The "say something nice about Tony Blair" thread

related to blair warner

his wife has sprained her ankle reaching for a hat at the back of a wardrobe

He rhymes with "pony hair".

Got rid of the Tories.

He's not Margaret Thatcher

though the resemblance is striking

Are you saying that the Members of Parliament in Scotland get minimum wage? That's fucking cool. I think all politicians should be treated like they're a step away from having their phone/hydro cut off.

He really believes in everything he says, this is also the scariest thing about him.

Good at keepy-uppy.

Decent economic policies, anti-hunting bill, won that bike race at the EU summit a few years back

Still knocking it home to Cherie without firing blanks despite all that stress.

Free entrance to museums. Charismatic. Licensing laws to change.

Got rid of hereditary peers. Renationalised railtrack.

Probably likes Dire Straits.

Anti-hunting bill. The topic's out in the open whatever.

Gave Jonathan Z a job at Labour HQ.

How do you know he hasn't got one already?

Hey, he's a "pretty straight kinda guy" remember.

No, personally I find Blair smarmy and disingenuous, but what the hell until the Gordon Brown coup it's him or Howard.

I'm not convinced he does believe everything he says. This nauseating, overwrought conviction of his is surely part of the act. I think that's the single biggest problem I have with him: I don't believe a word he says. He might actually have an admirable quality if he really did possess any integrity, but I'd need to see proof!

I think he largely believes what he says. Mind you, this might be because he's good at convincing himself to believe the things that are in his interest to believe.

His "believe me, guys, I'm really earnest" act is hokey and counterproductive, but doesn't necessarily mean he's a dissembler.

Michael Howard

No, in terms of policy, I genuinely feel that Tony Blair passionately and unflinchingly believes that what he is doing is the right thing to do. Even political commentators hostile to Blair concede this point. Whether this is to his credit or detriment is a matter for debate, of course (I believe the latter).

But does general moral conviction make him better than the other two strands of New Labour, the 'win power at all costs' approach as exemplified by Peter Mandelson, and the 'Labour by stealth' approach used by Gordon Brown? The latter is far more dishonest than Blair in terms of the disparity between what he says he is doing and what he actually believes - even if I basically agree with him far more.

I actually really admire how he obviously doesn't care about domestic shit, like the job of running the country is beneath him or something. I bet he has a huge in-tray that's filled with urgent papers that end up getting turned into paper airplanes, and his answerphone says "If this is a Cabinet Minister, you are now being rerouted to 1-800-ASKMEIFIFGIVEAFUCK" He sort of reminds me of Richard Nixon. "Whatever, I've got an IQ of about 3000, eat shit"

Which reminds me - the virtual decriminalisation of cannabis use.

'Which reminds me' - oooooohhh!!! Why you...(eats 5 doughnuts, giggles spastically)

I liked that one picture where you could see that the button had come off his trousers and he had fixed it with a paper clip.

Tony Blair may have bedded down with Dubbya with respect to Iraq and all the lies surrounding it....but at least one senses that Blair is talking the talk because he honestly thinks it's the best thing to do for England, the free world and, ultimately Iraq (I of course think he's full of shit)

Dubbya hasn't an ounce of sincerity about him. He did what he did because he took sides and the side he took was the neo-con side of his government. These are the ones that want to leave a legacy to the world...to reshape it in their own image....Bush decided it was the only way he'd be remembered in the history books.....unless, that is, he dropped trou like Wild Bill did..

You people in the UK seem to at least want your leaders to sound relatively intelligent.....even if they may wind up doing stupid things. In America, we haven't any such demands on our leaders....hence, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George W.

Do Americans really think Reagan was un-intelligent?

He has a fine set of teeth and went to a bloody good public school.

I can't prove it but I'd suspect that even a lot of his fans felt he was kind of an intellectual simpleton. They simply didn't mind as long as he took a positive view of America and its future. Americans were sick of Watergate, Vietnam, the Iran hostage situation, double digit inflation and the sense that perhaps we'd have to expect less (unlimited cheap energy, 2 cars in every garage, home ownership, etc.) Reagan convinced the convinceable that we were good and the Commies were bad, that welfare was for lazy people who didn't WANT to work and that if we gave more to the rich in the form of tax breaks, they'd invest it, create jobs and everyone would share in the wealth.

I don't completely discount the notion that much of what a President does is set a tone and that sometimes that tone can be set by rather simple sets of ideas. But Reagan was known to sleep thru important strategy meetings involving international affairs. His wife was known to consult an astrologer and she DID have Ronnie's ear. One time he was walking from the helipad and some reporter asked what he was going to do about a problem and you could hear Nancy saying to him, "We're doing everything we can"....of course, he said exactly those words to the reporter. On another occasion, a reporter at a press conference asked him a question concerning the possibility of an accidental missle launching from the US against Russia....he said, essentially, no problem, we'd just bring them back. Immediately after the conference, someone came out and "clarified" the statement.

The spookiest gaffe occurred when Ronnie began talking about his WWII experiences and they involved freeing survivors of a concentration camp. It, of course, never happened. He also mentioned a soldier friend of his who couldn't be traced. Eventually, the name was found as one of the actors in a Reagan movie. Did he lie or was he unable to distinguish the truth from fantasy? It IS known that his comments about his personal history bore little resemblence to its true nature. Some would consider it a plus that he made his early years sound much better than they were. A sign of courage, perhaps. But one could also suggest an inability to grasp reality.

I've not done a study of such things but I'd be willing to bet that if someone would do a study of the intellectual capacity of all US Presidents, Reagan would be down near the bottom. Did he have charisma? Evidently, yes. Was he likeable? Again, yes. Was he able to convey a world view and an American view that was easy to understand. Yes. Was he intelligent? Intelligent to get elected twice.