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Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
We'll probably never know for sure what was said between the two of them, but the evidence seems to be that Blair told Dubya that he would do whatever necessary to support the US.
I'm not disagreeing with you there .
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
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*An Official Foo-Approved guitarist since Sept 2023.
Major now ranks as the best living former PM, which is a worrying reflection on the state of modern British politics.
A lot of that is because by the end of Major, the country was so desperate to get rid of the Tories that anything Blair did was bound to be seen as an improvement. I admit to being one of those who voted for him in '97 - or technically for Alastair Darling, who was my MP at the time and lessens the guilt slightly.
In hindsight it wasn't a good decision to give Labour such an unassailable majority, although the consequences didn't really become obvious until his second term.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
The fact is that any judgement of Blair simply HAS to be nuanced, because he was in office so long. Iraq casts a long shadow which stretches far into future, but it is simply wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater and condemn his entire premiership.
The domestic political agenda he pursued and policies enacted were not perfect. Ultimately he didn't properly follow though on the intentions of that first term, and a lot of social policy ended up less socially progressive and became Tory-lite. But in terms of positive intention, and specific intervention in our society then Blair deserves- and will get in the longer run- more credit than he currently gets. But at the moment the Iraq debacle sours everything.
(I speak as someone who hated the smarmy bastard from the first time I heard the 'tough on crime...' speech.)
Call me Dave boasted - "I'll go to Brussels and get the deal that's right for Britain." He thought he'd get some concessions so that he could have gone to the country and got a resounding Yes vote in the referendum.
He got the square root of bugger all and was forced into a referendum campaign that scrapped depths that not even Trump would go near. He said he'd stay on to steer the ship, but got into the first lifeboat and abandoned HMS UK the moment the iceberg with Brexit written on it hove into view. He supported Hunt and his various NHS reforms, brought in bedroom tax, cut the armed forces to the bone yet expected them to fight and gave his mates gongs.
Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
And I'm sure that's not even the end of it either.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If I'm playing armchair pyschology, I'd say Blair had a messiah complex. He wanted to do good, but he thought he had all the answers. Like Cameron, Blair was guilty of bouncing ideas of very, very few people who acted like a brains trust.
I think in practice it led to social policy which at its best worked well but all too often lacked the detail to male meaningful structural change while ensuring good old fashioned VFM.
My feeling is that he lacked proper, constructive opposition which would have forced him to hone and adapt policy through debate. There was no kind of meaningful dialectic in New Labour. It was very much a case of 'yes Tony, no Tony'. The Tories as an opposition were a joke like Corbyn's Labour are now.
Maybe that's why Blair acted as he did over Iraq. Sierra Leone had gone well. Kosovo earned him some plaudits, and he was too used to getting his own way and not good at listening to people.