Bbbbliar

[Tag]

So whats the verdict on Blair - out of 10? Was he a statesman? I fear his porkies will preclude that for the foreseeable future. . Is it a case of the 'good that we do dies with us but the bad lives on'?

[Meg]

bit of a pr at??? Sorry that's about as deep as my politics go![:D]

[Tag]

Ah, the judgement of history

[Dick Smith]

Are you quoting Marc Antony in Shapespeare's  Julius Caesar?

The evil men do lives after them,

The good is oft interred with their bones.

If so, you should also take on the extremely ironic nature of that whole passage, as being a false eulogy. The form of the words belies the sentiment.

I would also take a quote from the same play:

Men in general are quick to believe that which they wish to be true.

[Russethouse]

I have watched quite a lot of the tributes to Tony Blair and am pleased to realize I wasn't the only one to have been disappointed and disillusioned.

The front page of the Independent yesterday listed things which have gone wrong. with the one word Iraq, superimposed over all of them.

Dick - What's the verdict on  Education, Education, Education ?

To be honest I suspect this fight for the centre ground is unhealthy and wish that we could go back to having Labour party , New Labour looks too much  like Conservative thus denying the electorate real choice. The 'bonus' I suppose is that other issues are highlighted and core values are constant......or am I wrong ?

[Ron Avery]

Blair changed the Labour party which was unelectable  because of it's looney lefties, links to the unions and its lack of appeal to middle England and developed policies that were acceptable to the electorate.  His government has improved many things for minority groups such as gays and disabled and made the UK less of a selfish country as it had grown under Thatcher.  Despite the criticisms they ploughed money where it was needed into the schools and health service and did not waste money on tax breaks for private schools and vouchers for the well off to use in private hospiitals as was proposed by the Tories.  Whether that money has been well spent is of course another issue but if it was wasted it was by the local authorities and health trusts, not the government.

 But then Blair started to think about his "legacy" and decided that he should be the saviour of the world from terrorism after 11/9, and that is where he went wrong.  He believed the US could win this war and backed Bush in his thinking that Iraq was the source of all evils when it was probably its neighbour. Of course peace in N.Ireland did not happen all by its self and Blair must take some credit for that.

[chris pp]

Really simple for me, a man with much blood on his hands, many deaths, many maimed and many ruined lives.

Inexcusable.

A man of death.

Chris

[Beryl]

[quote user="Ron Avery"]Blair changed the Labour party which was unelectable  because of it's looney lefties, links to the unions and its lack of appeal to middle England and developed policies that were acceptable to the electorate.  [/quote]

Hadn't John Smith done most of the groundwork in that respect ? Of course he died before he could have been Prime Minister, which I am sure he would have been. A truly great loss for the country.

 

[Ron Avery]

Yes agreed Beryl, but didn't Blair take on and expel the looney left, ie the Socialist Workers party after John Smith had passed away?

[Danny]

[quote user="chris pp"]

Really simple for me, a man with much blood on his hands, many deaths, many maimed and many ruined lives.

Inexcusable.

A man of death.

Chris

[/quote]

simply and eloquently put, Chris, could not agree more.

Danny

[Tag]

As a result, more kids than ever are in private schools, more people than ever cannot afford their own home, the NHS is now to be a seriously rationed service depending on your postcode (one example, look at UK cancer treatment), the morale of our armed forces is a wreck, there are huge numbers of illegal immigrants in the country, taxes are higher than ever and many mojor City institutions are actively considering moving their HQ out of UK...... I'm not sure I want to go on, it is too painful. And selfishness did not start with Thatcher. However, she did not set out to enrich herself as the Blairs have done (Dennis had already done that).  And just compare Willie Whitelaw with Piggy Prescott for political and public stature.

[Eslier]

When TB left Downing Street after the Cabinet meeting on Thursday, we went to RAF Northolt and took a private jet to Durham so he could make his big staged theatrical announcement in Sedgefield. After he had smiled for the cameras and delivered his dramatic piece he then got back on the private jet and flew back down to London.

My questions are:

Who payed for the not insubstantial cost of the private jet - the Labour Party, TB himself or the good old tax payer ?  

How many trees has he planted to offset the carbon impact of these flights ?

Why couldn't he have simply made the announcement (it was hardly news anyway as it had already been leaked days before) from Downing Street ?  A live video link to Sedgefield would have served the prupose of keeping his constituants happy and been much cheaper !

[Tag]

UK not selfish? Give me a break. How much do MPs now get as a pension compared to the rest of the country?

[Tag]

Yes Dick, it is a brilliant speech. I had forgotten the Men in general ... line which is so very apt. Played in it, studied it so long ago. Were we ever than young?

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="Tag"]UK not selfish? Give me a break. How much do MPs now get as a pension compared to the rest of the country?[/quote] What has that to do with the people being self first?  Don't you get a pension then?

[Tag]

It is not the fact that they have a pension but that they hazve given themselves such a large pension compared to the average Joe.

[Ford Anglia]

[quote user="Tag"]It is not the fact that they have a pension but that they hazve given themselves such a large pension compared to the average Joe.[/quote]

And ring-fenced it where others' are failing, due, in no too small a part to the £5 BILLION a year Flash Gordon has stolen from the pension funds..........

A bit like the 75% wage increase they voted themselves, JUST AFTER voting to keep increases to 3% for us...........and less for the health and public services[:(]

On another forum I visit, a poll on "Good Statesman" or "Good Riddance" is running at 1:4, with over a thousand votes.

 

[cooperlola]

I am still confused about the idea that politicians steal money. £5 billion?  What has he spent it on - a fleet of private jets?  Politicians may vote themselves large pensions and one may disagree with that - fine.  But this vision of politicians taking the money is just bizarre.  They are voted into office. Financial spending is controlled by voting in the house.  MPs whom you elected by democratic vote (if your party lost - tough - that's democracy for you) vote for or against the finance bills.  What do you want -a referendum on every single issue?  You have to trust your MP's and (if you are a party member) your elected party representatives.  If you don't like it, vote them out.  Lobby for your preferred party.  That is your democratic right.

But the notion that politicians take billions is ridiculous.  They tax to swell the country's coffers - not their own. The exchequer is used to provide public services and like it or not, parliament is just that - a pubilc service.  Somebody has to take these decisions.  Get involved in politics and stand as an MP if you feel so strongly about this.  Don't want to?  Job a  bit too tough?  Uncertain financial future if you give up your job to stand?  So what's stopping you then (and by you, I don't mean a specific poster, just all the people who moan about politicians of all persuasions?)

[Tag]

The problem is that politicians often think that taxing people is their right rather than a privilege that they should exercise with great care. Given the way that the present bunch of MP's have lined their nests, the word 'steal' may well be appropriate. Their cynicism is illustrated by the affair of the Commons freepost stationary.

[Patf]

Taxing people is neither a right nor a privilege for politicians - it's a duty. They need to raise funds to run the country and its various services. We elect the mps that we think will balance the books  in a way that favours us. As cooperl. says if you don't like the way they do it start your own political party. You would have to balance the books too. I've always been a labour voter and can't regard Tony as a socialist, but I think he has charisma and has done his best. Except for following Bush into Iraq, which was/is a tragedy of huge proportions. Complete misjudgement. Unless you see it as protecting oil supplies and even then is the loss of so many lives worth that? Pat.

[Tag]

No, it is a privilege given to them temporarily by the ballot which is itself an act of trust. They abuse it at their peril. This bunch have abused it.

[Patmobile]

In a hundred years time all they'll know about Blair is that he brought about the end of the United Kingdom.  Whether this will be seen as a good or bad thing, only time will tell.

What history probably won't record is that it was all the result of a typical slippery Blair manoeuvre for short term political gain resulting in long term unforeseen consequences.  Except that, of course, they were foreseen by lots of people.

I remember him lying twice in a single TV interview during his first term. He said he had voted in a debate on hunting - he hadn't - and he claimed  the private member's anti-hunt bill had been stopped by the House of Lords - it never got through the commons.  Like most Brits I didn't care whether hunting went on or not, but I did care very much that a Prime Minister should think millions of TV news viewers such complete fools that he could lie to them with impunity.  I was convinced then that he would, just as glibly, lie to us on some far more important matters in the future - and he certainly did.

Happily, I can count myself blameless, as once I realised what a fake he was I never voted for the slippery con-man.  I came to France, where at least we know that politicians are corrupt, and no-one makes much of a pretence of believing they're not.

He'll go to jail, mark my words.

Patrick 

[Beryl]

You reckon Pat?

I think the British public is far too apathetic to care these days, more interested in the latest celebrity that they can vote on than politicians.

What happened to good old fashioned protesting in the UK? The Poll Tax triggered riots in the early 80s and yet the Council tax levied is far in excess of that and no one bats an eyelid and if anything a household gets far less for their money than at any time in the past.

The Vietnam War in which the UK wasn't even involved in, saw people on the streets in the 60s , the war in Iraq, nothing. 

No, we get the politicians we deserve.

[RumziGal]

[quote user="Beryl"]

No, we get the politicians we deserve.

[/quote]

Only in the sense that we're not willing to do the job ourselves.  

[WJT]

There lies the problem. What normal person would want to be the Prime Minister of the UK or the President of France or the US for that matter. You would have to be a little sick in the head to go after the job in the first place. [:)]