Story here.
What next for the UK? Who will be the next PM? How will his or her policies differ from Blair’s? When will be the next general election?
What does this mean for Britain’s troop commitment in Iraq?
And what will Blair be remembered for? What’s his legacy?
Blair is a good example of why term limits can actually help US Presidents maintain their legacy.
If Blair would have stepped down earlier, he would be remembered as the person who restored the Labour party.
Now, he’ll be known as Bush’s lapdog.
At the moment The Economist and Wikipedia (below) expect the next PM to be Gordon Brown
About bloody time.
Yeah, Brown is 99% guaranteed to replace him, and always has been. I don’t think he’ll do a good job, and I’d prefer an election, but WAYGD?
I am just hoping that my apartment sale will go through before Brown gets in.
I intend shoving half the proceeds in a US$ account in the UK and just watching the £ slide.
Blair is a liar, but he believes what he says, Brown is something hard to describe, but the nearest I can get is Widmerpool in Anthony Powell’s Dance to the Music of Time.
He is a bogus economist, to me he shows poor judgement, and I can’t help thinking that he is clinically insane.
As a pissant under the thumb of Tyrant Bush, I’m just amazed that you’re unhappy with Tony Blair. I’d say the odds of your doing worse are significant.
He is a smug, self satisfied cretin
I see absolutely nothing to indicate any of that here. What exactly are you talking about?
Yeah, he’s a politician. Their job is to con you with promises they can’t or won’t keep, and delude you into believing that they are more benign than the cancer that preceded them.
I don’t know what Blair has done, but Bush has more regard for toilet paper than for the Constitution. The only so-called right we have left is that we don’t have to quarter British soldiers if they attack us.
In addition to selling the UK’s foreign policy integrity in order to ram his tongue firmly up the arse of “Tyrant Bush” for… what exactly? - he’s also brought in some of the most authoritarian laws this country has seen since WWII. And worse still - and this isn’t getting the negative publicity it deserves - he envoked the Parliament Act, twice IIRC, which overrules the Upper House and is a worrying trend for our democracy.
Doesn’t that make him not a liar?
I don’t think this is confirmed - I can’t find anything on the BBC site, and all that Google finds is assorted Blogs speculating on a story posted by The First Post which claims insider knowledge.
I’ll wait for the official version…
That indeed sucks. But will the replacement do anything about it? What will he do to make certain a PM can’t do that anymore?
Bear in mind FRDE. in my experience on these boards, lives in the kind of bizarro-world alternative reality UK that is the equivalent of Fox-USA.
Conservatives have been unable to come to terms with the fact that the UK has never been more prosperous and the economy stronger. Somehow it just has to be some sort of trick or illusion.
You see, economic, social and currency chaos (as witnessed unremittingly through the Thatcher and Major years) are GOOD things if done by the tories and prosperity and low inflation are BAD things if they transpire on the watch of any other political party.
Economic, social and currency chaos remain BAD things if they can be pinned on non-conservative politicians so since 1997 the sky has been on the verge of falling on our heads on a daily basis according to some segments of the media.
God knows I’m no fan of blair or Brown but the lengths their critics will go to damn them over stuff that is going as fine as it ever goes is amazing.
Like with Clinton in the USA there is a large segment of the media and their allies who view anyone holding power who is not a Conservative as illegitimate. That the country has undergone some sort of coup in 1997.
Britain is in the best economic shape it’s been in for 100 years. Compared to the 80’s and early 90’s it is paradise. Sure - they haven’t repaired all the damage to the social fabric caused by Thatcher. We live with legacy of broken communities, crime and drug abuse. And the components of the UK have developed new devolved constitutional relationships (and the Irish problem solved) without the sky falling in.
Within the tight confines imposed by a political consensus that is far to the right of the original postwar consensus on the Welfare State (which favours lower taxation) thay have made a pretty decent fist of things.
If they didn’t spend tens of billions on yapping along at Bush’s military heel they’d be doing much better.
New Labour have basically been better conservatives than the tories and the Express and Mail reading conservative rump can’t forgive Blair and Brown for that.
What? Ensure the democratic will of the elected House of Commons can be blocked by the politically appointed House of Lords with the permanent built in Conservative majority?
The Parliament Act is precisely intended for this situation. To ensure theappointed Lords cannot permanently thwart the will of the elected Commons.
Imagine the Senate as having a permanent Republican majority and the House of Representatives having to pass something three times and then invoke a ‘Congressional Act’ to get Senate agreement.
Has the Irish problem been solved?
When is the next election, and what are your predictions for it? From over here, it seems like the only party that would repeal the “authoritarian laws” (specific examples, please?) jjimm complains of would be the LibDems.
The House of Lords, even post-reform, remains the most undemocratic element in your system! (The monarchy is not really an element of the system any more.)
Ah. That would explain this, and posts following.
How, exactly? (And please don’t mention invoking the Parliament Act! :rolleyes: )
He means the devolution of some government to elected Scottish and Welsh assemblies. This process has gone further in Scotland and may go further yet if the Scots electorate want it.
For the next elections?
I predict a Conservative popular vote landslide translating into a comfortable 100 or so majority. Maybe less.
The mood of the country - which has been poisoned by Iraq and New Labour’s own sleaziness - is one of sullenly waiting to ‘get the bastards out’.
New Labour led us into an illegal war, New Labour has continued with tory economic policies like Privatisation and The Public-Private Finance Initiative. They love nuclear power and nuclear weapons. In ten years they have not been able to do everything but they’ve been the best conservative government this country has ever had.
The Irish Problem has essentially been solved - at least in terms of taking the gun off the table and cajoling the Protestants to be slightly less blatant in their supremacism in return.
From Iraq, to the extension of Public-Private Finance, there is little this govt has done that the tories would not have and won’t continue doing once in power.