The UK Politics and EU Referendum thread - merged

[BigAdz]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

[Woodsey]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win against PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

[kukushkin88]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win against PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

It says that but it also says a lot about the electorate and the disregard for reality.

[kukushkin88]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

It would be interesting to know what you measure to have Blair worse than the two muppets? The guy was a dick in some ways for sure (which of us isn’t?) but his record looks to have him clear of this field.

[RickBFA]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win against PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

It says that but it also says a lot about the electorate and the disregard for reality.

I see the “we know best” vibe is alive and well.

Labour are failing to take advantage because Corbyn is a terrible leader and he is splitting Labour apart.

[Pokerpops]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

It would be interesting to know what you measure to have Blair worse than the two muppets? The guy was a dick in some ways for sure (which of us isn’t?) but his record looks to have him clear of this field.

Seriously?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/03/does-tony-blair-deserve-so-much-our-contempt


It’s not a total hatchet job, Bower’s book is, but the review offers some small elements of defence mostly tied in with the circumstances. Read it all for the bits that explain How he did some good stuff along the way to to being such a self-serving twat.

Blair’s final months were typical of the man. He halted a corruption inquiry into BAE in Saudi Arabia. He sacked the head of the committee on standards in public life, for too assiduously pursuing sleaze. He showered peerages on dodgy financiers. Twenty-five of Blair’s 292 peers gave a total of £25m to Labour. Blair seemed to see little wrong in rewarding donors with seats in parliament and was the first serving prime minister to be interviewed by the police, on three occasions. He was exonerated only at the moment of his departure in 2007.

and the final para

In the final analysis Blair must take responsibility for plunging his country into “wars of choice” that were unnecessary, immoral and hugely expensive, some £40bn in lives and treasure. This was the real hanging offence. Bower interviewed his first three cabinet secretaries, Robin Butler, Richard Wilson and Andrew Turnbull. Each of them broke the customary silence of his office and said he did not regard Blair as “a laudable guardian of the public’s trust”. Bower is surely right to reach the same conclusion.

[kukushkin88]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win against PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

It says that but it also says a lot about the electorate and the disregard for reality.

I see the “we know best” vibe is alive and well.

Labour are failing to take advantage because Corbyn is a terrible leader and he is splitting Labour apart.

Corbyn is a socialist, that’s what’s splitting the Labour Party, not his many shortcomings as a leader.

[kukushkin88]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

It would be interesting to know what you measure to have Blair worse than the two muppets? The guy was a dick in some ways for sure (which of us isn’t?) but his record looks to have him clear of this field.

Seriously?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/03/does-tony-blair-deserve-so-much-our-contempt


It’s not a total hatchet job, Bower’s book is, but the review offers some small elements of defence mostly tied in with the circumstances. Read it all for the bits that explain How he did some good stuff along the way to to being such a self-serving twat.

Blair’s final months were typical of the man. He halted a corruption inquiry into BAE in Saudi Arabia. He sacked the head of the committee on standards in public life, for too assiduously pursuing sleaze. He showered peerages on dodgy financiers. Twenty-five of Blair’s 292 peers gave a total of £25m to Labour. Blair seemed to see little wrong in rewarding donors with seats in parliament and was the first serving prime minister to be interviewed by the police, on three occasions. He was exonerated only at the moment of his departure in 2007.

and the final para

In the final analysis Blair must take responsibility for plunging his country into “wars of choice” that were unnecessary, immoral and hugely expensive, some £40bn in lives and treasure. This was the real hanging offence. Bower interviewed his first three cabinet secretaries, Robin Butler, Richard Wilson and Andrew Turnbull. Each of them broke the customary silence of his office and said he did not regard Blair as “a laudable guardian of the public’s trust”. Bower is surely right to reach the same conclusion.

It’s damning indeed, pretty shameful. I’m judging him, perhaps wrongly, on how the country did under his tenure.

[Jon MW]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

It would be interesting to know what you measure to have Blair worse than the two muppets? The guy was a dick in some ways for sure (which of us isn’t?) but his record looks to have him clear of this field.

Seriously?

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/03/does-tony-blair-deserve-so-much-our-contempt


It’s not a total hatchet job, Bower’s book is, but the review offers some small elements of defence mostly tied in with the circumstances. Read it all for the bits that explain How he did some good stuff along the way to to being such a self-serving twat.

Blair’s final months were typical of the man. He halted a corruption inquiry into BAE in Saudi Arabia. He sacked the head of the committee on standards in public life, for too assiduously pursuing sleaze. He showered peerages on dodgy financiers. Twenty-five of Blair’s 292 peers gave a total of £25m to Labour. Blair seemed to see little wrong in rewarding donors with seats in parliament and was the first serving prime minister to be interviewed by the police, on three occasions. He was exonerated only at the moment of his departure in 2007.

and the final para

In the final analysis Blair must take responsibility for plunging his country into “wars of choice” that were unnecessary, immoral and hugely expensive, some £40bn in lives and treasure. This was the real hanging offence. Bower interviewed his first three cabinet secretaries, Robin Butler, Richard Wilson and Andrew Turnbull. Each of them broke the customary silence of his office and said he did not regard Blair as “a laudable guardian of the public’s trust”. Bower is surely right to reach the same conclusion.

It’s damning indeed, pretty shameful. I’m judging him, perhaps wrongly, on how the country did under his tenure.

It's usually a bit too difficult to acknowledge that some leaders can do good things and bad things over the same tenure.

There were some things that the Blair government did that were good; there were some things that look good but how good they were is hard to measure (e.g. continually pumping money into the NHS improved it - but because the income was guaranteed and public procurement is such a small market it lost a lot of the 'good' into extra profits for suppliers).

And a whole bunch of stuff was bad.

It's an interesting measurement to work out - how do you measure how good or bad a leader is?

Is it the total amount of good they did?
Or the total bad?
or the net figure?
(for example)

[RickBFA]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win against PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

It says that but it also says a lot about the electorate and the disregard for reality.

I see the “we know best” vibe is alive and well.

Labour are failing to take advantage because Corbyn is a terrible leader and he is splitting Labour apart.

Corbyn is a socialist, that’s what’s splitting the Labour Party, not his many shortcomings as a leader.

He knew what the gig was when he stood.

He must have known he was going to have to lead a party with a broad support base?

He cannot lead a party on that basis and will never be able to.

Corbyn, for all his principles and beliefs, is taking the Labour Party into a position where they are unelectable. They should be streets ahead in the polls.

Trouble is because of the voting structure and the surge in the far left joining the party, there is no way to ditch him. They are forcing the hand of the moderates towards a split. If that happens then you can forget about the “Labour Party” getting into power.

[TightEnd]

Brexit the final phase https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2018/0901/990836-brexit/

[MintTrav]

Never gonna be worse than Blair, even if she dances every day....

Says a lot about the state of the Labour Party if they still can’t win agbainst PMs that have been apparently so terrible.

It says that but it also says a lot about the electorate and the disregard for reality.

I see the “we know best” vibe is alive and well.

Labour are failing to take advantage because Corbyn is a terrible leader and he is splitting Labour apart.

Corbyn is a socialist, that’s what’s splitting the Labour Party, not his many shortcomings as a leader.

He knew what the gig was when he stood.

He must have known he was going to have to lead a party with a broad support base?

He cannot lead a party on that basis and will never be able to.

Corbyn, for all his principles and beliefs, is taking the Labour Party into a position where they are unelectable. They should be streets ahead in the polls.

Trouble is because of the voting structure and the surge in the far left joining the party, there is no way to ditch him. They are forcing the hand of the moderates towards a split. If that happens then you can forget about the “Labour Party” getting into power.

I suspect that transforming the Labour Party permanently is more important to him than becoming PM. Even if there is no split, deselections are likely to give him a Parliamentary Party much more on his wavelength after the next election. A breakaway does seem to be on the cards, though, from moderates who see the writing on the wall. It’s hard to see them not rerunning the SDP and eventually merging with the Lib Dems - they need more than three or four big names to succeed. Perhaps flipping some Tories like Grieve or Soubry would help. It would create a situation where neither Labour nor the new party could get into government unless rhey go into coalition together so, ironically, a split might be what gets Corbyn into Downing Street.

There is also space for a populist party to the right of UKIP, which could even happen before a Labour split, and would be bad news for the Tories.

[MANTIS01]

Getting elected is the world.

As Labour leader Corbyn is obviously free to pursuit whatever personal dream he wants.

But anyway, getting elected is the world.

[TightEnd]

Boris going for it

[TightEnd]

not a happy ship