He's standing down.
I wish people would shut up about the whole lying thing. Sure Iraq went wrong, but its not as if he had much choice. He's a cool guy.
when faced with the choice of Howard v Blair, there's only one winner. I do feel Blair has done a decent job on the whole (not going anywhere near Iraq), but there's a lot of issues on which I disagree with him. Top up fees, City Academies, the gradual privatisation of the NHS for example. And the fact that he's had to rely on Tory support to push through some key bills in this parliament show that he's marginalised some traditional labour voters in order to claim the centre ground.
cos Iraq's only a little thing isnt it?
And if we forget student fees and selling the NHS off through the back door, amongst many others, then yes - he was a good Prime Minister! :-/
what about minimum wage, devolution of powers to Scottish Parl and Welsh assembly, lowest unemployment in 29 years, civil partnerships, banning handguns, overseas aid doubled, strong and stable economy?
but its not as if he had a choice to be involved or not. It's not as if he could'ave been like
"Hey George, about this iraq thing: I'm not really diggin' the whole "freeing a nation" thing, and I'm questioning your motives for it all.
Keep sending the money and shit. Thanks for mcdonalds.
and he made the wrong one! The evidence for the instigation of a totalitarian society is all around you at the moment and you're still crying 'Poor Tony!'
I fucking hate Blair and new Labour! They've screwed it for everyone and thanks to them making such a pigs dinner of everything, we are most likely to have Cameron in number 10 very soon. Yeah, cheers for that! self-serving cunts!
basically it won't achieve anything, the IT will break, i resent the way that the government has tried to put it through, and the wording of the Act and the powers it assigns are so vague as to be very easily appropriated by future, less 'benign' governments. it is an arrogant measure which looks like they thought 'we'll be in power forever, we're not fascists, sorted'.
almost makes me want to let the tories in. i can deal with this brand of conservatism in principle, i just don't think it works.
see, looks a bit weak next to all the Big-Bad-Shit they've done doesnt it?
But you clearly think 1984 was a good blueprint for the future so i guess im pissing in the wind, right?
Dont twist my words JJ! - all i said was there is plenty of evidence of this country going down the Orwell path, even if we're not in it - yet!
Like it or not, ID cards are defo coming, the Police have been given even more power by the government so they can arrest you for just about anything - concrete fact! and thats before we get into any of the 'Anti-Terror' laws that have been put in place.
I find it deeply disturbing that someone of your age appears not to be bothered by any of this.
laws which are passed that overstep the mark from a Human Rights perspective are deemed incompatable with the Human Rights Act and Parliament has to think again - see Law Lords rulings in the last few years re anti-terror legislation. That's part of the checks and balances job provided by the judiciary to some extent.
Oh and who brought in the Human Rights Act?....
Whilst by no means am I a great Blair or Labour supporter, your remarks are bordering on hyperbole and it's difficult to take comments like these - "the Police have been given even more power by the government so they can arrest you for just about anything - concrete fact!" seriously.
can practically arrest you for anything anyway. and i fail to see why ID cards are Orwellian and i think it's pretty self-indulgent to oppose them on that basis.
the government keeps changing the list of things that id cards will supposedly deal with. the plan has been floating around whitehall for years apparently. as peter lilley said - it's a problem looking for a solution.
not only is this solution not forthcoming, but the way that the bill has been worded and put through is sly, venal (allowing the sale of information to a vast range of other organisations) and by placing great emphasis on statutory instruments, evades proper parliamentary discussion when changes are made to the information on the register.
the government has misrepresented the scheme to the public, playing down the national identity register, hence the 'it's just a card' feeling that many people have. no other nation in europe has the sort of system that has been mooted.
and easy as it is to say it, it has some truth - why trust government IT projects? it's not a 'blah blah anti government' sort of point to make. it's just pragmatic. they always go over budget and they always break. much like my id card will when i snap it in half and lob it over the fence at downing street.
He can suck my cock. Actually, no he can't, cos I wouldn't purify his face with my bell.
Where did the ridiculous idea that he was 'good, apart from Iraq' come from. That's so fucking stupid it makes me shit.
First off, 'Iraq' is a fucking massive issue, that was totally fucked up and can't be set aside, as it pretty much defines his leadership. Secondly- STUDENT LOANS. A lot of people on here are probably too young to have been interested in politics when he became PM, but he really sold himself on the youth vote, and 'the youth' swallowed it. Student Loans are one thing, that was probably coming anyway, but the tuition fees thing is bang out of order. Ever heard of 'college funds'? That's what people have in countries where they KNOW University education isn't free. I didn't need one...and then all of a sudden it would have come in pretty fucking handy if I'd had twenty years for my parents to save, rather than no years notice.
I hope he rots in hell, and I'm sure he will. Cunt
Yeah, like I said, student loans were coming anyway...but I did an 'unofficial year out' whatever the fuck that is...if I'd have just gone straight from school to uni, I would have got a grant for three years, and not had to pay any fees.
I think that is enough of an explanation of my rage
blair helps all single mums, spongers, immigrants and tramps and lets us middle class people suffer. more taxes, higher uni fees, gives free housing and benefits to overseas people and encourages people that they are better off without a job, at least you pay bugger all tax
why are people so deluded.
employment has gone down cos we are hiring eastern european people.
you're either arguing quite pettily or, if you honestly think you couldn't have come up with a very long list of things needing reform, i don't believe you.
of any social strata he has upset more than middle england. I for one will be sad to see him go. I thought his announcement today was going to be a trick and that he would say "I have decided to stay for another term"
New Labour's propensity for bureaucracy and overcomplicating everything, and their insistence of campaigns and initiatives actually upsets me far more than their policies...
that Radio 1 felt the need to broadcast two messages of that same sort of thought. I'm all for free speech but I don't want to hear some uninformed idiot shouting about something that chances are, he knows little about.
Because i'm trying to take a rational look on a man, rather than one influenced by people throwing words like "murderer" and "criminal" about?
Blair is obviously neither of those. Iraq was handled terribly, but its not as if it was an easy task for anyone.
If youre looking for a villian, G.W. Bush is probably the closest youre going to get, And because of the relationship between america and Uk, Blair HAD TO go along with it, to some extent.
Obviously Im not saying invading iraq was the right thing to do, and to be honest, I dont know what the right thing would have been, but I do know its more than a black and white issue. It's not as simple as one man ordering an invasion on a country.
we are under no obligation to host american armed forces bases or join in any wars with them. if they tried to say anything different, international opinion would be entirely on our side.
You're simply wrong. Iraq was invaded for no good reason (plenty of bad ones.) The UK CAN and HAS said no to such a thing before. It was called Vietnam, it went on for bloody ages, in the end the US lost and all the while none of our soldiers were getting killed. And that was back when the USA's nuclear superpower status was (almost) all that was guaranteeing us protection from the USSR.
there was no "fuck you" there were words of support and so-forth, but, primarily due to public opinion (which was Oh-so keen on Iraq remember)no troops went.
I'm not looking for a villain, but Blair shat all over the Labour party, has pissed on what remained of the post-war consensus after 18 years of the Tories, and then not only invaded Iraq on false premises but refused to resign because of it, when he was either a) lying or b) incompetent. Then the preening cunt clings to power long enough to make sure that his own messianic ego can be satisfied with a 10 year reign.
But thanks for pointing out that it's not a black and white issue, I'd never realised before.
All I said was that he been made out to be some sort of evil villian by the general public, when really its more complicated than that.
And there are examples of all the good shit he did elsewhere in this thread.
I think you're probably buying into his whole "I did what I thought was right" schtick. If you do what you think is right and it turns out to be horribly, horribly wrong, then resign. Otherwise you are a git. And a evil villain.
It would'ave been much worse for him to jump ship and leave someone else to deal with it.
And its not like it suddenly went from "right" to "wrong" in a flash. Parliament was for the war at the start.
It devalues the whole system if you can behave so incompetently and then say "Whoops! Try again". He acted on false information and made a decision that even the most uninformed of people could see was a bad idea. If he knew the information was false he was a liar = Resign. If he didn't know it was false then he was incompetent = Resign.
But it was his idea to make them independent in the first place - it can't be a coicidence that the period he was in charge of the economy it performed so well.
I read a guardian piece the other day congratulating gordon brown on increasing the value of british exports - something for which credit should be given to finance ministers abroad. But, y'know...
do you argue for the way things are because you like it, or just to point out the rationale behind peoples' decisions in order to counterbalance everyone else just being h8ing h80rz?
and good point, but it still winds me up when we ship cheap lager to europe and get back cheap lager with a different name on the bottle but that's just as gash.
Tony's ill - his life in doubt.
"It's his heart," they said, "Feels like it's giving out".
He was admitted to the doctor's care
but when they opened Tony up, it wasn't there.
The radiologist fainted to the ground,
while all the surgeons, open-mouthed, gathered around.
They prodded and poked, craned their necks to see
the big old hole where a heart should be.
"Where the hell has it gone?
Where the hell has it gone,
can a heart fall apart when the hard work starts,
or was he born without one?"
Word spread fast down the corridors,
about the empty ribcage still alive in one of the private wards.
They phoned the experts and called up his medical files,
while in the carpark a spokesman issued a firm denial.
Within an hour, the Secret Services arrived.
They locked the doors and sealed the building before checking he was alive.
"Tony's fine," they said, "He just drank too much beer.
Stitch him up," they said, "We're taking him out of here".
But how the hell is it done?
"How the hell is it done
a medical miracle, a gift from God,
or is he an alien?"
"You will never speak of what you've seen
and you will sign this piece of paper before we let you leave.
Not only your career you buy with silence tonight:
a secret like this is worth more than your family's life."
"Where the hell has it gone?
Where the hell has it gone,
can a heart fall apart when the hard work starts,
or was he born without one?"
...he said that prosperity had markedly increased in his ten years.
For those of you in a job rather than at work...
1) Hands up if you could have afforded to buy a house 10 years ago?
2) Hands up if you could afford it now?
I could go on, but basically under a government that purports to be centre-left, the cost of living has gone out of control for most of us and a small number of people (those in the city, legal or housing professions) have become minted. Nice.
Certainly he allowed far too many Thatcher-instigated trends to continue for my liking, but lest we forget the good stuff he did. It's a pity the "special relationship" and the ridiculous middle England rhetoric about "civil liberties" will overshadow the minimum wage, consistent economic stability, constitutional reform, etc. (IMHO there are loads of less high-profile stuff-ups on his CV that far outweigh all the Bush-bumming anyway.)
At any rate, whatever the guy's myriad mistakes may have been, we've been far better off under him than we will be under a David Cameron government. A prospect which scares the living crap out of me.
TB probably is as bad as all that, but I'm so bored of people going on about bLIAR (clever!) that i tend to stick up for him. Plus, he talks like my dad. apparently.
.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a269/ehwhat/YSN.jpg
Then get a pro to do it!
Hitmen never miss!
^ LOLOLOL
Where's he gone then?
(-_-)
He's standing down.
I wish people would shut up about the whole lying thing. Sure Iraq went wrong, but its not as if he had much choice. He's a cool guy.
Take away the Iraq situation
(which is a pretty big thing to do I kinow), and he was a good Prime Minister.
^zactly
if i wasnt ill
i would take more time to disagree, but TB did loads of bad shit as well as iraq, along with good stuff too, but he wasnt amazing.
I said good
not amazing. I am well aware of his faults, but overall, bar Iraq, I feel he did a good job.
fair enough
but i felt i couldnt vote for labour by the last election. but then im just stupidly left wing.
Well it was either him or
micheal howard et al. I know who id vote for.
This is true
when faced with the choice of Howard v Blair, there's only one winner. I do feel Blair has done a decent job on the whole (not going anywhere near Iraq), but there's a lot of issues on which I disagree with him. Top up fees, City Academies, the gradual privatisation of the NHS for example. And the fact that he's had to rely on Tory support to push through some key bills in this parliament show that he's marginalised some traditional labour voters in order to claim the centre ground.
^ 5
top up fees convinced me he was on the wrong track.
i hate the ever increasing consumerism in the country too.
also: people think it's all me me me , not we we we.
there's three main parties you twat!
Yeah
cos Iraq's only a little thing isnt it?
And if we forget student fees and selling the NHS off through the back door, amongst many others, then yes - he was a good Prime Minister! :-/
I really don't want to get into this
this early in the morning. Let me have a cup of tea first.
...
"selling the NHS off through the back door"
what?
bumming the PFI
bollocks
PFI? Lying about climate change? Fucking up the economy? ID cards? Effectively making protesting illegal?
absolute cunt. I hope he chokes on his leaving champagne.
Not to mention
coming down on the side of schools with a pro-creation agenda.
yes but..
what about minimum wage, devolution of powers to Scottish Parl and Welsh assembly, lowest unemployment in 29 years, civil partnerships, banning handguns, overseas aid doubled, strong and stable economy?
Sure,
we would never have got those things under the Tories, but the bad outweigh the good by a deathstar sized margin.
peace
in northern ireland...
Iraq was handled badly
but its not as if he had a choice to be involved or not. It's not as if he could'ave been like
"Hey George, about this iraq thing: I'm not really diggin' the whole "freeing a nation" thing, and I'm questioning your motives for it all.
Keep sending the money and shit. Thanks for mcdonalds.
Signed, Your friend, Tony x"
Yes he did have a choice forchrisakes!
and he made the wrong one! The evidence for the instigation of a totalitarian society is all around you at the moment and you're still crying 'Poor Tony!'
I fucking hate Blair and new Labour! They've screwed it for everyone and thanks to them making such a pigs dinner of everything, we are most likely to have Cameron in number 10 very soon. Yeah, cheers for that! self-serving cunts!
cameron in number 10?
i'm still waiting for his policies.
Politicians with policies?
now that would be something!
...
"The evidence for the instigation of a totalitarian society is all around you"
hahaha
be quiet
you tool of political correctness and red tape!!!
house prices will fuck the economy
this is a thread requiring jacob jones.
...
lying about climate change and fucking up the economy? i don't understand these at all.
and why would you hate a prime minister for a policy he has only speculated about but not introduced (ID cards)?
Speculated about?
He's confirmed that they WILL happen, has funded the technology development and released a rollout plan!
the
ID cards act does all of that but it does not demand the introduction of a compulsary ID cards scheme. I bet it won't happen.
Anyway, it's not such a bad idea if it can be done for a reasonable cost...
yes it fucking is!
and the act makes passports and driving licenses 'designated documents' - compulsion by stealth. sneaky fuckers.
if it was cheap,
why would it be bad?
post below
basically it won't achieve anything, the IT will break, i resent the way that the government has tried to put it through, and the wording of the Act and the powers it assigns are so vague as to be very easily appropriated by future, less 'benign' governments. it is an arrogant measure which looks like they thought 'we'll be in power forever, we're not fascists, sorted'.
almost makes me want to let the tories in. i can deal with this brand of conservatism in principle, i just don't think it works.
and of course, not forgetting that
the onus is on you to say why they would be good. and i don't think you'll be able to.
The man basically did one properly good thing
he banned foxhunting. But fucked doing it up so badly that the torys will be voted in and bring it back.
He also negotiated historic
peace in NI and brought in Civil Partnership and the Gender Recognition Act. These are all very good things.
He did lots of bad things too.
NI wasnt really up to him
he was a bit shit at that. Civil partnership would have had to have come in anyway, tories would have just taken longer.
and
the minimum wage, and state funding for childcare places, increased maternity leave, low unemployment, spending on key public services blah blah blah.
Thats already been done JacobJones
see, looks a bit weak next to all the Big-Bad-Shit they've done doesnt it?
But you clearly think 1984 was a good blueprint for the future so i guess im pissing in the wind, right?
you're funny
good work x
if you think
you live in a totalitarian society, then you've obviously not read 1984...
Yes i fucking have!
Dont twist my words JJ! - all i said was there is plenty of evidence of this country going down the Orwell path, even if we're not in it - yet!
Like it or not, ID cards are defo coming, the Police have been given even more power by the government so they can arrest you for just about anything - concrete fact! and thats before we get into any of the 'Anti-Terror' laws that have been put in place.
I find it deeply disturbing that someone of your age appears not to be bothered by any of this.
Yes but
laws which are passed that overstep the mark from a Human Rights perspective are deemed incompatable with the Human Rights Act and Parliament has to think again - see Law Lords rulings in the last few years re anti-terror legislation. That's part of the checks and balances job provided by the judiciary to some extent.
Oh and who brought in the Human Rights Act?....
Whilst by no means am I a great Blair or Labour supporter, your remarks are bordering on hyperbole and it's difficult to take comments like these - "the Police have been given even more power by the government so they can arrest you for just about anything - concrete fact!" seriously.
the police
can practically arrest you for anything anyway. and i fail to see why ID cards are Orwellian and i think it's pretty self-indulgent to oppose them on that basis.
leaving orwellian out of it...
the government keeps changing the list of things that id cards will supposedly deal with. the plan has been floating around whitehall for years apparently. as peter lilley said - it's a problem looking for a solution.
not only is this solution not forthcoming, but the way that the bill has been worded and put through is sly, venal (allowing the sale of information to a vast range of other organisations) and by placing great emphasis on statutory instruments, evades proper parliamentary discussion when changes are made to the information on the register.
the government has misrepresented the scheme to the public, playing down the national identity register, hence the 'it's just a card' feeling that many people have. no other nation in europe has the sort of system that has been mooted.
and easy as it is to say it, it has some truth - why trust government IT projects? it's not a 'blah blah anti government' sort of point to make. it's just pragmatic. they always go over budget and they always break. much like my id card will when i snap it in half and lob it over the fence at downing street.
Blairs government has started a talking cctv camera
initiative.
so
Blair is Mayor of Middlesbrough now?
yeh
he wanted a bit less pressure
All of this is irrelevant
Look at the photo they used in the BBC report. Oooh, look at him....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6639945.stm
Looks like Smeagol. Or the grinch.
http://web.mit.edu/sharplab/P30/Grinch.jpg
That's why he's well cool.
From a personal point of view, he's the only prime minister I've ever known, So it's gonna be pretty weird when he goes.
.
http://www.nights.ro/images/music/producers/photos+/aphex.twin.jpg
^
Better
bf
He can suck my cock. Actually, no he can't, cos I wouldn't purify his face with my bell.
Where did the ridiculous idea that he was 'good, apart from Iraq' come from. That's so fucking stupid it makes me shit.
First off, 'Iraq' is a fucking massive issue, that was totally fucked up and can't be set aside, as it pretty much defines his leadership. Secondly- STUDENT LOANS. A lot of people on here are probably too young to have been interested in politics when he became PM, but he really sold himself on the youth vote, and 'the youth' swallowed it. Student Loans are one thing, that was probably coming anyway, but the tuition fees thing is bang out of order. Ever heard of 'college funds'? That's what people have in countries where they KNOW University education isn't free. I didn't need one...and then all of a sudden it would have come in pretty fucking handy if I'd had twenty years for my parents to save, rather than no years notice.
I hope he rots in hell, and I'm sure he will. Cunt
Keep your opinions where they should be kept.
In MY thread.
i couldn't really give a fuck
about student loans, but the top up fees were a pretty shit idea fo' sure.
bf
Yeah, like I said, student loans were coming anyway...but I did an 'unofficial year out' whatever the fuck that is...if I'd have just gone straight from school to uni, I would have got a grant for three years, and not had to pay any fees.
I think that is enough of an explanation of my rage
we were sold the idea
that student loans were going to be interest free. We had a big meeting with the LEA etc and were guaranteed this. What a crock of shit.
They are interest free
innit.
..
interest on a student loan = RPI inflation
practically interest free.
practically interest free
isn't the same as interest free though.
you think
you should have a loan which benefits you financially over the long term?
not the point
if the words 'interest free' are bandied about, the loans should be interest free. if they aren't, fine. they were. end of.
They're low interest.
bf
They stopped sending me notes about it, but it was £200 a year or something last time I looked. I haven't paid off a PENNY!
Carumbia here I come!
they shouldn't have SAID interest free
if they aren't. in line with inflation or not.
Er, Tony will appreciate your comments but,
this is DiS, not Number 10.
yes oh sure
blair helps all single mums, spongers, immigrants and tramps and lets us middle class people suffer. more taxes, higher uni fees, gives free housing and benefits to overseas people and encourages people that they are better off without a job, at least you pay bugger all tax
why are people so deluded.
employment has gone down cos we are hiring eastern european people.
:,(
^ that was supposed to be me crying on your behalf
why don't you sell one of your 'six guitars' if you're hard up?
you cunt
"tony blair has worked his balls off"
god bless live tv.
haha yeah I saw that
Could only be better if tony blair does the Vs to everyone whilst saying "fuck you'se guys, im off"
He's a good man
It's a shame this parliament has been an utter farce
Blairs priority has always been
staying in power
With the majority he had in 1997 he could have totally reformed everything.
But he just wanted to please middle England...
Reforming
everything isn't always the best thing to do you know
When you've been brought up by
a Communist in a post-Thatcher world you kinda think things need to be changed...
But that's just me.
'everything' is obviously an exaggeration
you're either arguing quite pettily or, if you honestly think you couldn't have come up with a very long list of things needing reform, i don't believe you.
i think that was true for the first
few years but since about 2002 I think he's known what he wanted to do.... and has upset middle england quite a bit
I can't think
of any social strata he has upset more than middle england. I for one will be sad to see him go. I thought his announcement today was going to be a trick and that he would say "I have decided to stay for another term"
I'm not tony's biggest fan
but he is a very very very good orator...
Indeed
Probably the best since Hitler
Yeah
That speach
(;_;)
Speech*
So was Hitler
Hitler
didn't manage to invade Iraq
He would have done
if he'd been in a US-led coalition.
Blair should
invade Poland. There's no one there
WWHFD?
Pardon
What
would Hans Frank do?
Kill Anne
My dad met him a few times and he just couldn't believe him
Prancing around like he owned the place and grinning at everyone....
N.B. this was before he had any power.
wooooow
that was a good speech! im inspired! ill be holding my head up high as a member of the labour party!
it was nauseating
all this, I did what I thought was right..well it's a bit ONELEADERONELOVE innit?
insert dramatic pause
cast eyes downwards
puts hand on heart
YUCK
Why are you doing these things
whilst watching Tony Blair?
for my own entertainment
you should try it
I haven't seen it yet
He is awesome when being attacked
.
my friend just summed it up very well, "a brilliant politician but a terrible policy and decision maker."
His public speaking abilities are absolutely STUNNING though!
i think
'terrible' is too harsh an adjective
terrible
in the French sense maybe
actually
his word was "awful".
New Labour's propensity for bureaucracy and overcomplicating everything, and their insistence of campaigns and initiatives actually upsets me far more than their policies...
yeah
it's the idea that managing the media is the same thing as governing the country that pisses me off
so does that leave 'politician' as just meaning 'publicist'?
from a non-political point of view
it's the end of an era of sorts. It's kind of strange to think there's been the same guy in charge of the country from when I was 10 to when I was 20.
Yeah
like I said up there^ I'll be sad to see him go, purely because i've never known anyone else as PM.
He must want to go to Glasto
Listening to Radio One News
"He's been rubbish because all of these immigrants are in the country now and it's all his fault. i can't get a job or an nhs dentist!"
... Then Everything Is Average Nowadays and I threw the radio against the wall.
Anyone can get
a dentist though, it's just an excuse for those who are frightened
ha yeah I heard that.
"Here's a text from Matthew in Basingstoke: I hate tony blair because he took us into an unjust war and killed loads of people"
Why are people so uninformed? It's not completely his fault. He's not a pantomime villian.
this is true
it's the fault of the party whipping system and cowardice and shizzle. or alternatively, of people doing what they thought was right.
I was more pissed off
that Radio 1 felt the need to broadcast two messages of that same sort of thought. I'm all for free speech but I don't want to hear some uninformed idiot shouting about something that chances are, he knows little about.
...
I'm so relieved that you're not old enough to vote.
Why?
Because i'm trying to take a rational look on a man, rather than one influenced by people throwing words like "murderer" and "criminal" about?
Blair is obviously neither of those. Iraq was handled terribly, but its not as if it was an easy task for anyone.
If youre looking for a villian, G.W. Bush is probably the closest youre going to get, And because of the relationship between america and Uk, Blair HAD TO go along with it, to some extent.
Obviously Im not saying invading iraq was the right thing to do, and to be honest, I dont know what the right thing would have been, but I do know its more than a black and white issue. It's not as simple as one man ordering an invasion on a country.
'had to' if he wants to keep leeching weaponry off the americans
which i don't want him to do anyway. so 'had to' isn't very helpful.
Well yeah
But to an extent. There's no way he could'ave said "fuk u if u disagree" to the worlds superpower.
we have sovereignty over our own territory and our own army
we are under no obligation to host american armed forces bases or join in any wars with them. if they tried to say anything different, international opinion would be entirely on our side.
Yes_ no.
You're simply wrong. Iraq was invaded for no good reason (plenty of bad ones.) The UK CAN and HAS said no to such a thing before. It was called Vietnam, it went on for bloody ages, in the end the US lost and all the while none of our soldiers were getting killed. And that was back when the USA's nuclear superpower status was (almost) all that was guaranteeing us protection from the USSR.
Of course
there was no "fuck you" there were words of support and so-forth, but, primarily due to public opinion (which was Oh-so keen on Iraq remember)no troops went.
"HAD TO go along with it, to some extent"
...
I'm not looking for a villain, but Blair shat all over the Labour party, has pissed on what remained of the post-war consensus after 18 years of the Tories, and then not only invaded Iraq on false premises but refused to resign because of it, when he was either a) lying or b) incompetent. Then the preening cunt clings to power long enough to make sure that his own messianic ego can be satisfied with a 10 year reign.
But thanks for pointing out that it's not a black and white issue, I'd never realised before.
scatology aside
what do you do with your vitriol when not pwning yes_ with it?
Kick orphans
...
that's cool
You won't know until you've tried it
I suggest warming up on kittens.
in the microwave?
i like my violence a little less mediated
What's your point?
All I said was that he been made out to be some sort of evil villian by the general public, when really its more complicated than that.
And there are examples of all the good shit he did elsewhere in this thread.
Hmmm...
I think you're probably buying into his whole "I did what I thought was right" schtick. If you do what you think is right and it turns out to be horribly, horribly wrong, then resign. Otherwise you are a git. And a evil villain.
i'm not sure i buy the whole resigning thing
is it not better to hang in there and try to sort out your shit?
Yeah
It would'ave been much worse for him to jump ship and leave someone else to deal with it.
And its not like it suddenly went from "right" to "wrong" in a flash. Parliament was for the war at the start.
Gaargh
It devalues the whole system if you can behave so incompetently and then say "Whoops! Try again". He acted on false information and made a decision that even the most uninformed of people could see was a bad idea. If he knew the information was false he was a liar = Resign. If he didn't know it was false then he was incompetent = Resign.
I'm glad he's dead.
if it was up to you we would have pulled all the troops out immediately the badness of the decision
possibly leaving a worse mess.
If it was up to me we'd have nuked Iraq.
Then ourselves.
impartiality
i like that. you're hired.
I liked that speech.
All the 'Britain is the greatest nation on earth' shit is a bit uneccesary but yeah.
Fuck the haters
I appreciate him.
I like him.
.
"I will challange American sponsered terrorism"
.............
"I will be tough on sleze and it will not happen in my government"
.....
"I will not let MI5 Kill David Kelly and spin it as suicide"
what a complete arsehole
thank god he has gone
get ready for another tosser to replace him, Brown
Why do people not like Brown?
He has run the economy independent of Blair for 10 years and it has been consistantly stable - much better than then boom bust crap of the Tories.
how much
of that hs been down to him, though?
I'm sure the bank of england had a hand in it.
But it was his idea to make them independent in the first place - it can't be a coicidence that the period he was in charge of the economy it performed so well.
haha
it was a lib dem idea. but good on him, i'm not partisan.
but what does it mean for the economy to perform well? give me a breakdown of how it makes people happier.
creates
jobs
what about,
y'know, other countries?
I read a guardian piece the other day congratulating gordon brown on increasing the value of british exports - something for which credit should be given to finance ministers abroad. But, y'know...
also, who gives a toss?
most of it we don't need to be exporting anyway. we do direct swaps of so many identical 'branded' commodities. it's shit.
yeah,
but it creates taxable value
whoopee for that then
i can't figure you out
do you argue for the way things are because you like it, or just to point out the rationale behind peoples' decisions in order to counterbalance everyone else just being h8ing h80rz?
i don't know if i like it
i suspect there's no alternative.
incidentally, taxable value can be used to fund things that are worth funding.
what is your motivation for working in politics?
and good point, but it still winds me up when we ship cheap lager to europe and get back cheap lager with a different name on the bottle but that's just as gash.
my
motivation for working in politics? probably that i'm shit at everything else?
why are you good at politics then?
does it not require SUPERSKILLZ?
He seems to me to be far more interested
in improving the country than Blair, who has always been pre-occupied with foreign affairs. Wars and Europe.
Before the war in Iraq He was in poll position to be some sort of president of Europe, now everyone hates him.
Tony's heart by chris t-t
Tony's ill - his life in doubt.
"It's his heart," they said, "Feels like it's giving out".
He was admitted to the doctor's care
but when they opened Tony up, it wasn't there.
The radiologist fainted to the ground,
while all the surgeons, open-mouthed, gathered around.
They prodded and poked, craned their necks to see
the big old hole where a heart should be.
"Where the hell has it gone?
Where the hell has it gone,
can a heart fall apart when the hard work starts,
or was he born without one?"
Word spread fast down the corridors,
about the empty ribcage still alive in one of the private wards.
They phoned the experts and called up his medical files,
while in the carpark a spokesman issued a firm denial.
Within an hour, the Secret Services arrived.
They locked the doors and sealed the building before checking he was alive.
"Tony's fine," they said, "He just drank too much beer.
Stitch him up," they said, "We're taking him out of here".
But how the hell is it done?
"How the hell is it done
a medical miracle, a gift from God,
or is he an alien?"
"You will never speak of what you've seen
and you will sign this piece of paper before we let you leave.
Not only your career you buy with silence tonight:
a secret like this is worth more than your family's life."
"Where the hell has it gone?
Where the hell has it gone,
can a heart fall apart when the hard work starts,
or was he born without one?"
In his farewell speech
...he said that prosperity had markedly increased in his ten years.
For those of you in a job rather than at work...
1) Hands up if you could have afforded to buy a house 10 years ago?
2) Hands up if you could afford it now?
I could go on, but basically under a government that purports to be centre-left, the cost of living has gone out of control for most of us and a small number of people (those in the city, legal or housing professions) have become minted. Nice.
in a job / at work
wut?
you are right about houses though. the fact that they still call themselves socialist is laughable. restrictions on buying to rent FTW.
what's so
good about buying a house, anyway?
the alternatives are not having a house or renting
not having a house makes you wet and cold and miserable.
renting is pissing money into the maws of greedy twats.
Correct
...and renting now takes a massive wedge of your salary too.
therefore, buying
whilst not inherently great, is far better than the mainstream alternatives offered
you mean apart
from the fact that it's better than renting?
wut is hendon?
are you accusing jacob of being rich?
.
www.hendonfc.net
haha
i don't think that was the meaning
History will remember him much more kindly
than people are willing to at the moment.
Certainly he allowed far too many Thatcher-instigated trends to continue for my liking, but lest we forget the good stuff he did. It's a pity the "special relationship" and the ridiculous middle England rhetoric about "civil liberties" will overshadow the minimum wage, consistent economic stability, constitutional reform, etc. (IMHO there are loads of less high-profile stuff-ups on his CV that far outweigh all the Bush-bumming anyway.)
At any rate, whatever the guy's myriad mistakes may have been, we've been far better off under him than we will be under a David Cameron government. A prospect which scares the living crap out of me.
you used the word myriad correctly
how beautiful
ridiculous middle england rhetoric?
are you saying there's no need to be concerned, or just bemoaning the fact that people aren't talking about the economy any more because of it?
anyone watching newsnight?
funny thing is,
TB probably is as bad as all that, but I'm so bored of people going on about bLIAR (clever!) that i tend to stick up for him. Plus, he talks like my dad. apparently.
well at least we will never need another TB jab
*shoos himself*
i see what you did there
and i like it.
can you enlighten me as to how exactly i shooed myslef?
i kinda forgott?
i'm thinking...
it involved striking yourself in the head with a shoe. hence the memory loss??