To wish Blair a speedy comeuppance

[Yes2014]

I don't think IABU but prepared to be argued with. The man has no morality and I don't think he is a force for good in this world. The news today just adds to the pile of dodginess.

*Yes2014 - I really feel he was the death of all hope for a decent, humane world, and the final triumph of a destructive ideology. Wanker!!
*

Absolutely. The Anti War demonstrations in February 2003 demonstrated the absolute contempt the Government have for the British people, and effectively dampened any hopes of living in a true democracy. The manipulation of the figures has been extremely crass. Organisers stated 3 million on the day in London alone. Police figures on the day were not that high, but certainly a lot higher than the 750,000 now stated. My parents were there, near the back of the demonstration, and were still over a mile from Hyde Park, with all the streets absolutely rammed with people, so many it was impossible to walk at more than a shuffle. That's a huge area, I can't do the maths, but it would take a lot of people to fill up that amount of space.

Each time the protest is reported it seems the figures get massaged down a little - in a couple of centuries it will probably be said that 2 men and a dog turned up to protest the Iraq War.

The idea of protestors as unemployed, shambolic, anarchic, so popular in the media after the poll-tax riots, was destroyed. But by ignoring the voices of millions of ordinary people, who ended up feeling disempowered and disenfranchised, the Government put a nail in the coffin of democracy. I feel it was one of the darkest days for our country.

And we wonder why people don't bother voting....

The News International trial may have the potential to undo several people, but then again I expect they'll all get away with it.
As with TB, what crimes has he really committed? (War crimes yes but no trial yet!! Moral crimes yes, but they're not illegal) and so on he goes, despite the fact we all find him so disgusting. Depressing!
Dunno about Deng but in Alistair Campbell's diaries they both come across a bit 1990s 'new lad'

worldgonecrazy it was the best/worst demonstration I've ever been on in that respect. The scale was incredible but where we were the feeling was more sorrowful/subdued than angry- I think that was because we had to shuffle! I swear I saw Kylie there!!
But the contempt for the people was also embodied in all the lies and spin- as if we were all thick proles who'd swallow anything.
The late 90s/00s were a weird time: war, image, spin, disappointment, credit cards!
But then again, Sure start and, erm?

I loathe TB & always have done. My DH & I had to turn off the news last night after we heard the Hutton report comment we were so annoyed. I too marched in London against the Iraq war. RIP David Kelly.

This thing is a bottomless pit.

What else will come out, fuck only knows.

I think Him upstairs will deal with Blair, I try not to wish anything bad on anyone even if they might deserve it.

I agree though, the UK will never lose the scars Blair and Brown inflicted on it (and it's not the only country that can say that). They heaped every kind of calamity on the bonfire of destruction they could get away with (without losing power), domestically, internationally, financially, constitutionally, and they have done more damage to the UK than almost anything since WWII. They have wrecked things that even, even the late 70s and early 80s left intact and they have done their level best to smear the destruction evenly throughout the whole fabric of the country.

The other lot(s) are literally no better. Whether they are weak+destructive or evil+destructive makes no difference at this point - they are a bunch of minor kings passing power around amongst themselves and pretending they think what are doing what is right, when really they are just doing what they want.

This all sounds negative, but actually it isn't. Liberated from the political system and the idea there are any principles involved, I am happier - a certain level of ambient disappointment that we have always lived with in this country has vanished from my life, and I just ignore the power-crazed bastards as much as possible, work hard, enjoy life and liberty, pursue happiness . When the election comes I may turn up to rip the ballot paper in half - if I have nothing else to do that day.

You all sound very silly and more than a little hypocritical, wishing such ill on ONE MAN fgs. He didn't do it alone.

Tony Blair was very dangerous in power because he has a strong belief that he is a "good man." Therefore any decision or action he takes must also be "good". Combine that with his powerful god/hero complex - bolstered by his being hailed a 'hero' in the Balkans intervention, made him a very dangerous man indeed.

He wasn't actually a labour man at all - the Labour Party was his vehicle for power. When you look at the policies and laws he tried to push through when he was PM, they were so politically far-right that not even Thatcher would have dreamed of trying to bring them in.

This was the time of the government taking us to war despite the majority being against war (and I suspect most of those who were for it had just believed Blair/Bush's lies). Then when it all went disastrously wrong - we were told "well, we are where we are."

Using the name of New Labour, he tried to bring in ID cards, chip away at civil liberty laws and introduced new anti-terror laws that make a mockery of our criminal justice system.

Blair's new laws leave us at the mercy of future tyrants

Why hypocritical Jack?

I would be interested to know if Murdoch s suspicions are correct!
I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

"Tony Blair was very dangerous in power because he has a strong belief that he is a "good man." Therefore any decision or action he takes must also be "good"."

I thought it when he "assumed power" and nothing since really changed that, I have literally no idea how anyone ever thought for one nanosecond that Tony Blair seemed sincere, or was concerned with being good.

It's no reflection on you, lots of people did, but it's like I'm running life on different hardware to other people or something, because everything about the man screamed at a thousand decibels "I AM LYING" every time he spoke, and had so many tells it was lolworthy.

He is/was always a sinister oleaginous little shit.

You've taught me a new word!

I remember being so unbelievably fed up with all those years of conservative government, that New Labour felt like a breath of fresh air. Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have thought he'd do what he did. He was a tyrant.

Sabrina, you are right. He wasn't a labour man. The whole New Labour strategy was a right wing joke, IMO.

The thread is about Tony Blair JackShit - you start a thread about any number of other politicians and PR people who surrounded him at that time and I'll happily denounce them as being slimy toads too.

JackShit

Please explain how we're hypocrites?

As SirChenjin has said, there were others guilty of going along with him but this thread isn't just about the war and the fall out.

He lied in parliament about WMD, remember the dodgy dossier?
The Bernie Ecclestone affair.
His expense claims were mysteriously shredded before others were published, odd that .
Cash for peerages.

I'm sure there's more.

youstay I'd forgotten most of those!

I actually clenched my fist in anger when I heard that extract from RBs email 'Hutton style report'. Well, if nothing else, the world has a new slang expression for a government whitewash eh?

DH and I were in Venice when dr d Kelly news broke and I recall exactly we turned to each other and said as one 'I wonder how they arranged that then?'.

I don't think there will be any comeuppance though, sadly.

I loved Robin Cook for standing up to Blair, I was really sad when he died.

I was a first year at Uni during the 2005 election and a lot of us in halls stayed up late to watch the election results. We were really hoping that Blair would lose his seat - we all booed when the Sedgefield results came in.

Oh, and of course Blair had David Kelly killed.

I want Tony Blair removed to the Hague where he stands trial for war mongering

Agree - he should be on trial at the Hague and at the High Court for war crimes and murder respectively.

I met a mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. They were a family with a long connection to the British army.

She could not reconcile herself with the fact her son did not have the right protective gear for the work he was expected to do and was killed by a roadside mine. It wasn't just an illegal war - our troops weren't equipped.

Needless to say she was a broken woman and I always think of her when more information comes out about Blair & Brown and their squabbles, power trips and lies.

All those devastated families on both sides - so so awful.

I don't believe that Blair directly ordered or requested David Kelly to be killed - he was too smart to leave any sort of trail.
But I do believe that he will have made it clear in the relevant quarter that Kelly was too much of a threat to be allowed to live.

From all that one can read, Kelly was a decent, honourable man who did an honest job for his country to the best of his ability - the very antithesis of the lying, self-serving Blair. I really hope there is a place reserved for Blair in hell.

Isn't he supposed to be a psychopath? I am sure I read that somewhere, I think a lot of people in power are