Tony Blair
September 29th, 2006 at 1:05 pm by David FarrarJordan Carter blogs his approval of Tony Blair’s last party conference speech and Blair’s contribution to the UK. It is certainly a great speech.
I regard Tony Blair as a centrist right winger at heart who was in Labour because the Torys were so unappealing to “middle” Britain. It was when I was over there for six weeks last year I realised that his instincts are of the right.
In health and education he is a champion of choice and competition and the private sector having a role. In law & order he is very genuinely hardline. His welfare reforms (like Clinton’s) have appalled the old left. On defence he is hawk. Even on environmentalism he balances up the need to confront climate change with the realisation Kyoto is the wrong solution for it.
I used to think Blair was like Clark. Clark sometimes goes centrist on some issues. But Clark does it purely to gain votes, or deflate a hot issue. Clark instinctively is very much on the left wing of Labour – she is just willing to compromise as much as is necessary to stay in power (I say that with a mixture of appreciation and condemnation).
Blair though is a genuine believer in education and health reforms which provide choice and competition. His language is often language of the right. He definitely is a believer in third world poverty relief etc, but that is not universal to the left.
It is a pity that Blair’s record will be judged mainly on his decision to support action against Saddam Hussein. He does deserve more consideration than that.
Related posts:
- Tony Blair on multiculturalism and integration
- Tony Blair has been re-elected
- Blair on Kyoto
- Blair sets the date
September 29th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Taking action against Saddam wasn’t such a bad idea, all things considered – although all the experts agreed it would be difficult to handle the aftermath and the consequences for failure were dire.
Blairs crime – for which history will rightly judge him very harshly – was deciding that this difficult and perilous task could be competently handled by some of the dumbest people in the world and to lend his support and moral authority to said morons.
By way of analogy: if a house full of orphans is on fire and someone wants to put it out it’s moral to lend them support – unless those people are all intellectually handicapped, holding sticks of dynamite and doused in gasoline. Then you might want to exercise a little caution.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 1:52 pm
I must confess I have been in mourning all week.
I have always liked Blair.
I watched his Conference speech and felt for him. I liked it (as one for a Labour leader) for his speaking the truth to the powerful i.e. to the left of the UK Labour Party who are driving a change and are bolstered in that with some public tiredness with Blair.
The similarity between Clark the Blair (despite the fact that New Zealand seems to be tracking the UK) is their willingness to consider poll support. The difference is that Clark is satisfied with doing just that whereas Blair has a reform agenda. He also stuck his neck way out over the threat of global terrorism/extremism. He will be proved right on this despite the judgement of the polls now.
Blair had to reposition UK Labour to make it electable to middle Britain. Clark had to preposition NZ Labour to make it electable with its own supporters in a policy environment to the right of pre fourth Labour Government Labour and then make it the major player and wheeler and dealer in an MMP environment.
To be fair to Clark she does operate under MMP but her Government is one of very modest achievement in the historical scheme of things, and if she isn’t careful she and her Government will be remembered for their problems with the pledge card rather than their good political management.
I think history will judge Blair more kindly than it judges Clark. But both are remarkable.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
Iraq is what finished Blair.
He took the country to war based on a lie, and our soldiers are losing their lives almost every day.
Whatever else he has done that was good (the Northern Ireland peace process for example) is eclipsed by that folly.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
I don’t have too much pity for Blair over Iraq. It’s not him or his family dying, and his support made a lot of difference to enabling the at best stupid, at worst criminal, Iraq adventure. If history judges him harshly it was his own stupid fault.
And his right-wingness was apparent long ago, right when he first started toadying to Bush, and striking Churchillian poses on a daily basis.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
I think more Blair is more left because of his committments to seeing society as benefiting by collective action.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
His instincts on law and order may be of the right, but they are not conservative, but radical and authoritarian. Under his watch there has been a steady attack on civil liberties. Cameras, ASBOs, the Civil Contingencies Act, outlawing of encryption, the amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Act, all erode traditional British freedoms in the name of security. I find nothing to admire on that score.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
um..about that ‘great’ speech..
it was also ‘great’ when john steinbeck wrote it in ‘the grapes of wrath.’
(cf..tom joads’ pre-execution speech..)
eh..?
so..even at the very end…
he isn’t what he seems…eh..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 6:36 pm
Two lefty posts in one day David. You are going soft.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
Tony Blair–despised by the extreme left wing of his party for his implementation of foreign policies that they vehemently disagreed with and now using those same policies to undermine him–valiantly recognizes the pernicious ancient threat imposed on Western civilization by a now re-insurgent Islamic fascism based on a religious extremism and financed by boundless petro-dollars.
He is one of the few leaders that is willing to defend the Judo-Christian values and stand up against this creeping global threat and not capitulate to cowardly appeasement which if the West looses will ultimately result in a civilization unfamiliar to us.
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
Tony will be remembered by most sane people as a good leader for Britian, who forced the insane Marxists in the BLP to tack right, and who helped to remove a dangerous tyrant and his even more dangerous sons from power in Iraq. Apologists for Arab fascism, who are legion on the Left, will try to demonise the man, as “sonic” does. But who really cares what such people think?
Vote:September 29th, 2006 at 10:40 pm
The only thing Clark has in common with Blair is the name of the political party they lead. In the early days, Ministers like Steve Maharey used to babble on about third way, etc but he wisely stopped when he realised NZ Labour cld never live up to the billing (let alone know what it meant!)
The only similarity between Blair and Clark is that both ‘recreated’ their parties – Blair moved the Labour Party in Britain out of the stone age, while Clark is edging hers back into it.
Vote:September 30th, 2006 at 5:37 am
So who is going to replace him, and will the right beat that person at the next election? It is a shame to see Tony Blair go… He did a good job. Maybe his biggest mistake was to say he’d step down before the next election?
Vote:September 30th, 2006 at 8:29 am
Tony Blair is a clever maker of speeches and not much else. His knee jerk forays into public policy issues have been half baked and superficial – most damagingly Law and Order. He has an authoritarian instict there is an attempt to outbid the Tory party and draw workng class consevatives into his tent. His half baked measures have virtually brought the Home Office to its knees. It is difficult to see what else he has achieved in terms of public policy. Everytime he gets into strife he goes off on some knee jerk reaction to some public policy issue or other. Helen Clark is similar having very very few public policy accomplishments to her name. The Electricity Commissioner is classic a half baked measure of stunning superficiality and abject failure. Neither will be remembered much except for their skills as poltical leaders.
Vote:September 30th, 2006 at 11:23 am
Blair is an empty shirt, all spin and no substance. Problems are fixed by announcing a government target. He is under investigation by Police for selling peerages and hated in the country and his own party. There’s nothing magical about class delivery of a speech full of fantasy.
Vote:September 30th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Blair is similar to Clark in the way that their respective Governments have basked in the afterglow of reforms made by previous Ministries
Vote:October 1st, 2006 at 10:44 am
Blair is a twat.
Vote:June 12th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
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