[Closed] A question about Blair

For the record Labour did not cause the global financial meltdown.

They helped enable it with certain de-regulations of the financial markets that allowed the effects of the US led financial melt-down to affect the UK markets.

His tenure as PM was a bit hit and miss overall for my mind. Took the Labour part over to the right and removed any potential for there to be proper opposition between parties.

I was in local govt at that time and the budgets afforded to us allowed us to do some really good things that were decimated when the coalition got in.

Allowing PFI to become a thing for funding public buildings will have a long term negative effect and leave a long shadow.

Oh and the wars 👿

Please no don't go there.

He lied through his teeth and took us into what is generally accepted was a illegal war.

That's not what the Chilcot Report said. It said he failed to challenge the evidence properly not that he lied. As for the legality, that's not remotely 'generally accepted'.

geetee1972 - Member
He lied through his teeth and took us into what is generally accepted was a illegal war.
That's not what the Chilcot Report said. It said he failed to challenge the evidence properly not that he lied. As for the legality, that's not remotely 'generally accepted'.

He was fortunate that our economy was in good shape during his tenure, so its pretty difficult to get much wrong in those circumstances. As we keep being reminded....Its all about the economy!

As we keep being reminded....Its all about the economy!

He has Gordon Brown to thank for that. Might not have been a good PM, but he was a very good treasurer and economist

Did you see him on telly the other day?

Despite all his enormous wealth, he didn't look like a man at one with the world, did he? He looked haunted.

I wouldn't want to be where he is. He says he doesn't feel responsible for all those deaths. His appearence says otherwise.

He was acting FFS trying to show how sorry he was.

He doesn't mope around like that all the time

The smoking ban was good The hunting ban was good but I'd happily shoot the foxes that crap on my veg bed.

Might not have been a good PM, but he was a very good treasurer and economist

Brown. He declared the end of boom and bust - that didn't work out so well. He was responsible for regulating banks and financial services at the time when no-doc self certified mortgages went nuts. He pusueded the profitable and generally well run Lloyds Bank to take over the bust Halifax-Bank of Scotland thus crippling them as well.

OP Blair did a decent enough job, introduced fhe minimum wage. Delivered 13 years of a Labour government. Kept taxes at a sensible level. Hindsight has shown that keeping Brown away from being PM was the right call.

Well, so far as I'm aware, he didn't have sexual congress with a deceased farm animal.

Next.

Blair knows that his "legacy" is that war, he knows that nothing he does or did before, during or after will amount to anything other than footnotes. He will be discussed and studied in the future about his conduct over the series of events that led to the Iraq War, in the same way for instance: that generals in Ww1 have been condemned forever about their tactics (ie with little more than contempt)

I think that's sufficient for a man like him .

Minimum wage and tuition fees
Smoking ban was a very good thing
trying to remember what else

Faith schools bad
Academies bad
Increased funding of NHS good
Increased privatization of NHS bad
Rimming Murdoch bad
Deregulation of Banking bad

Freed us all to gamble our pittance away

Free museums and art galleries.

Took Labour so far to the right that Ed Milliband and Theresa May became indistinguishable.

Blair and Brown managed to convince themselves that they had fixed boom and bust so that caused them to go on a spending spree and decimate our structural deficit - spending way more than we were earning, for 10 years, so when the global financial meltdown occurred we had nowhere to go other than the borrow more cash to manage our way through the recession. We're now in a situation that despite having reduced the structural deficit by a third under very tough austerity measures that inevitably hit the poorer the hardest, we're still spending more than we earn every year and still having to borrow billions just to service the nations debt. So the financial legacy Blair and Brown left us with was disastrous.

But other than that...and Iraq, I guess he did alright.

@wobbliscott - my thoughts entirely

Took Labour so far to the right that Ed Milliband and Theresa May became indistinguishable.

To you maybe 😉

Well, so far as I'm aware, he didn't have sexual congress with a deceased farm animal.

From a personal point of view he made 3 decisions (not big policies, smaller stuff) that directly made my life worse. Add on the bigger stuff he presided over cocking up and it's a "He was crap." from me.

Add in the fact his 'illegal*' war that led to the deaths of some friends and their family members (Military) and I would gladly take the prison time for kicking him squarely in the nuts, repeatedly, on national TV 👿

From a wider perspective he was reasonable, some good policies but not the best at getting them implemented.

* not yet proven but close enough.

I can't see past the notion that during a time of being able to reduce our debts cause the country was doing ok, they continued to spend and got caught short handed. It annoyed me even more that come austerity the labour argument was to borrow and spend their way out of the problem. It's like telling a addict they should do more of what they are addicted to to solve their problems.

Neither did anyone else. It was a trick used in America to discredit the opposition by putting out misleading slurs.

I wasn't suggesting that anyone else did have sexual congress with a deceased farm animal, I'm merely pointing out that for all Blair's unpopularity, I'm pretty confident that this is one area where he may be completely trusted. 🙂

Blair and Brown managed to convince themselves that they had fixed boom and bust so that caused them to go on a spending spree and decimate our structural deficit - spending way more than we were earning, for 10 years,

not really true though

the deficit (as % of gdp) was pretty much the same as its been for the last few decades

[img] [/img]

the money wass being pumped into things long neglected by the previous Tory governments, like the NHS and SureStart- one of the very few government innitiatives that directly helped improve the educational outcomes of the left behind communities, that the brexiters have benefited from

My question is, has he still got the Strat 😕

[img] [/img]

Oil production also has been a big factor in the UKs finances

(compare to the graph above of defecit)
*
[img] [/img]

*obvs does not = causation

its just a shame we didnt have a nationalised oil industry like Norway,m they got 3x the returns from their O&G sector we did with the same amount of resources

Blair and Brown did reduce child poverty, introduced tax credits and generally managed the economy pretty well. They were knocked for six by the banking crisis, as was every economy.

Brown even ran a budget surplus for a few years...

[img] [/img]

He played a part in driving the N.Ireland peace process over the line in the late 90s. It was something in motion throughout that decade, but could never have been reached 'completion' under a conservative and unionist government.
So once Labour cleared the Major administration out he kept the the momentum and signed the Good Friday agreement in 1998. So he probably had no involvement in shaping the events that created the peace process, but given how intractable a problem it was there was still ample opportunity to make a bollox of things when labour came to power in 97. But they didn't, and he and his government acquitted themselves well.

I have worked through the Thatcher Blair era and met him at a business event prior to his first election win, everyone in the room including a lot of typical Tory voters loved him? He just freaked me out of didn't get him then or now? He just about created today's aspirational middle class and via the public sector created a lot of very well paid jobs for that group of people . He completely ignored the plight of the old working class and their home towns as they were not cool britannia. Thatcher broke the unions and the working class completely and utterly- Blair ignored it not sure which is worse. He is a classic sociopath (we have argued this before but he ticks far too many boxes) and truly believes he is and was a higher power - this is demonstrated by his continual repeating of the world is a better place without Sadam Hussain and his obsessive drive for personal wealth. In old working class banter "he is not a full ticket"

Blair and Brown managed to convince themselves that they had fixed boom and bust

To be fair to them both, pretty much every western politician pre 2008 had managed to convince themselves this was true, it wasn't unique to those two.

To be fair to them both, pretty much every western politician pre 2008 had managed to convince themselves this was true, it wasn't unique to those two.

No one realised quite how devious the investment banks had become with their new invention of collateralised debt, basically take sub prime debt and mix it up with one or two good mortgages, rebrand it AAA and sell it on.

The blame for the 2008 bust lies 100% at the door of the banks...

Don't forget the family gold. Albeit all sold for a pittance by Brown but within the Bliar tenure. We don't have any gold anymore.

basically take sub prime debt and mix it up with one or two good mortgages, rebrand it AAA and sell it on.

That's not how it worked, it was done by tranching - the effect was clear to governments from money supply figures.

footflaps - Member

No one realised quite how devious the investment banks had become with their new invention of collateralised debt, basically take sub prime debt and mix it up with one or two good mortgages, rebrand it AAA and sell it on.

The blame for the 2008 bust lies 100% at the door of the banks...

Not 100%, a lot yes, but not all blame. The rating agencies should have looked at the CDOs more closely, non-financial industry investors should have looked more carefully, regulators should have looked more closely, home owners should have been better with their debt, mortgage brokers/estate agencies shouldn't have been so greedy.

The blame for the 2008 bust lies 100% at the door of the banks...

poopycock - if your don't learn the lessons from history you condemn yourself to repeating them. Banks represent the transmission mechanism between the central bank and the real economy.They are one part of a complex cog.

But if you flood the banking system with liquidity at a time of ultra low interest rates you will create problems for both the banks themselves and the real economy. Very good job that we leaned that lesson and are not repeating the same mistake.

mefty -intrigued by your MS comment (which i misread at first), can you elaborate?