Tony Blair .....

[Mick Mac]

I have only seen the Newsnight excerpts of his interview.

But is there anyone else out there who believes that Tony Blair is almost without exception, completely genuine.

He never fails to convince me.

I feel there are a lot of Tony Blair haters out there, but for me he was superb, in getting Labour into power and keeping them there. I find his political conversation to be incredibly genuine and charasmatic.

.........

[katie1997]

Has your account been taken over by jrussel (l) mick mac?

God, I hope so.

[giggirl]

I feel let down Mick Mack. I totally believed in him and I felt let down.

[Mick Mac]

why?

(dont mention Iraq - its out of bounds....)

[matthew123]

I watched the entire interview and felt it lacked depth.

I think a proper interviewer rather than that wet fish Andrew Marr would have broken him down.

[Mick Mac]

I wish you could have been there to ask a few harsh questions Matt.

I used to think the David Frost interviews were good, charming, but let the interviewee make his own mistakes. The Brian Walden/John Humphreys interviews make me feel very uncomfortable, so Andrew Marr is good for me.

[louisiana]

Mick Mac Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I have only seen the Newsnight excerpts of his

> interview.

>

> But is there anyone else out there who believes

> that Tony Blair is almost without exception,

> completely genuine.

>

> He never fails to convince me.

>

> I feel there are a lot of Tony Blair haters out

> there, but for me he was superb, in getting Labour

> into power and keeping them there. I find his

> political conversation to be incredibly genuine

> and charasmatic.

>

> .........

I'm sure the same was said of the Rev Jim Jones (Jonestown Massacre). His followers really believed he was a great guy.

Unfortunately he was deluded and paranoid and killed many of them...

[ST&NLY]

He gave us hope, then we expected too much. The Iraq invasion, he will be remembered for. But I'll remember him for being a great leader for our country, when we didn't have much else going for us in terms of leadership, note our current Prime Minister is half the leader Blair was. Yea for sure, we can spend hours talking about what he did wrong, shall we?

Oh Tony, we miss you. Come back.

[Mick Mac]

I have now seen the whole interview and I find him compelling.

I personally am not interested in discussing Irag in too much detail. It is a difficult subject, but it is still far too early to decide whether this was a good long term decision interms of that part of the world.

I think he is the most genuine and able PM we have seen for some time. He stands comparison with Thatcher and I think has made fewer UK mistakes than Thatcher.

After the interview he looked very relieved and I think it was very important to him to get his position across and I found it a good reflecion on his achievements.

[ST&NLY]

Blairs decision to back the war and to front it with the US and present it to the U.N will never be forgotten. This August alone 500 people have died in Iraq. This is just touching the surface of the problems in Iraq and for our soilders who fought in the battle. It's a dark subject, that sadly in the end will shadow Tony's reign in the UK. No weapons were found either.

[mockney piers]

Tony wasn't so bad, his ideas about a third way between collectivisation and gulags were acceptable considering the threat of international zionism (cont. p.94)

[reggie]

Tony certainly knows how to create heroes.

[SeanMacGabhann]

There is no questioning the guy?s sincerity ? to my mind anyway. But that is also the same reason he worries me so much

It all sounds so neat and agreeable when he says it you find yourself nodding along ?it?s only when you thnk ?hang on.??

To lift from the New Statesman

TB ?I can say that never did I guess the nightmare that unfolded, and that too is part of the responsibility?

Never did you guess? But why did you have to "guess"? Six of the country's top academic experts on Iraq and international security warned TB, in a face-to-face meeting in November 2002, that the consequences of an invasion could be catastrophic. Cambridge University's George Joffe, one of the six invited to Downing Street, got the impression of "someone with a very shallow mind, who's not interested in issues other than the personalities of the top people, no interest in social forces, political trends, etc". Meanwhile, the Joint Intelligence Committee warned TB in February 2003 that the threat from Al Qaeda "would be heightened by military action against Iraq".

Similarly his conviction that Gordon junked New Labour policy and that's why Labour ended up in trouble is bunkum - Gordon was just as in thrall to the same policies - they had just been exposed for the unsustainable myth they were by his tenure

[woofmarkthedog]

I like/d Tony Blair

He turned me back on to politics & I miss him ( & his sun tan )

Also there is nobody on the scene who can engage people in the same way as he does

When he "managed us" It felt Premier league, now it all feels a bit "relegated" to the championship

At least he's sticking to his guns ( no pun intended ) over Iraq, even suggesting we go for Iran next

Hell sake, can you imagine Nick Cleggs war cry...

"We'll shoot & bomb everyone in that society fairly, no-one will be left out "

( him & Dave will be wearing camo- face paint/combat fatigues at this point, btw)

Bring back Tony

W**F

[Keef]

He failed to mention the fact he left Brown with a poisoned chalice, so Brown was doomed from the start whatever he did.

[matthew123]

Mick - they were soft questions, whether he hand picked Andrew Marr and vetoed Jeremy Paxman I don't know, but for me it was a book launch paid for by the BBC tax payer.

[Keef]

Agree with Matthew on this, I don't think Marr is very good.

Paxman is boss, and I don't mind Humphries. There are a couple on Radio 4 who really annoy me though, trying to bully tabloidesque sensations out of people. Don't want that on my morning radio thank you very much.

[Mick Mac]

I think the idea was clearly to let him speak, which is not always Paxman's style.

I enjoyed watching it, it made good television. Of course if you don't like him you would want him to be under more pressure.

[Jah Lush]

You can't separate Tony Blair from Iraq whether you like it or not. I voted for him when he first got into power in '97 and I feel terribly let down by his involvement in acting like a simpering little whore to the American NeoCon Bush administration in their involvement in the Iraq war. We went to war on a pack of lies and Blair let his hand be forced by the very true axis of evil and lies that was Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney into getting Britain involved in something that we should never have touched with a bargepole.

[Mick Mac]

Iraq may seem a disaster and certainly in human life it has been.

I did not agree with it either - But what we don't know is what would have happened if they had not taken action - Blair feels they had nuclear intent. He still thinks it was the right decision, although it does not seem justified to most of us.

The relationship with the US is something we will have to live with. We are too small to defend ourselves alone against the world and what it might throw up next.

[sullied]

If by reading snippets of newspapers, not to mention, unavoidably, catching moments of TB on telly and seeing his 'handsome' face on news and bookstands galore wasn't enough, I notice that the blogosphere is alive with our former PM and his kiss kiss bang bang account of his reign.

By diving into the various hues of thought in the blogosphere: this is what i've gleaned to date.

Mr Blair, saviour of Britain... a man who 'rebirthed' us into cool Brittania and made us popular and groovy overseas, took this new found overseas popularity a little too far and declared war in approximately 9 spots on the planet...

No 10's decision to kick off war no 10 in Iraq - was one - he was warned off.

Our finest minds, worried, that TB, might 'guess' what happened next in Iraq - rather than actually know - or indeed take their advice that this idea would be a disaster. They were right. Tens of thousands are now dead - quite a lot of our own soldiers - dead - and the fear of terrorism in Britain? Much higher!

Which is what Tone told us! The was on terror is more important than ever, apparently.

Some of the blogosphere puzzle as to why the above facts and a war criminals trial seem so distant from each other.

Good news though - he likes to berate the lack of democracy in our Royal family, realises that criminalising fox hunting was a mistake. And let's remember that he lilkes to use Sir Alex Ferguson's counsel and advice on man management. To whit asking what to do with difficult players, (meaning Gordon Brown et al) but again did not take the advice.

No this time, rather than sack Brown - he let him have it with both barrels - the job and broken Britain.

Other stuff thus gleaned, it's been a quiet one:

Tony liked Princess Diana so much so that just prior to her death - he told her he didn't like her new beau Dodi.

And (gasp shock horror) TB apparently (but no-one else) knows that Princess Cow'eyes had a big decision to make before her life ended... damn and blast and it's not his place to tell us!

Tony found the job of PM tough - so drank copoiously... (Too much? He really, really, isn't sure. but it's a drug, he admits.)

Tony thinks that the freedom of information act - makes good governance difficult.

Tony was a nano second away from having a domestic airliner blown up over London. No instance on his alcohol intake, during this crisis, emerges...

And nothing mentioned at the time of said incident.

Tony wasn't keen on the dome and the millenium - even though it was his circus...

Tony cunningly, yet in a shallow way, refers to his reign - as "New labour" and anything that subsequently failed (apart from his successor management strategy) became old labour...

And after all of that, and were I pressed, I'd say there was a 40-60% split on the blogosphere between missing the cuddly, yet shallow, cunning. yet worthless, sociopathic peace negotiater... and the other 60%? Not so much missing him, more confused how this man walks the earth as a free man.

Yes we all miss him.

Sullied and dazed.

[SeanMacGabhann]

But that is just the kind of empty rhetoric that lands us in trouble Mick

When TB says we had to make a choice and either way there were consequences ? well, tell us what the choices and consequences are as you see them Tone

Because you sure had a lot of people telling you what the consequences would be if you pressed ahead

As for what the consequences would be if he didn?t go to war? I would guess pretty much the same as they would have been when we were using him as an ally. Or if 911 hadn?t happened, Bush wouldn?t have had the ?excuse? he needed to wrap up unfinished business and make fatuous links. He would stil be a brutal despot but if we are now in the business of getting rid of tyrants in broken states, there is a looong list, there always is, but it was only Sadaam that seemed to interest these two ? so whatever ?moral? reason there is for freeing Iraq, it isn?t transferable to other peoples apparently

[Jah Lush]

Well said Sean. Spot on.

[Mick Mac]

SeanMacGabhann Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> But that is just the kind of empty rhetoric that

> lands us in trouble Mick

>

> When TB says we had to make a choice and either

> way there were consequences ? well, tell us what

> the choices and consequences are as you see them

> Tone

>

> Because you sure had a lot of people telling you

> what the consequences would be if you pressed

> ahead

>

> As for what the consequences would be if he didn?t

> go to war? I would guess pretty much the same as

> they would have been when we were using him as an

> ally. Or if 911 hadn?t happened, Bush wouldn?t

> have had the ?excuse? he needed to wrap up

> unfinished business and make fatuous links. He

> would stil be a brutal despot but if we are now

> in the business of getting rid of tyrants in

> broken states, there is a looong list, there

> always is, but it was only Sadaam that seemed to

> interest these two ? so whatever ?moral? reason

> there is for freeing Iraq, it isn?t transferable

> to other peoples apparently

As I said I did not agree with it either. I certainly did not think it was a civil liberty issue. He stated the consequences as being Iraq having nuclear intent. As you suggest, not enough to go to war on if its only a suspicion of what a country will do next, but he seems to see his role as clearing up the world, de risking our position here, if he stayed in power or if Iraq had not gone so badly, he probably would/could have moved on to Iran next. Thats what he seeemed to be saying.

[mockney piers]

The reason why peolpe miss Tony in a world where our politicians are mediocre at best is because he wasn't actually a politician at all. He was a showman and a demagogue.

In terms of politics he didn't do detail at all, he only did vision. Somehow this actually helpedthe Northern Ireland peace process, but in every other sphere it was a disaster, for as we all know the devil is in the detail.

Millennium tent, massive fail. NHS IT, gargantuan fail. Iraq impossibly large fail. I could go on and on, ,but they are the best examples. He didn't listen to the possible consequences because details didn't interest him at all, he just wanted some spods to come along and tell him he was doing the rig thing, and if they didn't then he'd find someone who wou ld, namely the fawning new labour career politicians around him, characterised mostly by their loathsome self-interest and general stupidity, Straw, Hoon and Blunkett being the worst of a bad bunch.

I haven't even started on how everything he did and stood for was steeped thoroughly in deceit, it wasn't just something they did in order to justify their good intentions, it was at the very fibre and core of new labour. Think for instance of all the sleaze scandals and how no one held their handsup and said they did wrong, and most ended up returning to government positions. Think of the Ecclestone scandal, how Blair said he was a decent kind of guy and he doesn't lie, when it has subsequently been revealed that he had actually been party to the sleazy deal and he was at that moment telling a big fat fat porker mere days after fretting into power.

Brown, like him or not, was a decent man, and by stripping new labour of the culture of deceit he actually exposed the vacuous core to us all.

I don't miss TB and I'd love to believe in he'll so he could rot and burn there, but that's clearly just me.