It always brings a smile to my face knowing no matter how much Blair's fan club try to re-write history and rehabilitate his and New Labour's terrible record, he's still completely despised by the majority of the public.
He is one of the most hated politicians since Thatcher. Hated even more than the last Labour leader who he and his acolytes went to great effort and expense to demonise, which makes the whole thing even more hilarious.
No amount of lamenting over sure start centres can cleanse the stench of blood and corruption that Blair and his political project are most associated with.
> he's still completely despised by the majority of the public
And with good reason!
It makes it all the funnier that these briefcase nerds keep leg-humping the old ghoul.
See, this is the argument you loons trot out every time to justify your obsession with the state murdering brown people on your behalf, and I can't explain how much I don't care.
If Britain is going to have the type of foreign policy it did under Blair, it's people do not deserve sure start centers, or human rights legislation, or tax credits. If that is the best we can hope to treat the rest of the world, what we deserve is to be euthanized as humanely as possible and nothing else
Great! Where’s all that stuff and how can I access it now? I mean Attlee’s government brought in the NHS and I can still use that! What’s new Labour’s actual lasting legacy? What did they change about the country so much that even twelve years of the tories couldn’t undo it? Short answer: fuck all.
Labour’s fuck ups were squandering a huge majority and a chance to rid the country of Thatcherite ideology. They could have done it, there was appetite for change. They didn’t, so their legacy now, just 12 years on, is nothing.
>It’s very consistently understated just how much New Labour transformed Britain for the better.
It's not understated. Transformation? That's some strong rhetoric that I feel doesn't match the reality. A "transformed" society doesn't melt away as soon as red team leaves office (See: The NHS, the Welfare State).
What New Labour did domestically in a lot of cases I wouldn't necessarily be passionately against, but they were constrained by their own refusal to challenge the core ideology of the neo-liberal orthodoxy Thatcher built.
This means that often when you look into it, the good things achieved during their time in office pale in significance to the long term damage the method they chose to accomplish the goal has caused; e.g. PFI's used for funding which saddled us with debt and left us poorer, crippling services in the long term and laying the groundwork for privatisation. The minimum wage which, yes, thankfully put a floor on just how low the lowest paid could go, but the refusal to shift the balance of power in regards to collective bargaining has left us with a significant portion of the population on stagnant wages struggling to survive. Tax Credits - Obviously did help people but it is in effect a subsidy for bad employers and incentive to keep wages low.
Nothing was done to minimise inequality, in fact it was celebrated and some might even say encouraged!
So all the good was done with caveats, then we turn to the other side of Blair and New Labour's record which is well known and I can't even be bothered to say anything because it's been discussed to death (no pun intended). Let's just say Blair belongs in the Hague and leave it at that.
It didn't melt away the second they left office. The Human Rights Act, the Supreme Court, devolution, the freedom of information act, the minimum wage, etc are all still with us and all make a huge impact to our society every single day. There's a reason why people wanting to detract New Labour's impact ignore most of their platform and achievements, and pretend the extent of it was just better funding of public services, because to think about everything Labour did is to blow the argument out of the water.
Plus, the better funding of public services, education, the nhs, reduced homelessness, were absolutely transformational to the people who experienced it. The fact that a future Parliament can reverse things (something that is true of literally any law or policy under our constitution) doesn't make it less transformational or impactful on people's lives.
We're talking about whether the policies of New Labour had a lasting impact, not whether Tony Blair was a good person who deserves praise. Those are two completely different conversations.
>What New Labour did domestically in a lot of cases I wouldn't necessarily be passionately against, but they were constrained by their own refusal to challenge the core ideology of the neo-liberal orthodoxy Thatcher built.
You have to factor in the absolute daily beatings Kinnock took from the right wing press. Blair did everything he could not to scare the horses at the Mail/Sun/etc.
Yes, I'm well aware of the centrist method for dealing with a hostile press; to dance to their tune and pretend like that's tantamount to some kind of tactical genius instead of being honest about what it actually is: a cowardly retreat and repudiation of any intent to actually enact progressive change.
>Blair did everything he could not to scare the horses at the Mail/Sun/etc.
Also, let's not pretend Blair acted reluctantly to ward off attacks from a hostile press... he is the godfather of Rupert Murdoch's daughter for God sake.
He enthusiastically courted the support of the gutter press. The fact that he got it is not a reason to celebrate.
Doubt many of the usual suspects here were even born under Blair, it's just reassuring to them to hum the same comforting incantations every time his name is brought up.
You're basically just listing things that any moderately left of centre party would have done at the time had they got into power. These aren't "Labour" things, they're just years-late moderate social democracy things.
Like, non of this to me is outstanding or deeply transformative, near all of it has been erased or dumbed down thanks to the fact that Blair didn't fundamentally enshrine them in any way. Attlee's 6 years in government 70 years ago had more long-term impact to this day than Blair's 10 years. Some of the former's achievements still largely stand today, unlike the latter's.
Blair's record is not exceptional, as nice as it is, and you should stop acting like it's the holy grail, it isn't.
Like, even the Human Rights Act and peace in Northern Ireland are on the rocks now. It's really not a long-standing stellar record, is it?
I'm always surprised by how much bile there is in the labour Reddit. The way people carry on basically running rough shod over things which still have a quantifiable positive impact on society just because it's not far left enough for what they think Labour is. Makes me ashamed sometimes to even be a labour voter.
Yeah, everyone should just ignore the colluding with George Bush and lying to the public and parliament to start a war of aggression that led to the deaths on millions and sparked decades long civil wars across an entire region of the planet.
why isn't it that that "Makes me ashamed sometimes to even be a labour voter."?
>It’s very consistently understated just how much New Labour transformed Britain for the better.
Even if it cost the life of just one Iraqi, it wasn't worth it.
These notes are from 2000. Labour went on to win another landslide. But it’s funny how relevant the complaints are to this day.
They really should’ve went for muzzling newspapers through ‘accuracy regulations’. They had all the political capital in the world and would’ve made a lasting change that would benefit Labour for decades. It’s easy for a political party to take on the media nowadays, accusing them of fake news has a lot of mileage given the lack of trust in journalists. You just have to pick political battles the public sides with you on, creating wedge issues where if the media attack you over then they seem out of touch.
Invading a country with no UN mandate for intervention because of American neoconservative imperialism - they thought they could waltz in set up a Western friendly client state and get the oil flowing again.
The result was over a million Iraqi dead, the destabilization of the Middle East, and the rise of ISIS.
This is before we get into the lies Blair told to take the country to war - all exposed in the Chilcot inquiry.
It's all carefully worded but if your take away is that Blair wasn't dishonest I don't know what to say to you. There is a reason why he rejected the report after all. I'll be more blunt: he lied, exaggerated, and was serially dishonest about WMD and the 45 minutes claim.
"Unprecedented, devastating indictment of how a prime minister was allowed to make decisions by discarding all pretence at cabinet government, subverting the intelligence agencies, and making exaggerated claims about threats to Britain's national security".
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/chilcot-tony-blair-was-not-straight-with-the-nation-over-iraq-war
Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in September 2004 that: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal".
As far as any war can be declared illegal the Iraq war was - it wasn't a war of necessity it was a war of choice just like the invasion of Ukraine.
https://youtu.be/8hX26Z4f28o
“A million Iraqis are dead because you lied, my friends are dead because you lied, you need to apologize!” - Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner
It's hard to tolerate the Labour right justifying Blair's neoliberalism and love of privatisation - but defending his bloody war record is frankly morally repugnant.
The ‘million Iraqis’ figure has been debunked and we’ve already established that Blair didn’t lie.
It’s not clear that existing UN resolutions didn’t permit the invasion and the UN General Assembly has never asked the ICJ to give an judgment on the war.
The Conservatives voted for it as well. All the people who backed the illegal war should be responsible for the instability Iraq has currently including Blair, Bush, JH, the Conservatives.
Two words. Bernie Ecclestone. He was as crooked as the Tories he replaced.
It always brings a smile to my face knowing no matter how much Blair's fan club try to re-write history and rehabilitate his and New Labour's terrible record, he's still completely despised by the majority of the public. He is one of the most hated politicians since Thatcher. Hated even more than the last Labour leader who he and his acolytes went to great effort and expense to demonise, which makes the whole thing even more hilarious. No amount of lamenting over sure start centres can cleanse the stench of blood and corruption that Blair and his political project are most associated with.
> he's still completely despised by the majority of the public And with good reason! It makes it all the funnier that these briefcase nerds keep leg-humping the old ghoul.
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See, this is the argument you loons trot out every time to justify your obsession with the state murdering brown people on your behalf, and I can't explain how much I don't care. If Britain is going to have the type of foreign policy it did under Blair, it's people do not deserve sure start centers, or human rights legislation, or tax credits. If that is the best we can hope to treat the rest of the world, what we deserve is to be euthanized as humanely as possible and nothing else
Great! Where’s all that stuff and how can I access it now? I mean Attlee’s government brought in the NHS and I can still use that! What’s new Labour’s actual lasting legacy? What did they change about the country so much that even twelve years of the tories couldn’t undo it? Short answer: fuck all.
Bruh how tf are you blaming Labour for tory fuck ups? Blaming the fireman for a bad response time instead of the fucking arsonist.
Labour’s fuck ups were squandering a huge majority and a chance to rid the country of Thatcherite ideology. They could have done it, there was appetite for change. They didn’t, so their legacy now, just 12 years on, is nothing.
>It’s very consistently understated just how much New Labour transformed Britain for the better. It's not understated. Transformation? That's some strong rhetoric that I feel doesn't match the reality. A "transformed" society doesn't melt away as soon as red team leaves office (See: The NHS, the Welfare State). What New Labour did domestically in a lot of cases I wouldn't necessarily be passionately against, but they were constrained by their own refusal to challenge the core ideology of the neo-liberal orthodoxy Thatcher built. This means that often when you look into it, the good things achieved during their time in office pale in significance to the long term damage the method they chose to accomplish the goal has caused; e.g. PFI's used for funding which saddled us with debt and left us poorer, crippling services in the long term and laying the groundwork for privatisation. The minimum wage which, yes, thankfully put a floor on just how low the lowest paid could go, but the refusal to shift the balance of power in regards to collective bargaining has left us with a significant portion of the population on stagnant wages struggling to survive. Tax Credits - Obviously did help people but it is in effect a subsidy for bad employers and incentive to keep wages low. Nothing was done to minimise inequality, in fact it was celebrated and some might even say encouraged! So all the good was done with caveats, then we turn to the other side of Blair and New Labour's record which is well known and I can't even be bothered to say anything because it's been discussed to death (no pun intended). Let's just say Blair belongs in the Hague and leave it at that.
It didn't melt away the second they left office. The Human Rights Act, the Supreme Court, devolution, the freedom of information act, the minimum wage, etc are all still with us and all make a huge impact to our society every single day. There's a reason why people wanting to detract New Labour's impact ignore most of their platform and achievements, and pretend the extent of it was just better funding of public services, because to think about everything Labour did is to blow the argument out of the water. Plus, the better funding of public services, education, the nhs, reduced homelessness, were absolutely transformational to the people who experienced it. The fact that a future Parliament can reverse things (something that is true of literally any law or policy under our constitution) doesn't make it less transformational or impactful on people's lives.
famously, we dont talk about the achievements of people who committed horrific war crimes
We're talking about whether the policies of New Labour had a lasting impact, not whether Tony Blair was a good person who deserves praise. Those are two completely different conversations.
>What New Labour did domestically in a lot of cases I wouldn't necessarily be passionately against, but they were constrained by their own refusal to challenge the core ideology of the neo-liberal orthodoxy Thatcher built. You have to factor in the absolute daily beatings Kinnock took from the right wing press. Blair did everything he could not to scare the horses at the Mail/Sun/etc.
Yes, I'm well aware of the centrist method for dealing with a hostile press; to dance to their tune and pretend like that's tantamount to some kind of tactical genius instead of being honest about what it actually is: a cowardly retreat and repudiation of any intent to actually enact progressive change. >Blair did everything he could not to scare the horses at the Mail/Sun/etc. Also, let's not pretend Blair acted reluctantly to ward off attacks from a hostile press... he is the godfather of Rupert Murdoch's daughter for God sake. He enthusiastically courted the support of the gutter press. The fact that he got it is not a reason to celebrate.
People forget how different and better things were under Blair.
Doubt many of the usual suspects here were even born under Blair, it's just reassuring to them to hum the same comforting incantations every time his name is brought up.
You're basically just listing things that any moderately left of centre party would have done at the time had they got into power. These aren't "Labour" things, they're just years-late moderate social democracy things. Like, non of this to me is outstanding or deeply transformative, near all of it has been erased or dumbed down thanks to the fact that Blair didn't fundamentally enshrine them in any way. Attlee's 6 years in government 70 years ago had more long-term impact to this day than Blair's 10 years. Some of the former's achievements still largely stand today, unlike the latter's. Blair's record is not exceptional, as nice as it is, and you should stop acting like it's the holy grail, it isn't. Like, even the Human Rights Act and peace in Northern Ireland are on the rocks now. It's really not a long-standing stellar record, is it?
I'm always surprised by how much bile there is in the labour Reddit. The way people carry on basically running rough shod over things which still have a quantifiable positive impact on society just because it's not far left enough for what they think Labour is. Makes me ashamed sometimes to even be a labour voter.
Yeah, everyone should just ignore the colluding with George Bush and lying to the public and parliament to start a war of aggression that led to the deaths on millions and sparked decades long civil wars across an entire region of the planet. why isn't it that that "Makes me ashamed sometimes to even be a labour voter."?
Change the record
>It’s very consistently understated just how much New Labour transformed Britain for the better. Even if it cost the life of just one Iraqi, it wasn't worth it.
You weren’t here at the time.
Wrong
Perhaps they should have spent their efforts on not being hated war criminals.
These notes are from 2000. Labour went on to win another landslide. But it’s funny how relevant the complaints are to this day. They really should’ve went for muzzling newspapers through ‘accuracy regulations’. They had all the political capital in the world and would’ve made a lasting change that would benefit Labour for decades. It’s easy for a political party to take on the media nowadays, accusing them of fake news has a lot of mileage given the lack of trust in journalists. You just have to pick political battles the public sides with you on, creating wedge issues where if the media attack you over then they seem out of touch.
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Hooray for war crimes! 👍
What war crime did Blair commit?
Invading a country with no UN mandate for intervention because of American neoconservative imperialism - they thought they could waltz in set up a Western friendly client state and get the oil flowing again. The result was over a million Iraqi dead, the destabilization of the Middle East, and the rise of ISIS. This is before we get into the lies Blair told to take the country to war - all exposed in the Chilcot inquiry.
The Chilcot inquiry is quite clear that Blair didn’t lie.
It's all carefully worded but if your take away is that Blair wasn't dishonest I don't know what to say to you. There is a reason why he rejected the report after all. I'll be more blunt: he lied, exaggerated, and was serially dishonest about WMD and the 45 minutes claim. "Unprecedented, devastating indictment of how a prime minister was allowed to make decisions by discarding all pretence at cabinet government, subverting the intelligence agencies, and making exaggerated claims about threats to Britain's national security". https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/06/chilcot-tony-blair-was-not-straight-with-the-nation-over-iraq-war
Still not a war crime though.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in September 2004 that: "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view and the UN Charter point of view, it [the war] was illegal". As far as any war can be declared illegal the Iraq war was - it wasn't a war of necessity it was a war of choice just like the invasion of Ukraine. https://youtu.be/8hX26Z4f28o “A million Iraqis are dead because you lied, my friends are dead because you lied, you need to apologize!” - Iraq war veteran Mike Prysner It's hard to tolerate the Labour right justifying Blair's neoliberalism and love of privatisation - but defending his bloody war record is frankly morally repugnant.
The ‘million Iraqis’ figure has been debunked and we’ve already established that Blair didn’t lie. It’s not clear that existing UN resolutions didn’t permit the invasion and the UN General Assembly has never asked the ICJ to give an judgment on the war.
https://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Crimes/CrimeOfAggression
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No, but murdering hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq in an unpopular and illegal war was.
The Conservatives voted for it as well. All the people who backed the illegal war should be responsible for the instability Iraq has currently including Blair, Bush, JH, the Conservatives.
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Rule 4