheers of many ordinary Brits who were fed up of everything from the Poll Tax to riots in our streets.

Secondly he rescued the NHS, gave workers a minimum wage, introduced the Winter Fuel Allowance for every pensioner, made free travel for pensioners compulsory, gave back many rights to British workers that had been taken from them.

I could go on and on but I think what his victory and success as a Labour leader must do more than anything is serve as a warning to the unions and those of the radical left.

If you shift the party you wont get elected, you will lose the middle class voters and without them the Labour Party is doomed to eternal opposition.

I think the radical left would prefer to be in opposition, that way they can continue there career choice...demos, and won't have to make any difficult decisions that any goverment has to take (See Lib Dems)

The Labour Government WAS making difficult decisions, about the collapse of the Banking and Finance Industry post-2008, which had begun to have positive effect when there was a General Election at which the Great British Public decided they didn't want any Party to have overall control.

The rest, as they say, is history.

I wouldn't describe New Labour as Radical Left....big difference between that and centre left, just ask Sickchip...he will happily explain why

The Radical Left and the Fascist Right have more in common with each other than either would like to admit.

Everyone's playing Control Games.

Tony Blair: 'Charity? No, it’s for me’
Jimmy Thomas, the casino owner, says he fell out with Tony Blair after discovering that he was a 'money-grabbing young man'.
Tony Blair has forged a lucrative career since his role as Prime Minister

Tim Walker. Edited by Richard Eden

7:28AM BST 21 Jul 2012

Comments3 Comments

Jimmy Thomas, the casino owner, likes to cultivate cordial relations with leading politicians, but Tony Blair was an exception to the rule.

“I fell out with him when I found out he was a money-grabbing young man,” Thomas tells Mandrake. “I was at a function with him and people would queue up for photos and he would charge £5.

“I said to him, 'What charity is that for?’. He said, 'Charity? It’s for me.’ And so I was finished with him after that. That was before he was in power, so don’t tell me he changed his spots.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9415964/Tony-Blair-Charity-No-its-for-me.html#disqus_thread

No wonder the snake oil salesman is such a hit with the wannabe lefties, where everything is "me, me, me".

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm the quotes of a Casio Owner, of course they are very honorable gentlemen?

Perhaps we should look at Mr Thomas a little more to try and put some context to his statements........

Jimmy Thomas, the Conservative Party donor, hit the headlines last month when he complained that he had received a bill for £460,000 in VAT after he gave more than £2 million to refurbish a hospital.

The co-founder the Hippodrome Casino in Leicester Square, London, tells Mandrake that he is still at loggerheads with his friend David Cameron.

“I speak to Cameron virtually every week, but there is always an excuse,” Thomas says. “He has put me in touch with the Treasury minister, who wrote me a letter – not even the courtesy of a meeting. At least David will meet you face to face.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/9406618/Casino-tycoon-Jimmy-Thomas-gambles-on-David-Cameron-friendship.html

Could Blairs statement been a joke?

We may never know

Well said astradt1, things always look different on the surface, especially when only half the story is being told.
I wonder why ony half the story had been told?

Of course it was a joke. Tories clutching at straws.

Mel wrote:Well said astradt1, things always look different on the surface, especially when only half the story is being told.
I wonder why ony half the story had been told?

Of course it was a joke. Tories clutching at straws.

Yes it was a joke and it was so funny that the right fell for it Mel

Maybe the teflon is wearing thin?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/03/tony-blair-the-hague-iraq-war

Tony has said some lovely things about Maggie. Nice!

"Follow the money !"

What a great guy - looking out for his friends and trying to help Ms Brooks out of a pickle.   

Poor idea of Tony's to suggest another Hutton Enquiry - there's no whitewash left over.

Say what you may about Tony Blair. When set alongside Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, who - in their prime -would have been more likely to defeat Cameron's Coalition?

Perfection in a politician is an unattainable commodity - it is always a question of who is the least unsavoury or most bearable.

I haven't detected much of a challenge to the Tories since Tone left the building...

I haven't got a lot of time for Blair these days but I can't really see how much political capital can be made of it when Cameron was / is very good friends with Brooks. I think it was ill-advised at best though on the part of Blair.

"....  ill-advised at best though on the part of Blair."

But was there ever a face more suitably shaped for licking the posterior of the powerful?

....or for ridding the nation of a Tory government ( albeit only for a mere 13 years)...?

A pig wearing a red rosette would have been sufficient to supplant John Major's sleaze-ridden government in 1997.

The liar Blair after a shaky start excusing F1 from restrictions on tobacco advertising, in return for a £1M donation from Bernie Ecclestone, gained enough confidence to take Britain into a war against Syria without the agreement of the British people.
When he felt that he had made enough money out of being PM he abandoned the field in favour of the bullying Gordon Brown, who had spent ten years lusting for power without making any plans for what he might do with it when he got it.

But when all the alternatives are worse, people accept the least bad.

The present administration should not exactly be the first choice for a discerning electorate, but will Miliband achieve the sort of victory which Blair delivered?

I very much doubt it, although I appear to be persona non grata in some quarters for mentioning it...         

I think that's a fair point about a young up and coming Tony Blair being just the sort to put the current mob in power to the sword (if that's not an unfortunate metaphor where Blair is concerned) but that doesn't in any way mitigate against the bad things Blair did whilst in power (to my mind). It's a shame about Iraq and being so far up Bush's backside as that blotted his copybook in a way that no one can forget.
Having said all that, it's unfair to judge Milliband (wet blanket that he is) on whether he can come up with the sort of victory Blair did in 97.

It has become fashionable to decry Blair. Cameron would also have gone into Iraq had he been in power and would have stood with any American President.

And why should it be unfair to judge Miliband against the 1997 Blair, when he is up against what should be an equally unpopular government as that of Major? 

Politics is a dirty business - Blair fought dirty when it suited his Party. Compared to those strategies Miliband is like a bumbling and unconvincing novice and it will be his lack of bite and failure to ram home the unpalatable truths about the Coalition which delivers another Cameron administration. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but his legacy will speak for itself...

Phil Hornby wrote:-
And why should it be unfair to judge Miliband against the 1997 Blair, when he is up against what should be an equally unpopular government as that of Major?

Tony Blair achieved his majority of 179 in 1997 after Labour had been out of power for 18 years, after ‘Black Wednesday’, with Rupert Murdoch on his side and with a Tory government mired in sleaze and incompetence. The last factor still applies now, but Labour has only been out of power for 4 years, after recording its second worst share of the vote in a hundred years (29%). I don’t think anyone expects Ed Miliband to repeat the 1997 result.
 
I’m surprised that 30% or so of voters still support the Tories. They’ve clearly done an effective job with their “all Labour’s fault” message (which I admit went unchallenged for too long because Labour spent months electing a new leader) and in convincing those who want to be convinced that most benefit claimants are workshy scroungers. Then there is their attitude to immigrants, which dropped into the gutter with those ‘Go Home’ vans. The Tory core vote is holding up by pandering to the meanest and nastiest traits of human nature.
 
Some Tories keep saying that they think next year’s election will be like the 1992 one, the last occasion they had an outright win. What they forget is before that election, the Tories started from a majority of 101, they lost 40 seats and survived with a majority of 21. If they lose 40 seats next year, they certainly won’t stay in power.
 
You’re not and never could be ‘persona non grata’ around here, my friend. Judging from the comments I get from other members (the most recent one on Tuesday this week), you’re the most popular person on this forum because you make people laugh. (I should add that Shirina also has a lot of admirers, mainly on the religion board.) I don’t think anyone, least of all me, objects to you being realistic about the outcome next year, but I do know you’re mistaken when you think that the lack of media coverage means that Labour politicians are busy doing nothing.
 
As you know, I’m often on Twitter, looking for interesting articles to bring here and seeking out potential new members. I have almost 6,000 followers, including more than a dozen Labour MPs (and one Lib Dem – Andrew George), at least as many prospective Labour candidates and four members of Ed’s shadow team – Rachel Reeves, Emily Thornberry, Tristram Hunt and Steve Bassam. I see many of their tweets, follow their links, read their websites and can assure you they are working doggedly to gain a victory next year. The right-wing press will only print negative stories (whether true or fictitious) about Labour, and the BBC practises bias by omission – basically, if it’s left, it’s left out. Failed old Tory chancellors Lamont and Lawson are regularly dragged up, even to deny climate change, anything rather than interview Labour politicians. Tory politicians receive four times as much airtime as Labour ones:-
 
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/08/23/study-tory-voices-on-bbc-four-times-as-much-as-labour/
 
There is plenty more evidence of the BBC’s lack of impartiality here:-
 
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t193-the-gradual-destruction-and-right-wing-bias-of-the-bbc  
 
After having a serial liar as our PM for the last five years, maybe enough of the electorate will be attracted to a decent man with integrity who has stood up to the banks, the energy companies and Murdoch and also prevented an attack on Syria. Ed may not have any more charisma than Clement Attlee, but then he was arguably the best PM this country has ever had, and someone whose actions spoke louder than words. This might be worth a read:-
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/azeem-ibrahim/ed-miliband-strong-leader_b_3661956.html

Phil Hornby wrote:It has become fashionable to decry Blair. Cameron would also have gone into Iraq had he been in power and would have stood with any American President.

And why should it be unfair to judge Miliband against the 1997 Blair, when he is up against what should be an equally unpopular government as that of Major? 

Politics is a dirty business - Blair fought dirty when it suited his Party. Compared to those strategies Miliband is like a bumbling and unconvincing novice and it will be his lack of bite and failure to ram home the unpalatable truths about the Coalition which delivers another Cameron administration. It gives me no pleasure to say this, but his legacy will speak for itself...

Because, rightly or wrongly, Labour are perceived as being responsible for the financial mess and because it started whilst Labour were still in power. The current government, on the other hand, hasn't even had a full term yet. The point I am making is that the circumstances are very different so I feel that a direct comparison is unfair. I think a young Tony Blair would probably be doing better than Ed Miliband is but a landslide was there for the taking in 1997 in a way that it simply isn't now, imo.

The views expressed about Miliband in the two foregoing postings may well reflect the public mood.

And therein lies the problem : nobody realistically imagines for a moment that he can make a dent in  the reputation of even a government which many believe is one of the most cruel ever seen. What does that tell us?

If it helps, I can sit here and pretend that Miliband is a sure-fire winner in May 2015 and that he and his party are doing a simply fantastic job of opposing the government. The results of the next General Election may tell a different story.

Blair may have been more effective operating in such a rich seam of potential for kicking  Cameron into disrepute and , for that, many may have been willing to overlook some of his less attractive features...

I don't really think we're too far apart on this one, Phil. I do, however, stand by my point about the unfairness of judging Miliband (the same would apply to any leader of the opposition at present) on whether he can come up with a '97 type of majority.

I do recognise your position, Dan, and am not inclined to entertain disagreement with a chap who loves cricket and is knowledgeable about football!

That's how shallow I am...    

Speaking of which, I hope your election predictions aren't as good as your Ashes ones

The burden of that Sixth Sense of mine...!          

Pierre de Frédy, Baron de Coubertin: "... l'essentiel ce n'est pas d'avoir vaincu mais de s'être bien battu." The most important thing (in the Olympic Games) is not winning but taking part.

Ed Miliband doesn't have that idiosyncratic luxury, and has to gouge and kick his way into Number Ten before he can actually expect to achieve anything.  The dirty-tricks department of the Tory Party has already swung into action.

" The dirty-tricks department of the Tory Party has already swung into action."

That dept swung into action in May 2010, and haven't let up for a minute.

Getting back to the subject…….   
 
History gets rewritten from time to time, for various reasons. Some new evidence may emerge, or past events may be interpreted differently according to either changing values or the benefit of hindsight. For example, Tony Blair has never been one of my favourite politicians, but is it possible that one day he will be rehabilitated and not simply dismissed as ‘a war criminal’?
 
Guardian journalist Zoe Williams thinks so. She argues that Blair left “a real progressive blueprint”, but that the left has allowed it to be obliterated by Iraq. (Of course others might argue, with good reason, that Blair was never one of the left but someone from the centre or centre-right.) Here are some extracts from her article, which may help to give a balanced picture of Blair’s time as PM:-
 
“The national minimum wage that Blair fought for was a good thing. It isn't high enough; enforcement isn't strong enough; there are too many loopholes – but where do you think we'd be without that? Who in this government can you see fighting for the employee against the employer?

When Blair came in, there were 3 million pensioners living in poverty; when he left it was 2 million. The fight against child poverty was enshrined in law under the Blair government….it's better to care about poor children than it is to recast their situation as the result of their parents' fecklessness.

Every hospital A&E was modernised or replaced in the Labour years; yes, they brought in that weak market system I think was needless – but carving the whole thing up and selling it to Tory donors? While your own MPs buy shares in donors' companies?

Can you imagine Northern Ireland's Good Friday agreement coming out of this coalition, with its ramshackle headline grabs and constant backbench rebellions, the chaotic, directionless jerk of its agenda, like a rat on amphetamines? Its leaders just wouldn't have the meticulousness, the patience, or the breathing space to do anything that didn't score an immediate point.

Did New Labour spend too much on social security? No, it didn't spend enough. But none of these conversations can even begin until we stop calling Tony Blair a war criminal.”
 
For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/08/tony-blair-labour-pride-war-criminal-iraq

Whatever one might think of Blair as an individual, the article rightly highlights some of the major achievements of the government he presided over.
I guess without the style of leadership he was able to provide, many of those achievements would not have been made.
The tragedy of Iraq, for GB, was that the decision to enter an illegal war robbed the Labour government of its credibility in the eyes of voters, and therefore precipitated something of a shift to other parties.

I often wonder if things would have been different had Blair had the decency to resign once the intervention in Iraq was exposed as the criminal error it was. Would George Brown, or another senior Labour politician have been able to lead the party to another victory in the polls?

QUOTE: " .... none of these conversations can even begin until we stop calling Tony Blair a war criminal.”


Not easy to see how any such conversations could begin whilst we are still awaiting the publication of the Chilcott Enquiry of 2009.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/exclusive-chilcot-report-into-iraq-conflict-will-not-be-released-until-2014-as-david-cameron-echoes-tony-blair-with-moral-case-for-war-8788203.html

Thatcher and Blair are two politicians who very few people can be ‘neutral’ about; we all tend to have very strong opinions about both of them. Thatcher is widely hated but still admired by many Tories who support the ever-rightward drift of their party which she set in motion. Blair has his supporters, but is disliked by many in the Labour Party, even though he led them to three successive general election victories.

Personally, I can’t stand Blair - he makes my flesh creep - and these days he seems to be more and more of a religious zealot and a warmonger. I also think that, with those large parliamentary majorities, he could have done more to transform Britain into a democratic socialist country, but then ‘socialist’ was a word which I never heard him utter. However, I do recognise the improvements which he made in domestic politics, some of which are mentioned in the article below by the man who was his political secretary from 2005 to 2007.

Tony Blair: his legacy will be debated but not forgotten

From an article by John McTernan:-

“One of the coalition’s most popular moves has been legislation for same-sex marriage. But when Cameron was first elected in 2001, the Tories supported Section 28. Blair’s repeal of that, and introduction of civil partnerships, didn’t just change the country, they changed the Tory Party. Blair’s project was often called ‘modernisation’; new maternity rights, the Equalities Act, adoption leave – all ways of adjusting how the country was run to its new diversity.

In 1997, some primary schools in England had outside lavatories. All gone in the rash of new schools, matched by the refurbishing of all A&E departments and the new hospital programme. With the renaissance of cities driven by investment and planning changes that forced new builds onto brownfield sites, this transformed Britain.

It took Blair to do a deal with Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley. That deal, including a devolved assembly in Northern Ireland, was part of a package of constitutional reforms, including devolution to Wales, Scotland and London, a Supreme Court and the Human Rights Act. So too in Europe. Cementing the countries emerging from Soviet oppression into the EU was pivotal. Giving up part of Britain’s EU rebate to benefit them looks like great statesmanship.

The issue that for his enemies defines Blair was the Iraq War. On the credit side is an Iraqi democracy. There is a greater turn-out for Iraqi council elections than in the UK. Is there instability? Yes. Was it caused by Blair and Bush? Partly, in that the reconstruction and exit plans were sketchy. But the forces behind the Arab Spring would have erupted in Iraq if Saddam had stayed.”

For the whole article:-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/tony-blair/10977884/Tony-Blair-His-legacy-will-be-debated-but-not-forgotten.html

Tony Blair was a winner.

When the alternative is the Tories , you need a winner.

Ignore the luxury of musing on anything else...

A "Winner" with less baggage than Blair, would be nice. Yougov polls still have Labour leading over the Tories, so who knows what the Autumn party conferences will yield? Or what impact the Scottish referendum could have upon the wider political circus?

" A "Winner" with less baggage than Blair, would be nice."

Indeed so - but Blair's baggage was only really accumulated once he had won.

Who knows what similar impedimenta another Labour winner might attract post-victory? And what it is necessary to gather in order to keep winning - as Blair did...