Once again we are witness to how hypocritical our politicians really are. I refer of course to Blair's early retirement.
They are not really bothered what they can do for us, only what they can do for themselves. Why do we bother to turn out in all weathers to help them to aquire a nice cushy well paid job, with an equally well paid pension, and perhaps a title at the end to boot, that is until they can see even better pickings on the horizon?
If, as he says he has only the British people at heart, and is always ready to tell us of all the advantages this country has enjoyed under the New Labour Party, (led by him), and that he is constantly working towards a better Britain, with peace and prosperity for all it's peoples, then I have to ask, why is he now leaving? When he has so many more years left in him, to carry out this self-opinionated crusade of his?
Don't get me wrong I am glad as the next that he is going, but I am afraid we have not seen the last of him. I am sure his stupid grinning face will be cropping up on numerous occasions in the future, just to annoy us still further.
Maybe he's hopping it before the next general election in the hope that people will forget the mess he's caused, and blame Gordon instead. Just a thought.
you're grumbling that he's going and grumbling that he stayed. Come on, what exactly did you want of him? He's done the job for 10 years - about 3 too long, imho - and he's leaving. So what?
Words come cheap, anyone can say the words but not so many would feel embarrassed because what they say is not what they have been trying to do. For a long time now I have felt that for anybody to go into politics with a strong feeling of trying to make things better for his fellow man is not going to succeed because I think you have to forget some of your ideals due to the expectation of the public, the use of government whips who make sure you vote as you are told and contending with other MP's whose intentions are not so genuine as yours. For the past few years I don't think I have ever heard such lies and distortions of true facts as this government has produced. Even civil servants can't bt trusted!
I always saw, and still do see, a man of integrity and honour, and a Christian. His speech today was dignified and forthright.
I won't be sad to see Labour go - as they surely must - but only for their (not Blair's personal) presiding over the travesty of 'multiculturalism' which has proved to be an irreversible disaster.
He was my Prime Minister, I respected and liked him. It always saddened me to see the armchair intellectuals and internet yobbos calling him 'Bliar'. I wonder how many of them supported him at a time when he and he alone had to make a decision based on the best evidence available to him ? So easy to do a turncoat now.
Right then whiffey!!!!
which one an I? a
1) an armchair intellectual,
or;
2) an internet yobbo
I have called him tony bliar many many times on Answerbank so I welcome his departure (9 1/2 years too late if you ask me).
I cannot stand the man and his hideous wife.
The way he has shackled this country's foreign policy to that of the USA has made us a major target for Islamist and other terror groups,
Spain and India managed to get attacked allright (and just as badly) without being 'shackled' to the USA...
Why is he leaving? Difficult to say. I suppose the official reason would be he feels he's 'done his bit', but when you think about it, 10 years is actually a very long time for one single premier, and I suppose apart from anything else he's simply tired as well as anyone in a position of authority for that long. Being Premier is no walk in the park, as Heath and Eden would both testify...
Plus, he's also under considerable pressure to leave.
I think Blair was after two things, one he's got, being in office for ten years, ten years that apart from possibly, N'I, but I reckon that'll blow up in the not too distance future, the other, I think is the Noble Peace Prize, If Iraq had worked, he'd have got it, but the man has been a disaster from start to finish,
As to why is he leaving, simple, before he's pushed, and his sellerbility is still there.
I agree with tonyted. He had the shortest response which also contained the most sense. Politicians are politicians whether you call them Whig, Tory, Conservatives, Liberals, Democrats, Republicans what's the difference? About the same as the difference between an alligator and a crocodile! It's been the same for thousands of years and will not change. As for the general public they are just as fickle as the people they vote in and then discard. Winston Churchchill guided the British people to victory, with the help of the Americans, through the turbulent years of WW11, and shortly after the war they voted him out! Mr Blair was voted in, he did "what he thought best", and that's history repeating with different players..............It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.......
Churchill was voted out of office because the people felt a war leader wouldn't necessarily make a peacetime leader. He'd had many other government positions before the war, and done many of them poorly. (And much of the help in beating Germany came from Russia rather than America; their death toll was horrific.)
Thatcher was thrown out by her own party, who thought - and I believe they were right - that she was becoming a liability.
Blair chose to go of his own accord, which seems a reasonable aim, though he bungled the way he prepared for it. I disagree with Whiffey that he acted over Iraq on the best evidence available to him: he had plenty of evidence (eg from weapons inspectors) to say there were no WMDs and he chose to ignore it and act on the worst evidence available. Cameon/Duncan Smith/Hague would almost certainly have done the same, however, and for the same reason: to cosy up to the USA.
Still, that misjudgment will probably tarnish his record forever. The cash for peerages business may do the same. He's left the economy generally in better shape (I'm old enough to remember inflation of 20% or so under Thatcher), but that's really Brown's doing.
I don't care why he's going - I'm only glad he IS going, and it's a pity it has taken him so long.
I certain;y will not be giving to his leaving present.
jno has a very selective political memory. Churchill was booted out of office by a war weary electorate and armed forces that had just gone through the most horrific 5 years. Atlee was elected and didn't last long (one parliament 1945-51)
Margaret Thatcher was elected to save Great Britain from, what at the time, looked like an anarchist state being installed by a weak Labour Government - who remembers the Militant tendency, a Trotskyist organisation pursuing entryist tactics within the Labour Party, who probably believed that all money and property (except theirs) belonged to the state. The country was paralysed by strikes, the dead were not being buried, they were kept in refrigerated wagons at hospitals and such places It was during this period of Labour miss-government that inflation climbed to a figure of 26%, when I had a pay rise every month to keep pace with hyper-inflation and it was from this period that it took Thatcher 12 years to get it back under control.
Blair was elected and the first lie of his premiership was that there was only 24 hours to save the NHS. Then there was the Iraq lie, the 45 minute to doomsday lie which was inserted into a document (sexed up), written and published on the internet, that persuaded us that we should go to war with Sadam because he hadn't given up these dreadful weapons of mass destruction (there never was any). He then decided to take us to war to overthrow the leader of a sovereign state which is against the United Nations law.
I am, together with most other people, unable to comment on the cash for peerages question other than to say it is typical of Blair to be associated with this kind of sleazy scandal, just think of the scandal of the purchase of property by the Blair�s using a crook.
He wanted his name to go down in history, he's achieved this so there's no need for him to stay.He can now move on to much more lucrative pastures on his house collecting monopoly board.
His name will be after Attila in the history of war mongers.
Dear dear, having read all the answers Tony Blair doesn't get top billing on anyone's favourite persons list here, doesn he? He doesn't on mine, either, the trouble is I wholly agree with tonyted, nothing's going to change. And that, sadly, will be the same after the next General Election, too - whoever wins it! Talk about bumping along the bottom!