Tony Blair this morning

[LaLoose]

Did Tony Blair's four-step plan - explained on the Today Programme this morning - make clinical sense, does anyone know? And, if so, why the FLIP aren't we / all European countries doing it NOW???

Reminds me about when I listened to someone talking sense about Brexit a few years ago on Radio Four. I then found out it was Major and had some serious cognitive dissonance to resolve. I am now fantasising about how a Major-Blair coalition would manage this year’s challenges. Who would have thought it.

[quote GrumblyMumblyisnotJumbly]**@feelingverylazytoday* Mass testing of secondary school pupils and staff is a good suggestion though.*

But again not an original idea by TB many parents and teachers have been saying this from the outset of the crisis. The more voices that say it probably helps to move it up the agenda though.

@missyB1 the Blair/Brown years were undoubtedly the best period for public service delivery. It makes me incredibly angry that so many services have been underfunded or withdrawn under Cameron’s austerity regime.[/quote]
Blair and, mainly, Brown made the NHS sign hugely expensive PFI deals with private companies which nearly bankrupted some Trusts. Our local hospital had to close wards because it couldn't afford to run them as it was paying off a ruinous PFI deal.

I might have listened go the same broadcast Yummyoldbag. I remember thinking it was measured, balanced and informative. I was very impressed and then shocked to hear who it was.

I felt so prejudiced. Then again, the same political party have given us a fair spectrum of PMs.

@tanith
Sorry I forgot to reply. You asked about Blair's war on the disabled.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1471533/Blair-faces-revolt-over-plans-for-23-a-week-cut-in-disability-benefit.html

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/politics/2001/jul/05/politicalnews.politics

The Blair and Brown governments set us down the path that led eventually to the UN condemning us for the human rights failure of the disabled.

Blair's successors continued further down the road - but it was Blair that started it...beginning with scrapping the Department of social security and replacing it with the disabled erasing Department of Work and Pensions.

welfareweekly.com/tony-blair-destroyed-britains-faith-benefits-system-claim-researchers/

Researchers claim that during the 1980’s and most of the 1990’s the majority of people believed that benefit payments were too low, causing severe hardship among the poorest in society, and should be increased.

However, after 1999 a growing number of people adopted the view that benefits were too generous and should be cut. It was around this time that a resurgence in the derogatory ‘scrounger’ rhetoric, more akin to Dickensian Britain, began to resurface and has continued ever-since.

I had a similar experience yummyoldbag can’t remember the topic but was nodding along, then discovered it was Iain Duncan Smith!

I almost always agree with Tony Blair though, and proud of it.