What will Tony Blair most be remembered for? Leading Labour to three election victories or Iraq? The minimum wage or cash for honours? Have your say in my current poll which can be accessed HERE or via the sidebar.
It's got to be the Iraq war, if only because of the massive lasting consequences it will have both in Britain, on our armed forces and global deployment patterns, and on our standing in the Middle East.
Shame it's not multiple choice though, as I would have liked to vote also for spin and loss of trust in government (though I would have said 'cynicism about policics' instead, as I don't think most people had that much trust in government even before the Blair era).
Paul Maybe I'm being picky but I'm just a tad unhappy at how the question is posed. It would have been better, I suggest, to have presented two choices of good and malign legacies so that some balance can be established. Your poll looks a tiny bit too inviting to Blair- Bashers as it stands.
Disagree Skipper. I've listed what I would consider to be five positive legacies and five malign ones. That gives Blairophiles the same opportunity to list his achievements as it gives Blair-bashers to cite his disasters.
As it is, if the majority of people now think the latter outweigh the former, that's their choice. And while these polls are of course totally unscientific, I would also venture to suggest that the result thus far are fairly representative of the current state of public opinion.
It's the war, simple as that. Blair's only hope was that the troops would be withdrawn by the time he left office and that is clearly not going to be the case. Blair-bashing has become a national past time which is sad because, from an objective point of view, this Government has achieved some significant things alongside the blunders but Iraq has, rightly in my view, cast a shadow over Blair's entire record.
3. when the Catholic Adoption Agencies have to close
Perhaps Mr Blair's real legacy is his expressly anti-Christian legislation, with the Homosexual Orientation Regulations rammed through Parliament with minimal time or opportunity for proper or adequate debate and now disregarding the rights of Christians (Muslims & others) to practise their Religion/s
It is so reminiscent of Louis Quatorze's Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1689)
Paul, before looking at your poll, I'd say it would be: 1] the devastation to the society e.g. the move to the police state; 2] the naked, blatant lies told face to face, e.g. about the Bilderbergers.
There's one missing, Paul, and this I fear is at the heart of the corner that New Labour has painted itself into.
Put simply, it's rank bad management of the day-to-day functions of Government. By that I don't mean the numerous cock-ups or the generally crocked departments, but the hermetically-sealed process by which New Labour has arrived at policy decisions and then set up bent and twisted structures to implement them.
The worst example is the arms-length agency approach, a fatally flawed concept which, in one fell swoop, removes proper democratic oversight, ensures an inflexible, responsibility-phobic approach to doing the job, and usually means that when things inevitably go wrong no one individual will ever have had enough responsibility to carry the can (and perish the thought that that was ever the intention).
These agencies may have within them some fine and decent public servants. But collectively they have become a useless, self-serving mush that appears to do nothing more than soak up the ordure when the wonks decide to race off in another fine-in-theory, crap-in-practice direction.
It ceased to be amusing long ago. I see the result of these endeavours written on the faces of everyone from very senior Civil Servants to frontline teachers and my own GP.
The faces of ministers? I'm afraid no one from the department was available to talk to me...
(By the way, it's MorrisOx, not anon, increasingly frustrated at Google/Blogger accounts not working)
9 comments:
Dear Paul
How many jobs have disappeared because of :
1. the Minimum Wage
2. Cash for Honours allegations
Yr obedient servant etc
G E
It's got to be the Iraq war, if only because of the massive lasting consequences it will have both in Britain, on our armed forces and global deployment patterns, and on our standing in the Middle East.
Shame it's not multiple choice though, as I would have liked to vote also for spin and loss of trust in government (though I would have said 'cynicism about policics' instead, as I don't think most people had that much trust in government even before the Blair era).
Paul
Maybe I'm being picky but I'm just a tad unhappy at how the question is posed. It would have been better, I suggest, to have presented two choices of good and malign legacies so that some balance can be established. Your poll looks a tiny bit too inviting to Blair- Bashers as it stands.
Disagree Skipper. I've listed what I would consider to be five positive legacies and five malign ones. That gives Blairophiles the same opportunity to list his achievements as it gives Blair-bashers to cite his disasters.
As it is, if the majority of people now think the latter outweigh the former, that's their choice. And while these polls are of course totally unscientific, I would also venture to suggest that the result thus far are fairly representative of the current state of public opinion.
It's the war, simple as that. Blair's only hope was that the troops would be withdrawn by the time he left office and that is clearly not going to be the case. Blair-bashing has become a national past time which is sad because, from an objective point of view, this Government has achieved some significant things alongside the blunders but Iraq has, rightly in my view, cast a shadow over Blair's entire record.
Dear Paul
.... and how many jobs will be lost
3. when the Catholic Adoption Agencies have to close
Perhaps Mr Blair's real legacy is his expressly anti-Christian legislation, with the Homosexual Orientation Regulations rammed through Parliament with minimal time or opportunity for proper or adequate debate and now disregarding the rights of Christians (Muslims & others) to practise their Religion/s
It is so reminiscent of Louis Quatorze's Revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1689)
Yr obedt servant etc
G E
Paul, before looking at your poll, I'd say it would be:
1] the devastation to the society e.g. the move to the police state;
2] the naked, blatant lies told face to face, e.g. about the Bilderbergers.
There's one missing, Paul, and this I fear is at the heart of the corner that New Labour has painted itself into.
Put simply, it's rank bad management of the day-to-day functions of Government. By that I don't mean the numerous cock-ups or the generally crocked departments, but the hermetically-sealed process by which New Labour has arrived at policy decisions and then set up bent and twisted structures to implement them.
The worst example is the arms-length agency approach, a fatally flawed concept which, in one fell swoop, removes proper democratic oversight, ensures an inflexible, responsibility-phobic approach to doing the job, and usually means that when things inevitably go wrong no one individual will ever have had enough responsibility to carry the can (and perish the thought that that was ever the intention).
These agencies may have within them some fine and decent public servants. But collectively they have become a useless, self-serving mush that appears to do nothing more than soak up the ordure when the wonks decide to race off in another fine-in-theory, crap-in-practice direction.
It ceased to be amusing long ago. I see the result of these endeavours written on the faces of everyone from very senior Civil Servants to frontline teachers and my own GP.
The faces of ministers? I'm afraid no one from the department was available to talk to me...
(By the way, it's MorrisOx, not anon, increasingly frustrated at Google/Blogger accounts not working)
He will be remembered for the fact that Blair is an anagram of Bliar, and for the fact that he is known as "son of Thatcher"....
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