Big confession: I think Tony Blair is great and wish he wasn't going - am I COMPLETELY on my own?

[chestnutter]

Sorry, I know it's really fashionable to hate him but I think he's been a great PM

meant 'the first election I could vote at'. I didn't stand for them!

I like Tony Blair as well

I just think no-one can last long in politics without going out of favour however good they are - they are surrounded by people who are always jostling for power themselves, plus a constant media scrutiny - none of this favours the status quo.

I don't know much about history but I do know that Winston Churchill, great cigar-smoking symbol of British strength, was heavily defeated in an election in 1945 - I know there were other factors there but I think also that it's another example of how no-one lasts long in politics, they're the great fantastic thing for a while and then they crash

I think Tony Blair has always acted with integrity. I do honestly believe that. I've watched a lot of interviews with him and I believe that he honestly thought he was doing the right thing in Iraq and that someone needed to make a decision and carry the can.

I think he's a principled man even if his principles don't always accord with others, and I admire that immensely. The speech he made the other day to that think tank jobbie after the news about him going was very. very intelligent.

I'd have him for another three terms, I really would. I think the alternatives - tory or labour - are just unbelievably crummy

I like him aswell, will be gutted when he goes

And yes I find him attractive aswell and Bill Clinton swoon

I think he started with all the best intentions...being in that job must change you though and the combined poor judgement over the whole Iraq thing forced him in to a cover-up and broke his spirit. It has to prey on his conscience. Think Gordon Brown will fail though and that Cameron will be our next leader because people want a change.

Boris you bimbo

we're trying to have a serious debate here

go off and play with your hair accessories

feck off coffehead

i can fancy Tone if I want to

true, Boris, you can

he is one of your most good-looking paramours

I am still more in favour of TB than against, but I have severe reservations about his relationship with Bush and the way the UK has been dragged into the Iraq war. I'd hoped that he would have been more pro-Europe, but the US alliance has prevented this. But, surely anything is better than having the Conservatives back in - for all the touchy feely niceness of David Cameron (big change from what he was advocating before the last election) - a party that on the national level is solely concerned with self interest and making the rich richer.

urgh
I read ' sneeze and the covering up of it'

Cameron is my man

hubba hubba

and a stylish wife to boot

I rest my case.

I have sympathy for him. The labour party appear to be a bunch of back-stabbing ingrates at the moment. They elected him leader knowing full well that he would move the party to the right. They did it because they wanted to be elected. If they thought that after they came into power they would abandon the "new Labour" project and go back to the old left wing ideals then they were dishonest with the electorate and undemocratic - the electorate did not want old labour. Now the electorate is disillusioned, and they always are after a long period of time under one government, so Labour MPs are jumping up and down saying "it's not me, it's not my fault". Well, it is.

Er yes. He moved the party to the right, with the support of that party, who are now criticising him for doing it.

I fear for my television when...he....does his....speaches....with his....big pauses...for.........emphasis.....

and the hand wringing

And I am not a Labour supporter by the way. Old or New.

Cappucino, Churchill's post war election defeat was nothing to do with not being popular any more. It had everything to do with people emerging from the horrors of war with a determination to build a better, more equal world.

The upper and middle classes had been forced to spend time with working class people and this had done a great deal to remove prejudice and create an understanding of the injustice of society. Working people gained the confidence to say, we fought for this country, we should have some power over its future. That's what led to the foundation of the welfare state - never again would poor people die because they couldn't afford a doctor. Or women have to live with prolapsed wombs and no hope of treatment.

Sadly TB has betrayed the principles of the Labour movement which created the welfare state and fought for social justice. Because he's in thrall to the rich and wants to sell off our GP surgeries, for instance, to US owned multinational corporations. Coincidentally headed by his ex-health adviser, Simon Stevens.

The LABOUR PARTY have betrayed the principles of the Labour movement. They elected him.

But replace them with what? Not sure what Dave stands for, apart from lots of lovely photo ops, and happiness (?!), and stylish wives. I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer Gordon, and god knows I find him scary enough.

Alan Johnson has some nifty sunglasses....