If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Read the community guidelines before posting ✨
Options
Tony Blair: Longest serving Labour PM....
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
On Saturday Blair will become the Labour PM to have served the longest continous tenure as Prime Minister.
What are the achievements of his time thus far?
Personally I think New Labour have done well to maintain a strong economy (let's be fair, the economy was strong under the Major government). The creation of the Good Friday Agreement is also a plus. As are the Human Rights Act and (in some peoples eyes) the implementation of the minimum wage.
What are the achievements of his time thus far?
Personally I think New Labour have done well to maintain a strong economy (let's be fair, the economy was strong under the Major government). The creation of the Good Friday Agreement is also a plus. As are the Human Rights Act and (in some peoples eyes) the implementation of the minimum wage.
0
Comments
I aint got a clue, can you enlighten me ?
Personally I voted for Tony Blair.............It will be the last time !!
Can I ask why?
When Tony blair was elected I honestly thought he would try to make the North East a place to improve on. The unemployment rate here is ridiculous, we have large factories like Sanyo, Woodheads etc which have all closed. Since Tony Blair has been in power I think the north East has gone from bad to worse.
I am no better of financially since he has taken over, to be honest im actually worse off.
Why would I want someone in power who cant even look after his own constituency? No I do not like the man, I do not think he has made any improvement and I dont think he will.
Also after the recent war I also feel he did things wrong. So its a mixture of a few things that make me think its time he let someone new try to do a better job than he is doing at the moment.
I also think that as our Prime Minister he actually portrays himself as quite scruffy at times, to me a high profile figure as he is then he should smarten himself up. Ive seen him on televised interviews and he cant even have his tie done properly. Yeah i know its something or nothing but I beleive that he should show some pride in his appearence when he is portraying himself to countries worldwide.
He has cleaned up on a number of issues like transforming the economy and poverty isn't too bad either, the target of child poverty ending in 20 years is achievable, thousands of jobs created,a real breakthrough in the miniuium wage. Crime though is bad in this country, the country is fighting a lost war against drugs, education and the Nhs aren't the best around but they are good, children get schooling, get taught and most people get treatment at doctors and hopsitals.
Transport :rolleyes: diaster...railway system, deaths on the railway and it's still in turmoil.
The enviroment isn't doing too bad but Tony's trust in the British public is at an all time low so will he be elected next time? who knows?if not, who has the best chance of winning?
The wage that a person receives is generally determined by the market and is an agreement between an employer and employee. Of course there is minimum wage legislation but five pounds is too high in my opinion. As for 'easily affording luxiuries', well how do you define luxuries? Some goods cost more in the UK than in other EU nations (such as cars for example).
Interest rates will only go up if inflation rises. There are little inflationary pressures in the economy at the moment.
I a cynic regarding that though since not every instance of crime is recorded.
When people voted for Labour in 1997 they were looking for a new vision for Britain, a new political philosophy but instead they've got as one commentator put it "Thatcherism with a smile". Hence we end up with piecemeal measures but no coherent strategy which makes the government appear directionless and like nothing has changed.
The government is too frightened of losing their Middle England support but what they don't understand is that Middle England is the most fickle political constituency in the country and that it is more important to be respected by Middle England than to be liked by Middle England.
This country is going to the dogs.
Ok yes public services are poor but they've been poor for some time; it's only New Labour's fault in not improving them.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like Blair or New Labour but is there any alternative? The Tories are in a mess and for years have not been a strong opposition to New Labour.
Whereas before 1997 the country was just dandy?
Do you know that at the end of this financial year no patient will have waited more than 19 weeks for a first hospital appointment after being referred from their GP, and if they need surgery they will wait no longer than nine months.
In 1997 this wait was 18 months for each aspect.
Not that the Labour Party have done anything of course.
It's easy to be dismissive if you read certain newspapers, but the facts don't bear those stories out.
Yes Labour could do better, but it took the Tories 18 years to really fuck up public services, believe me it will take some time before they are back into any reasonable position. Changing Govt now will only delay that for longer as the new party will want to change direction...
However the country is not "going to the dogs" (what a phrase!- do you spend time drinking brandy in the Carlton Club with old upper class farts or something?) The economy is 10 trillion times better than any Conservative government, past present or future could have dreamt. There is certainly much more equality than in past Tory governments when the only people to benefit from the 'boom' periods were company bosses, speculators and city traders. The percentage of children under the poverty line doubled under Thatcher and the gap between the very rich and the rest of the population was never greater.
The public services are a mess but you should be asking the Conservative governments that were in power for 18 years on the trot and starved off essential services. The railways should have been given a steady investment of x billions every year, just like every other country does. But of course they weren't, and in fact the Tories totally neglected the railways during their last few years in power in order to justify a privatisation.
Today of course Britain has the worst railways in Europe and it would need at least 100bn to sort the mess out. Spain, a country with less wealth and GPD than Britain, has infinitely better railways and all because the government there ensures proper funding was given every year. And of course because they understand that public services must never be given to private companies to run.
Crime goes up and down in waves, and whereas it is true that gun crime is on the increase overall crime is actually coming down. It is also true that mobile phone "thefts" account for much of the crime figures. Police have complained that people who lose their phones are encouraged by phone companies to report it as a theft and get a new handset on the insurance. If we were to remove the mobile phone figures you would find out that crime is better than it's been for a long time.
And elsewhere Labour has introduced landmark legislation such as devolution, Lords reform and minimum wage. Those three things alone outweigh any Tory government in recent memory.
Still, I will never forget Tony's abandonment of left-wing principles, his love of corporate man, his right-wing foreign policy, his lies, spin and his outrageous war in the name of US imperialism and worthless 'special relationships'. For that alone I want him and his 'New' Labour chums out of office forever. The alternative is frightening though.
Luckily, Blair hasn't managed to do what he wants most, get us in the euro and hopefully when he will number 10 he still wouldn't have achieved that.
You know, that could have come straight out of a Richard Littlejohn column.
I won't dispute that the law has been abused by some people, but then it's those cases which are newsworthy and so those cases are the ones you will read about. You don't get to hear about the everyday ruling which are actually in your interests.
I'd agree with you there.
@ Aladdin. You highlight three policies which Blair has put through and which outweigh anything which the Tories offered over 18 years of Govt. So, inpite of the spin (which all parties are guilty of), the lies (ditto) and the "Outrageous war", what do the Tories really have to offer us except reactionary, ill thought out policies like before?
You can't tell me that they won't attempt to spin things, or that they will tell us the Truth (remember BSE...?) and there certainly insn't any evidence to suggest that a party which supported the invasion of Iraq would have acted any differently. So what is left?
The European Court of Human Rights forms part of British Justice.
Not true. Given that the economy grew faster under Major than it has under Blair.
Also this is probably the first Labour government EVER to have been considered economically competent. Few would say the Labour governments of the 70's and 60's were good stewards of the economy.
What this Labour government has given the economy is stability, and a fairer distribution of wealth. Something the Tories have never been able (or willing) to do.
FAO Mok,
I suspect that for some people the lying, the betrayal of every socialist and left-wing principle there is and going into an unjust and illegal war under false pretenses are not so serious issues. But they are for me, and whereas I am happy to highlight all the good things Blair's government has achieved I will never forgive or forget them for all of the above.
A semi-competent government could at least be credited with trying its best and giving it an honest shot. But here we have arguably the most competent Labour government in generations, but a government that chooses to throw everything out of the window and adopt this "trust me, I know best" attitude, patronises and lies to the electorate and betrays every other principle the Labour Party stands for.
Issues such as the exclusion campaign and ultimate expulsion of Ken Livingstone might be of little consequence to the public. But it was something that disgusted me to my stomach.
Not to mention their U-turn on public services and their embracing of PPP initiatives. Whatever happened to the re-nationalisation of the railways so eagerly promised in the 1990s? If anything they have pushed privatisation to levels the Tories would only dream of.
To me the best (albeit almost impossible) outcome would be for Blair and his New Labour right-wing cronies to stand down or be pushed out of office, and for real Labour politicians to stand for the next election.
Newcastle is in the UK.
I know the European Court forms part of British Justice, I just don't think it needs to.
Wrong Mono, actually the economy has grown faster under Blair than Major - or had you forgotten the early 90s recession? A few statistics about the economic competence or otherwise of our last five Prime Ministers.
GDP Growth
Wilson 1st term average rate of growth 1964-70 = 3.07%
Wilson/Callaghan 2nd term average rate of growth 1974-79 = 2.02%
Old Labour average rate of growth 1964-70; 1974-79 = 2.32%
Thatcher average rate of GDP growth 1979-90 = 2.06%
Major average rate of GDP growth 1990-97 = 1.8%
Conservative average rate of GDP growth 1979-97 = 2.08%
Blair average rate of GDP growth 1997-2003 = 2.67%
Unemployment - % rate (I have no data pre-1974)
Wilson/Callaghan 2nd term average % rate of unemployment 1974-79 = 3.7%
Thatcher average % rate of unemployment 1979-1990 = 8.3%
Major average % rate of unemployment 1990-97 = 7.9%
Conservative average rate of unemployment 1979-97 = 8.2%
Blair average % rate of unemployment 1997-2002 = 4.0%
Inflation - % annual increase
Wilson 1st term average rate of inflation 1964-70 = 4.4%
Wilson/Callaghan 2nd term average rate of inflation 1974-79 = 15.7%
Old Labour average rate of inflation 1964-70; 1974-79 = 9.6%
Thatcher average % rate of inflation 1979-90 = 8.1%
Major average % rate of inflation 1990-97 = 4.0%
Conservative average % rate of inflation = 6.3%
Blair average % rate of inflation = 2.3%
So let's look at what these statistics show us - growth was higher under both New and Old Labour governments than it was under the Conservatives. Unemployment was lowest under Old Labour governments and is lower under all Labour governments than it was under the Conservatives. Also that the low rates of inflation appraised to the Tories were actually not that low after all, however I will admit that they are a few points lower than under Old Labour - so does this reputation for economic competence hang solely on the 3.3% gap between Conservative and Old Labour levels of inflation? It would appear so. Also Old Labour and New Labour (for all its faults) didn't take this country into the two worst recessions since the Depression and didn't encourage uncontrollable credit booms at election times - hardly good economic management is it?
The recessions of the 1980's and early 90's were as a result global recessions.