Tony Blair .....

[Keef]

No, not just you.

[Mick Mac]

Surely education was a success - looking at the improvement in performance at Heber School for example. And The Golden Jubilee wing at Kings was during his tenure, to have 2 local examples.

[Jah Lush]

Small fry examples created by local government Mick. You're missing the main point. Blair and Bush should be impeached on war crimes.

[steveo]

Has anyone mentioned the nest feathering?

[Jah Lush]

Good one Steveo. Let's face it him and his wife have been whoring themselves around the world ever since they left office. It's not like he needs the money from the sale of his memoirs All that guff about giving the proceeds away to the armed forces is a nice little bit of PR to alleviate his guilt and prop up his ego.

[katie1997]

JHC I cannot abide the man.

Cannot believe I voted Labour and cheered when he got into Downing St.

He is one of the most insincere politicians ever, in my view.

How can anyone talk about him without mentioning Iraq and Afghanistan?

What else? Hmmmm....where to start?

Lords reform? He f*cked that up good and proper and its all stuffed full of "Tony's cronies" !!

Hiding his earnings from the public eye, makes me sick. Economic policy? Yeah, right.

Look at the divide between rich and poor after his governance.

Narcissistic despicable tosser. No, I certainly don't want him back!

*fucking Cool fucking Brittania*

[Huguenot]

You're not standing alone Mick Mac, I'm just gathering my forces.

Not that you need me to support you of course ;-)

As I've exhorted Piersy for years, despite his weirdy religious knackerings history will judge TB appropriate for his era, his electorate and the brutal truth of the economic necessities inherent in the decline of Britain.

He might have put it off for a week or so.

To deny that is to fail to look in the loo after your number 2.

God? No. Pragmatic? Exceptional.

[steveo]

Blair is looking for his eighth home at the mo - in Barbados. It will put his property empire at just under ?20m. The daughter Kathryn, a humble student has a maisonette worth just under a mill.

Only God and his team of accountants know the extent of his 'earnings.'

One of his last acts as PM was to get his expenses shredded. Clever boy, that showed prescience at least.

When Jim Callaghan retired to a farm, I remember my old man asking, "How can he afford a farm?" A mere farm.

The (socialist) joke's on us.

[Huguenot]

To suggest he did it all to fill his wallet would imply a meaness of spirit for which there was no evidence.

You can plausibly doubt his delivery, but I wouldn't doubt his convictions.

[steveo]

Remember, he always wanted to be a pop star. He's always been looking for the main chance.

He could give back his PM's pension, golden handshake and paid for security. That would be a gesture.

[Jah Lush]

Wouldn't be wise to give up his security. He'd be a sitting target for extremists wanting payback.

[Mick Mac]

Huguenot Wrote:

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

> You're not standing alone Mick Mac, I'm just

> gathering my forces.

>

Any support is welcome.

I understand the Iraq issue has people hopping mad. I personally did not agree with it, but I can put it to one side as his foreign policy and I think his UK policies were well meaning and education and health were successful, if expensive. The minimum wage was a big move forward and the economy, in my opinion, was successful - the crash was broadly not any worse than anywhere else and Labour recovered the banking crisis relatively well.

As for the Foreign Policy - Jeez - you would think Britain had never done anything wrong in the world before now.....

[Jah Lush]

Actually Mick, to be fair I'm inclined to agree with you on the home front, it's the foreign policy that sticks in my craw.

[DJKillaQueen]

I kind of have mixed feelings on TB. I agree with Mic and Jah in that his government did some very good things, minimum wage, reinvestment in education and the NHS and so on, but there are other things on the home front that didn't happen. For example, job creation in the private sector barely increased (and the high youth unemployment we now is solely New Labour's creation). UK industry and manufacturing continued to shrink. There were fundamental things that didn't grow in what was supposedly a booming economy, and other things, like the gap between rich and poor that shouldn't grow in a boom, but did. Having said that I do think the country was a fairer place under Blair than it was under Thatcher.

On the international front, I'm afraid Blair's narcissism got the better of him for me. His 'success' (and I use that term loosely) in Kosovo I think deluded his ambition for Iraq and Afgahnistan. He will be remembered for the latter, not the former. And the God thing just always annoyed the hell out of me too.

[woofmarkthedog]

Yes..

The Catholic conversion always worries me ( how catholic is that ) I mean I'm a Catholic by default & un-joining is so hard once you're "in"

Still, just think; he's signed up to a life time of guilt ( which is nice ) by choice

He'll be amongst friends though, oh yes, it's top to bottom hypocrisy in there or God strike me down

* lightning crackles, then fades away *

W**F

( as a foot note; I do observe various politicians wearing "pale papal purple" Please note, it doesn't fool anyone)

[louisiana]

The 'beliefs' of both Tone and Cherie were something to behold.

And the advisors: Carole Caplin, Sylvia Caplin and Peter Foster. Some judgement shown there, eh?

[sullied]

TB or not TB

That is the Congestion

Consumption be Done About It?

Of Cough, of Cough,

but it?ll take a Lung Lung (Coalition?)Time.

And he'll outsell Shakespeare, but never Jeff Archer.

Sullied, some more.

[Brendan]

I see the oirish threw him with eggs.

They also threw Axl Rose with bottles so he's in good company.

[KalamityKel]

Both didnt seem to mind much

[????]

Tony Blair's biggest crime was Iraq

BUT for scores of the left his biggest crime was winning the Labour Party 3 elections in a row

[????]

Still they're back where they want to be now, fighting "Tory Cuts"...Maggie, Maggie, Maggie OUT OUT OUT

[SeanMacGabhann]

for someone SO keen to accuse a group of crass generalisations......

[SeanMacGabhann]

Many many people OTHER than Labour voters think his crime was winning 3 elections in a row -

and SOME people are shouting "Tory cuts too far" but again, not all of them are lefties. Some of them are able to argue, from a right-wing economic perspective that the cuts go too far. Others are equally able to argue that the cuts need not be QUITE so draconian. The debt was in an already fairly manageable state compared with other countries (and also in a country that flourished many a time despite paying of the Marshall Plan debt between the 40s and 2000s)

But hey, it's not you on the front-line of cuts is it? Not in quite the same way as most of those affected will be

But, y'know, so long as you are happy making carictures of people on the left, let's not get too bothered- there is no other debate to be had apparently.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Last bit:

the people you mock do exist, some of them exist on a simplistic plane JUST as you describe, and are mere oppositionists

But they are relatively small in numbers and not worth the amount of time someone of your intelligence spends on them

[????]

er, "Scores"....a deliberate use rather than say "millions" or "most" or even "1000s"....anyway, biting.....