Tony Blair

Sir Anthony Charles Lynton "Teflon Tony" "Bliar""Tony Blair? - Bliar? Britain's beleaguered prime minister. A moment of truth for Tony Blair."] 7 June 2003. The Economist. Blair, a.k.a. "Cheshire Cat" and "The Smiler" , was Leader of the Labour Party from 1994-2007 and Prime Minister of Britain from 1997-2007. At the time, he was the youngest Premier since Spencer Perceval (1812), and the first Labour Leader since Jim Callaghan (1979) to get elected. He was very popular before 2003, his legislative achievements ranging from a national minimum wage to a right for gay couples to seek a civil partnership. On the other hand, Blair does like a bit of war profiteering, human misery and hanging out (no pun intended) with dictators, which is ironic given what happened to Saddam Hussein after the illegal Iraq War. In contrast, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, his two immediate predecessors, were involved in only one war each. To be fair though, he went into Afghanistan with Parliament's overwhelming support.
09/14/2001 British House of Commons Special Session;
Towards the end of Blair's term, he became fixated on setting up a surveillance society, or whatever.Council plans to listen in on street life, The Telegraph again, May 4, 2005 Over a decade later, all the good stuff is forgotten, but nobody will ever forget the sleaze, the scandals, the Iraq War... and that spot on Bush's lap that he got to sit on for his compliance.
Fun fact, "Tony Blair, PM" is an anagram of "I'm Tory Plan B."
==New Labour==
Britain had been under Tory rule for 18 years ('79-97). In that time, democratic socialism was dismantled and sold off to private enterprise, and the groundwork was laid for the Great Recession. (The current crisis is as much to do with Thatcher as it is to do with Blair and Brown.) From that narrow perspective, New Labour's unambitious manifesto was necessary to win Middle England.
But the Tories dropped the ball. There had been Black Wednesday in '92, which showed their economic model was flawed, and a series of scandals and infighting made Major look "weak." Labour, who had been in the wilderness for nearly two decades, came out of nowhere with the right policies, tone, and leader. 
Labour was the party of the hard-left, but the Blairites and Brownites purged them, and so Labour started looking like the Slim-Fast Tory Party. Labour's manifesto had promised to re-nationalise the railways and reform the voting system, among other things. Those did not materialise, and hyper-bureaucratic liberalism ruled out a return to Marxism.Khan, Shebab, "Clause IV: What is it, and why is it so divisive?", Independent (Sunday 9 August 2015 17:32 BST). Scrapping Clause IV was the final nail in the coffin. There was no functioning leftist party, and Conservatives didn't even play the token gesture of being in opposition; they also failed to find a leader who wasn't either a placeholder (William Hague, Ian Duncan-Smith) or Michael Howard (That's Lord Howard to you, peasant!). As you can imagine, the left was not exactly thrilled about that.Wheatcroft, Geoffrey, "Peter's friend", Guardian 4 February 2001. Most remember Clinton and Blair at twin podiums talking about the "Third Way"Transcript of Telcon with Labour Party Leader and Prime Minister-elect Tony Blair , Clinton Presidential Library (1 May 1997, 11:25 pm).—though it wasn't so different from your Keatings, Schröders or Jospins who came into power at around that time. They all talked the same. Instead of improving the conditions for the working class, they pulled people out of the working class into the middle one. There is a good movie called The Special Relationship which explores some of this.
All in all, the first two terms were about curtailing the excesses of Thatcher. The third term was the most desperate, as the boom years ended and scandals began to pile up."Mandelson made mistake says Blair", BBC (27 December 1998, 10:15 AM GMT)."How the Ecclestone affair unfolded", BBC (22 September 2000, 2:35 PM GMT).Cassidy, John, "The David Kelly Affair", New Yorker 8 December 2003. Iraq was to Blair what the Falklands was to ThatcherAndrew Marr on the Iraq decision, BBC News at Ten, BBC1, April 9, 2003]—the difference being that the Falklands ended better for Britain.
In 2007, Blair mercifully stepped down, and Gordon Brown took over as shepherd of New Labour. Nobody liked his face and he just happened to come to power as the recession hit.
==Reasons to love him==
*Independence for the Bank of England: The Tories' constant fiddling with the interest rates had been a political tool and a failure. Allowing a body of experts to set the interest rate was an important move that in no way, shape or form contributed to a housing bubble.
*The Good Friday Agreement: Ignoring Gerry Adams, John Hume and David Trimble. And John Major who really got the ball rolling. And Mo Mowlam who led the negotiations. And all the actual Irish people involved, and pretending that British involvement in Ireland was somehow legitimate or needed. But Blair played a small part in bringing peace to Northern Ireland, so that's like, at least one checkbox. (He was even polite enough to wait until leaving office before announcing he was a Catholic.) Successive British governments played a huge role in actually causing and worsening the conflict.
*LGBT rights: Blair's government lowered the age of consent for homosexual sex in line with heterosexual sex and repealed Section 28. They removed all bans on gay people serving openly in the military. Gays were given the right to a civil partnership, protection from hate crimes, protection from discrimination in the workplace and the right to adopt. Meanwhile, transgender people were given the right to legally change their gender. However, see "transphobia" under "reasons to hate him" & "Private Views" under "reasons to dislike him".
*Schools & hospital building programmes - From 1997, spending on rebuilding schools and hospitals increased enormously, and a decade-long rebuilding programme was begun.
*Minimum Wage Act: Despite massive opposition, he stood for and forced through his plans of a national minimum wage, now £6.50/hour ($10.24, August 2015).
*Education, education, education: His most important legacy. Large increases in education spending has improved exams results at 14, 16 & 18, and has significantly increased literacy and numeracy levels. Britain has achieved the stunning position of 20th in the OECD rankings of educational systems.
*Third World debt write-offs: The British Government under Blair, wrote off a whole load of debts from really poor nations.
*Climate change policy: Could've done better, but set Britain on the way to achieving its Kyoto targets.
*Devolution: Blair gave power to Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland to make some (or all) of their own laws. The populations wanted this, and it was (and still is) very successful. 
*Gift Aid: Allowed higher-rate taxpayers to donate to charity, and get the tax added back to their donation. Worth nearly £1bn to UK charities.
*Winter fuel payments: Giving fuel payments to pensioners saved lives and made people a lot more comfortable.
*Animal testing: Banned testing of cosmetic products on animals, while resisting calls for controls on medical testing on animals.
*Constitutional Reform Act 2005: Established the British Supreme Court and largely moved responsibility for appointing judges for the highest court in the land out of the hands of the Lord Chancellor, preventing biased political appointments.
*Double jeopardy: Blair's Ministry of Justice changed the rules surrounding double jeopardy so that murderers, rapists and robbers specifically can be prosecuted again if they get off and are then proven to be guilty. This resulted in several criminals who would have gotten away with it otherwise going to prison, including in high-profile cases like the .
*Sexual Offences Act 2003: Among other things, established the UK's current sex offenders register, expanded the definition of rape to include oral sex, legalized group homosexual sex, outlawed sex tourism and changed the law so that women could be found guilty of rape.
*Fighting homelessness: The New Labour government prioritized tackling rough sleeping from the very beginning and by 2010 the combined efforts of Blair and Brown had brought U.K. homelessness to a record low.New Labour all but eliminated rough sleeping. How did it do it?, New Statesman Meanwhile the amount of social housing being built per year rose by around 2,220 under New Labour after having been massively slashed under the preceding Tory governments.Labour's social housing record, Full Fact
*Free entry to national museums and galleries: Well, that was nice of him.
==Good intentions, but not entirely successful==
*Human Rights Act 1998: A step in the right direction, but the Human Rights Act's application has, in many quarters, seemed bloated and stupid. "Criminals' rights" are criticised greatly.
*House of Lords Act 1999: Removing many hereditary peers in favour of appointed members of the House of Lords was a fantastic step, but the House of Lords reform has packed the Upper House with Labour Peers. Political appointment of the upper house has led to multiple accusations of "Cash for Honours" and "Loans for Honours", with Blair actually being criminally investigated at one point for awarding honours in return for sizable donations. However good it is to decrease hereditary peers, if you replace them with people who gave you money for the favour, you (kind of) lose all credit.
*London Assembly: since the UK was already one of the most overcentralised states in Europe, giving London more power and money seems a mixed blessing. On the other hand, London had had no city-wide governance since the Greater London Council was abolished in 1986.
*English regional devolution: Attempts to provide devolution in Northern England failed. This was arguably worthy, but also equated Scotland and Wales with English regions while splitting England, a nation, into various separate regions. Cornwall, which actually has some demand for an assembly, was ignored.
*Fox-hunting ban: Even bringing up fox-hunting in the house of Commons is a giant waste of time and money.Gammell, Caroline Gammel, "Tony Blair's 'regret' over fox hunting bill", Telegraph 1 September 2010, 10:00PM BST). It's something which 90% of people are against, and only 1% of the population can participate in. Ironically, that's why the ban was put through in the first place: to appease the Labour backbenchers (who didn't appreciate Blair's drift to the centre) by 'sticking it to the toffs'.
*Northern Irish devolution: While devolution worked out pretty well in Scotland and Wales, the unique political situation in Northern Ireland means that the Republican and Unionist sides have to share power constantly. This naturally means that the Northern Irish Parliament is incredibly dysfunctional and regularly suffers government shutdowns.Shawn Pogatchnik, DUP confirms it will shut down Northern Ireland Assembly DUP confirms it will shut down Northern Ireland Assembly. politico.eu, 13 May 2022.
*UK-US extradition treaty: Has helped to prosecute dozens of international criminals, including terrorists. In typical Blair fashion, though, the treaty has been criticized as one-sided, allowing American prosecutors to demand a suspect's extradition without demonstrating that the suspect has a case to answer.Extradition fight man attacks law. BBC News, 10 March 2006.
*Kosovo: Blair was one of the leaders of NATO intervention in the Yugoslav Wars, which unlike the later interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan was largely successful in preventing the annexation of Kosovo by the Milosevic regime, to the point that you got people in Kosovo naming their children "Tonibler" after him. However, the intervention was not without criticism, as NATO precision bombing reportedly led to a number of civilian casualties. 
*Sierra Leone: Similar to Kosovo, Britain's intervention in the Sierra Leone Civil War was highly successful in both its initial aim of evacuating foreign citizens from the region and in its later objective of defeating the RUF, bringing the war to an end and establishing an international tribunal to prosecute RUF war crimes. However, there were several controversies surrounding the intervention, including allegations of financing a regime change in the country in 1998Andrew Buncombe, Paul Routledge, and Fran Abrams, "Inquiry finds Sandline did breach arms embargo", Independent 5.16.98. and support for freelance soldiers implicated in war crimes.Abrams, Fran, "British officer advised gunship killers", Independent 9.6.00.
==Reasons to dislike him==
*The spin and sleaze of New Labour: He made much of the "Tory sleaze" surrounding the Major government, but Labour's image has taken a bit of a hit now that new information has come out about how Blair ran his cabinet, his ties to The Sun, etc. Meanwhile, John Major has been reassessed in a more positive light.
:In a break from conventional campaigning, his team focused on soundbites. The logic went that the average voter isn't gullible, but they are time-poor. They're not going to have time to read through your manifesto or watch a long interview with one of your MPs. What you need is for a common soundbite or phrase to be repeated often enough that it permeates the news they half-watch in the morning before they go to work, it gets into the newspaper articles they skim on the train, and it's there on the news when they get home. So you get, for example, "Education, Education, Education." That was repeated ad nauseum and it worked. Even though the pledge amounted to not that much cash for universities, it still sounded good.Coughlan, Sean, "'Education, education, education'", BBC (updated 14 May 2007, 3:37 PM GMT). An unfortunate side-effect of this is that people still don't know what he actually believes in, such as the God thing, which he suppressed for electoral gain.Bates, Stephen, "After 30 years as a closet Catholic, Blair finally puts faith before politics ", Guardian (21 June 2007, 8:02pm EDT). He was really keen to convert to Catholicism, a few minutes in the confession box and all his sins were forgiven.
:News Corp more or less ordered Blair to jump into war with Iraq. Everyone in the ministry was connected one way or another to Murdoch, just to make sure that it's an incestuous party up in there."Campbell diaries: Murdoch 'called Blair over Iraq'", BBC 16 June 2002.Taylor, Adam, "Tony Blair Is Godfather To Rupert Murdoch's Daughter", Business Insider (4 September 2011, 5:46 PM). cough Illuminati bloodlines cough
*Pulling a Clinton: Blair did it to show he was serious—started out by cutting single-parent benefits or something like that."Blair faces Commons over child benefit", BBC (10 December 1997, 5:03pm GMT). He knows the Tory psyche has a deep need for karma. Can't do something nice without shedding some blood elsewhere.
*Immigration: People blame him for the immigration issue as he didn't have a transition period like other EU leaders, and left a pretty wide gate open for non-EU members, too. It was brought up at the time, but Blair's government predicted migration would be in the tens of thousands. Instead up to 500k a year came, and only about half ever went home. Around 3 million net over the following 12 years. Nicholas Watt and Patrick Wintour, "How Immigration Came to Haunt Labor: The Inside Story",Guardian (24 March 2015, 3:59 AM EDT).
*Presidentialism: His premiership was defined by a centralisation of power within the executive. 
:The cabinet office, which by his time was essentially an extension of the Prime Minister's office, was strengthened. Unelected favourites, like Blair's chief of staff Jonathan Powell and his director of communications Alastair Campbell, were given power to sit in on cabinet meetings and boss them around.Wheatcroft, Geoffrey, "The Paradoxical Case of Tony Blair", Atlantic June 1996."The advisers: Modernisation or politicisation?", BBC (12 January, 2000, 4:53 AM GMT). The number of special advisers increased, particularly within the Prime Minister's office, and they were given greater powers. These were implemented to increase the oversight that the Prime Minister had over the rest of Parliament.Timmins, Nicholas, "Role of Blair's special advisers attacked", FT (2 March 2005, 10:05 pm). It was reflected in Blair's personal style: Instead of holding cabinet meetings in which different MPs could debate and question, Blair dealt with individual MPs one-on-one, in what become known as "sofa cabinet". 
:He wanted to take the country to war without a vote in Parliament, and though this was his prerogative as Prime Minister acting on behalf of the Head of State,Wright, Oliver, "Tony Blair kept Cabinet in the dark over Iraq 'deliberately' as ministers evaluated case for war in 2003", Independent (13 November 2013, 7:29 PM GMT). this is another reason why people disliked Blair: all the decisions fell directly on his shoulders.
*Private Finance Initiatives: Actually cooked up by the Conservatives but implemented by Labour. PFIs allow private companies, building firms, etc. to invest in public infrastructure and then lease them back over a long period of time. This means that future taxpayers have to pay the debt, which is not recorded by the Treasury due to it not technically being public money.Even The Torygraph thinks this is a bad idea: "Private Finance Initiative: where did all go wrong?" The Daily Telegraph, 22 September 2011. Blair's bright idea was to raise funds for education, health and other services by bringing in Big Business, who proceeded to run things with a bad delivery but a decent profit. The Department of Education didn't trust the government in the Blair years; they were very much micromanaged. PFI is still sucking money out of the education budget, and academies turned out to be the thin end of the wedge as predicted.
*Boasting and grandstanding: Recently after a succession of Electoral Defeats for Labour, Blair Has developed a bit of habit of boasting about how he won three elections and was the only labour leader to do so almost every interview. Whilst this is a great achievement he doesn't really propose a solution to help labour get out of this electoral hole they are stuck in other than going back to being Tory Lite.
*Private views: While his LGBT rights record is good on the legislative front, his private views are allegedly more bigoted. According to trans activist , Blair was opposed to same-sex marriage behind the scenes for religious reasons, hence his refusal to allow gay marriage outright rather than civil unions.We were told No 10 was not happy and certainly would not allow the creation of ‘same sex marriage’ by default. I remember saying as Blair left No 10 “so shall we run a sweepstake on how long before he converts to Roman Catholicism” - 5 months before it became a public conversion. 12/ in that it created a double standard in terms of rights. (The Equality Act is entirely separate from all this). Clearly Downing St (i.e. Blair who converted to Roman Catholicism on leaving office) opposed same sex marriage, & felt allowing trans couples to stay married .... 13/ would create a form of same sex marriage & contravened the religious sanctity of marriage. But many marriages are just civil - so WTF we felt. But we couldn't win that. As for the Equality Act, we were in a Brown Govt by then. Initial proposals didn't include trans folk ....
*Faith-school programmes: The coming out as a religious nutcase at the end was the icing on the cake.Wynn-Jones, Jonathan, "Tony Blair believed God wanted him to go to war to fight evil, claims his mentor", Telegraph (9:00PM BST 23 May 2009). In defiance of Labour's inclusive policies, Blair saw fit to publicly-fund faith schools and allow them greater autonomy from standard curriculum. Richard Dawkins fronted the opposition: he released Faith School Menace?, a documentary detailing the horrors against reason that manifested as a result.
*Horizon scandal: Blair gave the go-ahead for the Post Office to install the Horizon IT system, a computer program which would go on to see hundreds of sub-postmasters wrongly convicted of theft, fraud and false accounting based on faulty accounting data. Government papers released in 2024 would reveal that Blair had been warned at the time that Horizon was potentially unreliable but signed off on the program anyway, albeit only after being wrongly advised that the system was proven to be "robust".Tony Blair was warned Horizon IT system could be flawed, documents show, BBC News
==Reasons to hate him==
*Erosion of civil liberties: Typical of Blair's later years. Nick Clegg, then Lib-Dem home affairs spokesman, commented:
:His ministry criminalized more than 3,000 acts, "one for every day" New Labour had been in power.Article on increased number of crimes under New Labour in the Daily Telegraph. January, 2010. Blair's 'frenzied law making': a new offence for every day spent in office. 16 August 2006. The Independent. Accessed 1 November 2009. Far from just an issue of pace, many of these laws seemed of highly dubious value at best; one notoriously blatant example being the direct criminalization of "causing a nuclear explosion," despite existing legislation already rendering such an act de facto criminal.
:The Civil Contingencies Act 2004, despite massive opposition in the House of Lords, allowed the Prime Minister to suspend any law (except the Human Rights Act) for 21 days.Lord Hansard text for 5 July 2004. The HoL managed to kill the 42-day detention policy,"Government abandons 42-day detention plan", Independent (13 October 2008 5:54 PM BST). but we still have 28-days detention without charge. So much for Habeas Corpus.
:Blair passed legislation to begin an ID Card programme, which was massively against public opinion, and despite Tory warnings it would be cut as soon as they got into power.
:Several of Blair's anti-extremism laws, the Terrorism Acts and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006 in particular, have been greatly criticised for their implications with regards to free speech. 
:Blair's government was responsible for the Imprisonment for Public Protection program, which allows prisoners deemed to be a danger to the public but not eligible for a whole-life sentence to be locked up indefinitely. In theory meant to target violent and sexual offenders like the "black cab rapist" ,What is an imprisonment for public protection sentence and why is it controversial?, The Daily Telegraph in practice the vague requirements for imposing an IPP and draconian requirements for release after being given one has resulted in thousands of minor offenders spending years in prison with no hope of release. Even after the system was ostensibly abolished under David Cameron, over 2000 prisoners continued serving IPPs due to a technicality.I’m one of thousands of prisoners with no release date in sight – this is how the IPP sentence ruined my life, The Independent
:Proposals released in 2023 revealed that Blair considered pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights in 2003 so the government would be able to deport asylum seekers to countries where they would face persecution, years before Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak tried the same thing.Rwanda-style asylum plan was ‘nuclear option’ for Blair in 2003, records reveal, The Guardian]
*Iraq:
:Blair is a statesman's statesman: ex-barrister, at ease with the media, and wielding an impressive presentation of his case. Problem is, those talents were apparently on loan to the Bush Administation."Tony Blair will help US on Iraq, 2002 memo says", BBC 18 October 2015.
:The now-infamous "45 minutes" claim.Nigel Morris and Ben Russell,"Blair admits he did not know 45-minute claim referred to battlefield weapons", Independent (5 February 2004, 1:00AM GMT). The "dossier" from MI6, which apparently needed 'sexing up'.Sengupta Kim, "Chilcot report: MI6 may have got crucial intelligence on Iraq WMDs from a Nicolas Cage film", Independent (7 July 2016, 8:25 AM BST). The fact that he (at best) swallowed the falsified evidence.Andy McSmith and Charlie Cooper, "Chilcot report: Blair didn't tell truth about WMDs, the deal with Bush or the warnings of fallout – how Britain went to war in Iraq", Independent (6 July 2016, 10:11 AM BST). In 2009, he admitted he'd have invaded Iraq regardless of WMDs. Riazat Butt and Richard Norton-Taylor, "Tony Blair admits: I would have invaded Iraq anyway", Guardian (Updated 11 December 2009, 7.06 PM EST).
:Peace demonstrations and marches, petitions, letters, and every other mode of mass participation in democracy was mobilized. Those marches represented about 5-10 million people who did not want to be involved in Iraq without unilateral agreement from the UN, but the agreement never came. Blair shot back that it didn't matter how many people marched."Blair speech - key quotes", BBC (15 February, 2003, 12:38 GMT). He also mentioned some crap about praying to God for answers."Blair will 'answer to God' over Iraq deaths", The Age via Agence France-Presse 3 May 2000. It was something like 60 backbenchers who opposed the war,"MPs rebel over war vote", BBC (2 November 2001, 11:48 GMT ). along with the unanimous disapproval of the Lib Dems. Only 2 Conservatives voted against it, but they had an ideological reason to support that war, and not to mention there was something in it for them. Either way, it was a dramatic show of how parochial the government had gotten. At least 100,000 died as a result of his decision, which a UK barrister agrees amounts to war crimes."UK's top lawyer tries to block Iraq war case against Blair", Middle East Eye (17 April 2017, 4:32 OM UTC).
:Iraq and Brexit are two symptoms of the same problem, which is disinformation. Iraq caused a sort of feedback loop, in which the refugee crisis caused by US/UK interference in the ME fueled British xenophobia, which was then projected onto the EU, even though the UK itself is at the source of the war in the ME. Still not getting it, Blair responds:
:What's "bizarre" is that an ex-world leader thinks that invading another country, dismantling their national and local government, leaving a much-weaker police and military, and imposing a totally different form of politics doesn't leave it open to invasion and civil strife. How he's an envoy for peace in the Middle East we'll never know. Looks like he's doing a bang-up job, too He's out as of 2015.Fisk, Robert, "Blundering Tony Blair quits as Middle East peace envoy – only Israel will miss him", Independent 5.27.15. Blair didn't start the fire, It was always burning, Since the world's been turning. Blair didn't start the fire, No, Blair didn't light it, But Blair tried to fight it The Palestinian Authority’s former chief negotiator Nabil Shaath said Blair “Achieved so very little because of his gross efforts to please the Israelis.”Watt, Nicholas, "Tony Blair appointed as head of European body fighting antisemitism", Guardian 6.3.15 at 8:59pm EDT.)
:The Iraq Inquiry was not a real inquiry; it was set up with the help of many who were involved, and structured such that no one individual would be found culpable.Chris Ames and Jamie Doward, "Revealed: Chilcot inquiry was set up ‘to avoid blame’ ", Guardian (19 November 2016, 7:05pm EST). Both parties have much to fear from a conviction. (Cameron would be the next one to walk the plank.)"Cameron backs Blair on Iraq war ", BBC (23 June 2006, 15:22 GMT)."MPs attack Cameron over Libya 'collapse'", BBC 14 September 2016. The excrement of New Labour is now trying to poison the well yet again, forcing through a leadership election to prevent Jeremy Corbyn from prosecuting Blair.Stone, Jon, "Jeremy Corbyn 'still prepared to call for Tony Blair war crimes investigation'", Independent (23 May 2016, 7:49 AM BST). They're now banning people from voting for fear of having Corbyn as leader.Bienkov, Adam, [http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2015/08/20/critical-blogger-banned-from-voting-in-labour-leadership-ele "Critical blogger banned from voting in Labour leadership election", Politics.co.uk (20 August 2015, 4:08 PM). (It didn't work.) He'd never be successfully tried in court, though; everyone would be too charmed by him. Rowena Mason, Anushka Asthana and Heather Stewart, "Tony Blair: 'I express more sorrow, regret and apology than you can ever believe'", Guardian (6 July 2016, 9:55 AM EDT).
*Being Bush's poodle:[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/07/how-tony-blair-sucked-george-w-bush-iraq-war/ The UK was (and still is) the SS Great Britain, largest carrier in the US Navy. Captain Blair reported directly to Commodore Bush, who is about as popular in the UK as syphilis.Sarkar, Simon, "British Public Weighs In on Blair and Bush", Gallup 8 June 2004. The general feeling was that Blair sold the country out, trashed their reputation, and made them as reviled as America.
*Rubbing elbows with dictators: Recent documents found in Tripoli demonstrated that Blair advocated releasing Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi due to personal business interests in Libya.The Telegraph yet again. He was flown twice to Tripoli on Gaddafi's private jets to negotiate with the then-dictator. He also sent British SAS troops to train Gaddafi's secret policeBritish special forces SAS trained troops from Libyan regime that supplied IRA, renditioned Libyan rebel Abdel Hakim Belhaj to the Gaddafi governmentBlair 'cannot recall' MI6 rendition of rebel Libyan to Gaddafi, and helped Gaddafi's late son write his PhD thesis. Apart from Gaddafi, he gave damage control advice to the Kazakh dictator Nursultan Nazarbayev after his police slaughtered 14 protestors in ZhanaozenTony Blair gives Kazakhstan’s autocratic president tips on how to defend a massacre, courted Syria's Bashar al-AssadAssad close to being knighted under Blair and was close to Vladimir Putin both in power and long after leaving office. Blair defends 'reformer' Putin's visit to No 10 Even advising to forget Ukraine during the 2014 skirmish to fight "Radical Islam". https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/04/23/tony-blair-ukraine-putin-_n_5196236.html] Only changing his mind after the 2022 Invasion and going on as if he had never supported Russia. https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/tony-blair-one-thing-clear-vladimir-putin-cannot-be-allowed-win
*Being a British chickenhawk: Blair pretty much convinced NATO to intervene in the Balkans. During his time in opposition, he criticised the Tories for isolationism and vowed that a Labour government would take on Milošević. 
*Transphobia: Ironically, given that his government enacted the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, Blair has become intensely anti-woke and a strong supporter of J.K. Rowling. He apparently believes, despite evidence to the contrary,https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/22/majority-of-uk-public-agree-with-liberal-views-on-race-and-sexual-identity-annual-poll that Labour will never gain power as long as they criticise the J. K.https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tony-blair-keir-starmer-is-a-work-in-progress-dk3hnpmv6https://www.newstatesman.com/labour-in-crisis/2021/05/tony-blair-without-total-change-labour-will-die. This has bled into Keir Starmer's policy and influenced his purge of the left.https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-labour-piers-morgan-b1857735.html
*Rendition program: Blair reportedly knew all about the CIA's extraordinary rendition program after 9/11 which saw terror suspects abducted, imprisoned without due process and subjected to "enhanced interrogation", even allowing British security forces to participate in the rendition of suspects.Molloy, Antonia, "Tony Blair 'knew everything about CIA interrogation programme'", The Independent (Sunday 6 April 2014 13:55 BST).
*Grenfell Tower Negligence: According to the 2024 Inquiry into the 2017 Grenfell Tower Fire, Blair's Government played a role in the cause of the fire. Having been warned of several flaws in the building yet failing to listen, Blair simply stated that some tragedies could not be completely avoided. This statement was called despicable by the Fire Brigade Unionhttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/06/tony-blair-told-to-take-responsibility-grenfellhttps://www.fbu.org.uk/news/2024/09/06/blairs-despicable-grenfell-remarks-are-out-touch-says-firefighter-union-leader
===The golden parachute care package===
He is the richest after-dinner speakerClara Ferreira-Marques and Mohammed Abbas, "Dealmaking cameo may prove lucrative for fixer Blair", Reuters (11 September 2012, 9:19am BST). ex-PM ever, and uses a series of opaque, secretive companies to funnel his many millions. Blair also has ties to a Korean Oil Company,Solomon Hughs and David Leigh, "Tony Blair got cash for deal with South Korean oil firm", Guardian (F17 March 2010, 1:49 PM EDT). and accepted millions from a dubious Kazak autocrat.Jim Pickard and George Parker, "Tony Blair shuts down advisory firm that made him millions", FT20 September 2016. But to draw these lines and see a conspiracy makes you the nut job.Ellison, Sarah, "The Which Blair Project", Vanity Fair (18 December 2014, 12:00 am).
When he left office, he took the opportunity of buying a nice little house in the middle of the West End so far beyond his apparent means so as to raise questions. That is, until they were partly sorted by a generous down payment on his memoirs.David Leigh and Ian Griffiths, "The Blair Rich Project", Guardian (Last modified on 7/13/16 at 9:44 pm EDT). On the JP Morgan thing, apparently it was a mere bagatelle at $2M/year or so.Tony Helm and Bruno Watefeld, "Tony Blair to earn £2m as JP Morgan adviser", Telegraph (1/11/08 at 12:01AM GMT). Not bad for a part time job. It also means that he can keep his VIP treatment and Diplomatic passport.Osborne, Peter, "It’s easy to see what the former PM gets out of his role as envoy, but harder to see what he gives back", Telegraph (9/16/15 at 8:05PM GMT). Nobody does irony like the British. Never has so much effort been made by a PM to extend their pension.Christopher Hope, Edward Malnick and Claire Newell, "Tony Blair is banned from staying at British embassies on commercial missions", Telegraph (2 January 2016, 11:28PM GMT). How will Murdoch's wife creep in?
==Comeback?==
His dreams of being Leader of Europe shattered,"EU treaty good for UK, says Blair", BBC (23 June 2007, 4:50 PM GMT). Blair is threatening to start his own centre-left party, free from the chains of outdated union power.Smith, Reiss, "Will Tony Blair begin a new political party to rival Jeremy Corbyn's Labour?", Express (24 February 2017, updated 3:49 PM). Many Labour MPs would probably jump ship to him. It is ironic because he is the only big-name leader who could make a difference if he didn't have all the baggage. The only well-respected Remainer left is Ken Clarke, but he's a very old Tory who's not really in shape for this supposed counterrevolution. 
==Cherie Blair==
Since he quit as a politician, he and his wife have "rediscovered" their religious faith. Except the Pope told him not to go to war, and he did anyways.Popham, Peter, "No ground given as Pope meets Blair", Independent (23 February 2003, 1:00am GMT). For a born-again Catholic, he's broken more than a few Commandments. Porking Mrs. Murdoch for one,Seal, Mark, "Seduced and Abandoned: Read Wendi Deng Murdoch's Mash Letter Allegedly Not About Tony Blair", Vanity Fair. (19 February 2014, 12:00 am). The best thing Blair ever did. complicit in murder and torture for another.
Tony's wife, Cherie, is also a fascinating human being. A prominent human rights lawyer, occasional property developer, and practicing Roman Catholic, she was known for her enthusiasm for eccentric new age practices.Ev'ryone Must Get Stones, Nick Cohen, The Guardian, 8 Dec 2002 When Robert Harris (a former Blairite who hob-nobbed with the family) wrote The Ghost, he made the fictional counterpart of Cherie Blair the sinister manipulator behind the scenes for a reason.
==External links==
*The Blairs then (1994), and now (post-2014).
===Videos===
*Blair's manifesto
*The Blair-Hitchens debate on secularism — Even Blair admitted after the debate that he'd lost.
*Blair's hand gestures — A masterclass in NLP screen presence and charisma.
==References==
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