A socialist Margaret Thatcher?

i doubt that an old-form labour party is any more achievable than an old-form tory party

what do you/they mean?

I don't believe he doesn't lack beliefs, but unlike Thatcher he'll be more likely come to a compromise rather than stick dogmatically to an ideology. The most surprising and dissapointing things about his pro-war stance is that he held it so rigidly in face of intense criticism. Before he'd fudge things for fear of alienating the new (as in first time) Labour voters. If he'd shown the same fibre over things such as clause 18 or foxhunting as he has over Iraq, he'd be thought of as a truly reforming leader and nobody would be talking about him as a spent force.

Sounds like a case of he's "damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't": either he's too stiff and unwilling to compromise (ie. with the unions) or he's seen to compromise too much. Isn't the idea of a politician to come to the best solution that he/she can make? (I can't stand most of them, but I do know that much.

I agree, he could have done better which the Hutton enquiry. However, he knows he isn't Labour's golden hope anymore. Perhaps he is just trying to get one of his policies approved before leaving office?

as with many others, I suspect, the whole thing surrounding Blair's involvement in the Iraq war (and the way he has stuck to his guns, as Billy says) has made me cynical and disheartened in a way I could hardly have envisaged a few years ago. in some ways though Blair's central fault (ie joining a war which was fought, among many other reasons, because of US resentment that Iraq was trading in euros not dollars, and still not seeing how this might impair Britain's immediate ability to be fully accepted members of the eurozone) is the fault of much of British culture and society since PoMo took over: the belief that it is possible and/or desirable to square what would once have been regarded as unsquarable circles.

in the end Blair / NuLab simply reflects its era for better or worse. he himself has "cultural loyalty to no one" (one of the best ever phrases to define what Britain is like Now and what it definitively *wasn't* like Then). we're stuck with politicians like him unless Britain makes a radical turn back to an earlier socio-cultural model; our best bet in my view is a less pro-US, less pro-war and more euro-friendly version of the same thing. whoever it may be, a "British Gerhard Schroder" (ie quasi-Blairite but more Americosceptic) is achievable, I think, *and* I'd generally agree with it; a "new Attlee" or "new Macmillan" is thoroughly unachievable, whatever soft spot my traditionalist side would have for it.

= A red herring with whipped cream dressing?

i was about to say this was absurd but then googled and found it a rather popular conspiracy theory although all stories seem to quote only one source- a mr. william clark who does not seem to posess any expertise on the subject at all. But he does have an aol mailing address and an inability to spell excerpt. a weakened dollar has already hurt europe and japan more than the us, the us economy is larger than the next three biggest economies combined so it could buy all of the excess dollars and not suffer any consequences. trading in dollars is safe, no one is forced to do it, just that since wwii the us has been the historical safe haven.