Tony Blair on leaving Europe

Sorry: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15390884

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-15390884

There was a reasonable article in the Daily Mail today by Stephen Robinson titled ' The Rank Hypocrisy of Mr. Blair'.

It summed up my thoughts on the BBC interviews Blair made yesterday so well. Right from the deference the BBC still holds for Blair to the well known reference to Andrew Neather's account of Labours 2000 policies through to the Chilcot Inquiry.

Did he not offer us a referendum in 2005 in the Labour manifesto?, yet now he tells Miliband he is right to say no to one.

So we don't vote for Labour
we don't vote for Lib Dem
we don't vote for Tories
we don't vote at all

so what happens? (sincere question)

Wonder where we'd be now if Kinnock had won that election ?

Not sure what to call Labour now. Ed keeps saying he's going to be as bad as the coalition, if not worse, save more money, hit the poor harder, etc. What is the point of voting for them if they are just going to go along with Tory proposals?

Meant to write 'agree again'

Again, but you can't blame what is happening now to New Labour, can you?

But why did New Labour have to mess around with the NHS and the schools programme? Their downfall was believing what the bankers told them about PFI, and they were not given good advice by their accountants as to what the contracts really meant in the future.
However, the same is happening now with the Royal Mail selloff, and this government is supposed to be financially savvy.
Have you seen that Serco has been given the Caledonian Sleeper contract for the next 15 years? Where did that come from? Serco must be the most corrupt business in the world.

Again agreed- (and no you never said I don't pay taxes- not sure where you got that from??? and I can assure you we do!).

Not talking about Blair as such- but the fact that New labour realised that in order to create a fair society, with all the necessary nets for those who need them, a good education and health system, etc- you need money- and that money, which then creates taxes which pay for the above- will no longer come from industries like mining, steel works and the likes, but from the service indutries, and, yes, banking. Had those businesses not been so bent and greedy- and had paid their taxes as they were supposed to- we would have all benefited. Gordon Brown truly believed that would happen- but the greed took over, and we were all screwed (if you'll excuse me)- but do I blame New Labour as such? Not really, I blame the greedy bankers and businesses that used every loophole in the book and out of the book and beyond the book- to feed their greed.

Would a truly socialist govt as in Ye Olde post war days really work now? I don't think so, somehow.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/05/23/this-mornings-political-landscape-is-a-victory-for-the-cowardly-state/

Richard Murphy says it so much better.

Never said you do not pay taxes.The problem is that there are far too many who do not pay their share of taxes. They take money out of the country but do not put enough back in.
Brown, Foot and Benn all had the protestant work ethic. Unfortunately the party was hijacked by those who wanted to reward their friends and themselves, forgetting that building and manufacturing are what makes wealth be distributed more fairly, not making money out of money, which is what Blair does now.

I agree- but how do you finance a fair a great public health system. education system, social welfare, etc- without tax coming in?
Foot and Benn were truly intelligent, but un-electable.

Brown trusted the bankers to make good money in a fair but business way, and pay their taxes fairly too. I'd say it is the bankers that failed by their greed- Brown never saw it coming because he is a good, honest man with a true Protestant work ethic. Had the bankers done what they were supposed to do- lots of money would have come in to support the other mentioned above.

Far too many backseat politicians around- who would all have known better, done better, been fairer- blablabla- from the comfort of their lounge or kitchen, and with the benefit oh hindsight.

I know a few people who think like me and now espouse green party thinking, granjura, having voted socialist previously. Now they are trying even more to distance themselves from the unions, the very people that set them up in the first place, I certainly do not want to back them.
It seems to me that once Blair and his cronies had said they were relaxed about people earning lots of money, they were going away from their roots, and betraying their supporters. At least the Tories have never done that.

To be fair, he just had to do something after Michael Foot and co. Foot was a true socialist, but totally un-electable. So the party had to re-'brand' somehow. It is all very nice sitting on that pedestal- and in order to indluence things you have to be elected. And in order to finance education, social benefits, education and the NHS- you have to generate wealth- somehow. Very naïve to think otherwise.

We can really argue about the way it was done, and how the way was lost- but...

Now call me naïve, but I still believe he was misled about weapons of mass destruction in Irak by Bush and co. Had he not taken it seriously, and it had been found to be the case....?? As said, no fan of Blair, but ...

Yes, he did, and he carried some of the old Labour brigade with him - perhaps they should have distanced themselves from him and his cohorts at the time, and made him call his party something completely different. New Democrats?

But he did take over a readymade socialist party. What's worse is that we let him.

Blair deliberately renamed the party as New Labour to distance it from Socialism. By no stretch of the imagination could he ever be described as a Socialist.

TB has the distinction of taking us into more wars than any other Prime Minister, Anno.

My DH thinks it was forward planning for when he left office and could then become a 'Peace Envoy'. But that would be a very cynical view of course.

I suppose MT never pretended to be anything other than a Conservative whereas TB pretended to be a Socialist.

Goodness me, what a confirmation some follow the poster but not the topic.

I have no idea why you have chosen your wording Granny Twice and made a personal attack but it I suppose it is your right to say it. Never saw it coming I must admit.

Why the constant comparisons with Margaret Thatcher. Has she become an excuse for every political wrongdoing?

Well said, nightowl.

I don't think we need to make this personal. I'm firmly on the left and I detest what Margaret Thatcher did to this country, but I detest TB equally because he took a political party and used it shamelessly for his own ambitions. Not to mention his other crimes already mentioned.

The thing about MT was she was what she was - a right wing Tory who made no pretence to be anything else. At least she wasn't a hypocrite. TB pretended to be whatever suited him at any one time. I stopped voting labour in 1997 when I saw which way things were going. I could never have imagined how bad it would actually get.

I still feel sick whenever I hear that beautiful poem- where there is disharmony...'