Heaven help us... Blair's considering a political comeback

funhouse

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37584407

Kebabkid

Thatcher too.

Heartfeltdawn

And Michael Foot's going to be on Corbyn's shadow cabinet in two months time. 

Maybe Blair is going to reform the Whig Party. 

ICBM

I hear there's a dictator in Syria who needs removing from power too. Maybe Tony would like us to invade.

merlin

He's a nutter, a freak and a charlatan. Let's put him in the stocks and throw condoms full of jelly at him. 

earwighoney

He was a better PM than Dodgy Dave!  

ICBM

earwighoney said:

He was a better PM than Dodgy Dave!  

No, not even given Cameron's EU referendum screw-up. That has some possible longer-term good results as well as possible bad ones, and I say that as a strongly pro-Remain voter. Even if it's not all good it won't cause a lot of harm other than to our own economy.

On the other hand Blair is responsible for the destabilisation and destruction of an entire region, hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths, the rise of an exceptionally nasty terrorist pseudo-state and satellite organisations in other parts of the world, an enormous refugee crisis which has had consequences in Europe that could lead to the return of the far right, and seriously deteriorating relations between the US and Russia.

And that's *just* what the Iraq war caused.

He also, along with Brown, made serious economic mistakes which at best magnified the financial crisis and made it harder to recover from, and at worst actually caused it.

Cameron was our worst PM of modern times in terms of competence, but not in terms of the harm he did to the world.

strtdv

Presumably he'd have to stand trial for his war crimes first?

Fretwired

Blair's forming a new party with David Cameron ... it's simply called Remain and aims to attract all those lonely people who haven't got over the referendum result.

RobDavies

In all seriousness - the whole "cool Britannia" thing started around the time that Blair came to power.  So he was doing something right back then.

The current political climate and the state of the country seems a long way from that, right now.

I would consider it highly unlikely that he'll come back.... could we have Obama instead, please?

TonyR

New UKIP leader?

ICBM

TonyR said:

New UKIP leader?

Don't be silly, UKIP would never be foolish enough to allow a former leader with an outsize ego who everyone thought they'd seen the last of to run the party.

Bucket

Fretwired said:

Blair's forming a new party with David Cameron ... it's simply called Remain and aims to attract all those lonely people who haven't got over the referendum result.

You definitely sound like you're not still thinking about it.

Bucket

In other news, I agree with everything @ICBM has ever said re. Blair, and I'd suggest there's a serious case for him as our worst ever PM.

HAL9000

I've read (in a completely trustworthy dossier of course) that His Tonyness could arrive back in UK
 politics within 45 minutes.

scrumhalf

I understand that he will be presenting the next series of Guitar Star.

Bellycaster

I want him back in the public eye, I am interested to see how is Strat Collection is coming along, they may be like their owner........."Roadworn"

Bucket

Bellycaster said:

I want him back in the public eye, I am interested to see how is Strat Collection is coming along, they may be like their owner........."Roadworn"

By "roadworn" you presumably mean "looking like a melted waxwork of himself".

I suppose he's preparing for being further disfigured by the fires of hell that surely await him.

Bellycaster

Bucket said:

Bellycaster said:

I want him back in the public eye, I am interested to see how is Strat Collection is coming along, they may be like their owner........."Roadworn"

By "roadworn" you presumably mean "looking like a melted waxwork of himself".

I suppose he's preparing for being further disfigured by the fires of hell that surely await him.

Exactly. However, I don't even think Hell would let him in.

Fretwired

Bucket said:

In other news, I agree with everything @ICBM has ever said re. Blair, and I'd suggest there's a serious case for him as our worst ever PM.

No way - Heath and Major were worst but the biggest turd in the pile was Cameron. Funny how they're all Tories.

ICBM

I'd put Major down as much less incompetent than Cameron. Heath is a bit before my time really so I'm not as sure about him - I was just a child when he was PM - but wasn't brilliant. Worse than Major definitely. Eden was extremely poor too (and was another Tory).

The point about Blair is that he was a strong, competent PM… who did an enormous amount of serious harm to the world in general and the country to an extent. He might not have been that bad as *our* PM, but from a global perspective he is.

The Iraq war is the single most catastrophic episode in British foreign policy since at least before WWII, if not much further back than that. The long-term damage is immeasurable, both for the region itself and also the impact it's had on Europe and Britain - it's led directly to the Syrian war and probably to the tension between the US, EU and Russia which resulted in the Ukraine war. Who knows where those will end.

And it was Blair's decision alone, in his one-to-one meeting with Dubya.