Current Events > So U.K Residents..

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U.S resident here. Tony Blair is the only major U.K leader outside of Princess Diana and the Royal family I have ever really known.

He was pretty much everywhere during the 2000s. I only know that he was the Prime Minister and that's it. My questions.

What is the general consensus on Tony Blair?

What did you think of his time as prime minister?

Have your opinions changed on him overtime?

If you were too young at the time, what did the elders and adults think of him?

Also was there any relationship between him and Diana?

I could have seen them working together. Although, again, I know nothing about Blair so that might be me being foolish.

Bump for the late night or morning crowds.

Not from the U.K. so I don't know Blair too well, but I'll always remember him as a piece of shit and war criminal for his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

a-c-a-b posted...

Not from the U.K. so I don't know Blair too well, but I'll always remember him as a piece of shit and war criminal for his role in the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Basically.

From what I've picked up, he ain't no Thatcher but he definitely ain't no Churchill either.

Hmm, now that I do remember, he was part of the 2003 Iraq invasion.

Any military personnel in the U.K want to chime in? If you don't mind?

Tony Blair was massively popular before the Iraq War and until 2024 had the biggest Labour majority in Parliament and had a landslide win over the Conservatives. He introduced New Labour and moved the party towards the centre rather than being on the left ending over a decade of Conservative domination.

The Iraq War really tainted his reputation though and you'd be hard pushed to find anyone who has anything positive to say about him these days. I'm pretty sure there was no relationship, personal or otherwise between Blair and Princess Diana - he was instrumental in how the country and the royal family mourned Diana though.

No longer a UK resident but I used to be. These days hes mostly thought of as a warmonger/war criminal.

I used to live there. As others have said, today he is mostly remembered for his role in the Iraq war.

Blair came in on a wave of optimism and good will.

He largely retained that, until he became complicit in the WMD lies that were used to justify the Iraq War. He wasnt content with being Prime Minister, he wanted to be a statesman who did things on the world stage. Even if that meant committing war crimes.

He wasnt fucking Princess Di. He's famous for doing an 'in tune with the mood of the nation' speech when she died.

Like others have said, Blair is now mostly remembered for being the man who took Britain into the illegal war in Iraq on a pack of lies. He was widely characterised as the time as George W Bush's "poodle" and is still remembered that way. On the rare occasion pollsters ask the public what they think of Blair, the results are negative.

As for his government more generally, IMO it was awful. They did do some good things, e.g. ending legal discrimination against gay people and putting significantly more money into the NHS - but that money was put in through expensive (and pointless) part-privatisation borrowing arrangements that are still costing the taxpayer heavily to this day as we repay them. Despite supposedly being a Labour government, they were very right-wing, privatising public services even more than the preceding Conservatives had, deregulating finance even further than the Conservatives (which left Britain far more exposed than we could have been to the 2007-8 global crash), introducing authoritarian policing and so-called anti-terrorism laws using 9/11 as an excuse, and more.

There's a small number of people who still idolise Blair, but most people regard them as weirdos and cranks. Unfortunately those weirdos and cranks are disproportionately represented in the media, and among those who hold power in the Labour Party, of which they seized control again in 2020 by their leadership candidate shamelessly lying about who he was and what he would do; consequently that man, Keir Starmer, is now Prime Minister, and he lets himself be guided in everything he does by those Blairite weirdos.

I was young when he rose to power but at the time he was very popular and it was seen as a very positive step for the country. Now like others have said, hes mainly known for Iraq.

I remember a lot of people complained when they found out he went to voice himself in The Simpsons but I cant remember why. Something to do with Iraq maybe

We can probably give Blair credit for his role in the Good Friday Agreement, if we want to be fair.

That was (literally) a big deal.

Warmonger

What is the general consensus on Tony Blair?

He was a snivelling weasel when he served and time hasn't improved my opinion. I will note there is a kind of social phenomenon that happens with presidents/PMs where years after their tenure people remember them more fondly for some reason, e.g. George Bush.

What did you think of his time as prime minister?

He did a lot of damage and capitulated to America too much. As others have said, the iraq war destroyed his reputation.

Have your opinions changed on him overtime?

Somewhat, but I still remember how weaselly he was.

If you were too young at the time, what did the elders and adults think of him?

He was too tory to be in labour and too labour to be a tory.

Also was there any relationship between him and Diana?

No idea and I don't care

I will also note that he went to a rival school of mine and they loved to bring this up, and we loved to slate them for it.

Surprised that TC didn't ask this on the UK board

He slunk off in shame. He still occasionally pops up saying something like "capitalism is good". It feels like most of the media has chosen to kind of forget that he still exists. But to be fair it was 20 years ago.

SgtBash posted...

Surprised that TC didn't ask this on the UK board

I think a lot of people dont realise it exists.

Glob posted...

I think a lot of people dont realise it exists.

I think I knew about it, but had forgotten it existed.

Also, since leaving Downing Street, Blair has concentrated on getting as rich as possible, making an enormous amount of money from consultancy work - which may not sound so bad, except that his clients include murderous dictators.

It's kind of amazing, in retrospect, how the Iraq War became a singularly-defining issue for politicians who were in power at the time.

Here in Canada, Jean Chretien and the Liberals were in power and, despite being fully supportive of the US in the Afghanistan campaign, when Bush asked for support for Iraq, Chretien basically told him to go piss up a rope. This was, of course, painted as cowardice and an abject betrayal of our allies by the Conservatives of the day (who then sheepishly had to try and distance themselves from their previous statements a few years later when the war was going south).

Probably about 10-15 years ago now, with Chretien's term now well in the rearview mirror, I heard him at a speaker's symposium with every living former PM in attendance (I was mildly disappointed that Chretien and Martin somehow avoided coming to blows on-stage). There were questions from the audience and one that was directed to him was to list what he felt was his "biggest moment" in politics. He actually gave three answers, but the last of them - and the one he said he was personally the most proud of - was his decision to say no to Canada's participation in the Iraq war.

It was the biggest applause line of the entire evening.

darkknight109 posted...

It's kind of amazing, in retrospect, how the Iraq War became a singularly-defining issue for politicians who were in power at the time.

I find it amazing that it wasn't even more so. Blair was re-elected in 2005 (though with a much smaller majority) when British soldiers were still killing and dying in Iraq, though that was largely because the Conservatives (who also supported the war) were still in a state of absolute hopelessness.

Thanatos_the_Great posted...

Like others have said, Blair is now mostly remembered for being the man who took Britain into the illegal war in Iraq on a pack of lies. He was widely characterised as the time as George W Bush's "poodle" and is still remembered that way. On the rare occasion pollsters ask the public what they think of Blair, the results are negative.

As for his government more generally, IMO it was awful. They did do some good things, e.g. ending legal discrimination against gay people and putting significantly more money into the NHS - but that money was put in through expensive (and pointless) part-privatisation borrowing arrangements that are still costing the taxpayer heavily to this day as we repay them. Despite supposedly being a Labour government, they were very right-wing, privatising public services even more than the preceding Conservatives had, deregulating finance even further than the Conservatives (which left Britain far more exposed than we could have been to the 2007-8 global crash), introducing authoritarian policing and so-called anti-terrorism laws using 9/11 as an excuse, and more.

There's a small number of people who still idolise Blair, but most people regard them as weirdos and cranks. Unfortunately those weirdos and cranks are disproportionately represented in the media, and among those who hold power in the Labour Party, of which they seized control again in 2020 by their leadership candidate shamelessly lying about who he was and what he would do; consequently that man, Keir Starmer, is now Prime Minister, and he lets himself be guided in everything he does by those Blairite weirdos.

This is accurate. Blair was Tory-lite and didn't do enough to counteract the negative impact from so many years of right wing government. BUT his govt. did something very significant for families with the Sure Start centres which were aimed at very young children and had a very positive effect on health and well-being in poorer communities. Sadly, funding was cut by later Tory governments and most centres closed. As is common - right wing governments preach about the importance of families but rarely do anything positive to support children.

He was head of the Labour party.
A major reason he got into and stayed in power was that the Conservative party was filled with arguments as to whether to stay in the EU or not (divided parties do not tend to win elections).
He won one election on a campaign that seemed to mock the head of the Conservative party for being bald.

Tony Blair was known for his obsession with "spin" (paying spokespeople to relay half-truths, etc to deceive the public and make him seem a lot better than he was was while he insisted he was honest). Doing this in the build-up to war with Iraq contributed significantly to his downfall.

While in power he undermined the Conservative Party's ability to act as opposition by copying their policies and pointing this out whenever anyone in the Conservative party tried to object (and denying it the rest of the time).

His own response to concerns from the public regarding the EU was to promise to give the public a referendum on matters relating to the EU (such as the single currency) but not actually providing any such referendum and in doing so built up resentment to the EU leading to the Brexit vote.

He was always a Tory in disguise rather than proper Labour, but he was by and large doing okay for the first few years (God Friday Agreement, gay rights, crackdown on hunting). Not great, but not disastrous.

Then Dubya got in and Blair went mask off, became Bush's lapdog, and took us into Iraq on false pretences.

The bad massively outweighs the good, and he is rightly remembered with scorn for it.