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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 11:12:22 AM | There has been a lot of talk about Tony Blair's legacy these past few months. People generally enter political life to improve the lot of their fellow man (I accept that some use it to feather their own nest).
So, in view of this, I invite you to tell me three things that Tony has done which improved your life directly. Please don't include things like the foxhunting ban, because the law doesn't work and he didn't vote for it. Same goes for the smoking in pubs thing. I expect to hear from those with non-jobs in local government.
To get the ball rolling, here are mine;
1) ....can't think, give me a minute.
2).....still thinking
3) ....can I get back to you on this?
Over to you | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 11:15:40 AM | | No big fan of Blair either Gary (don't vote it just encourages them) or politicians in general but I think you are being a little harsh. Don't remember Mrs T being too popular in the 80's either so out of balance can we include the tories in this and ask what bloody any of them have done to improve our lives? | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 11:23:33 AM | I'm no fan of Tony Blairs either. But hat's off to him he's the bravest PM we've had in modern times. Plus he's never been afraid to do his duty.
I mean Jeez how many times has he got that woman pregnant - 4 - Oh God no you just couldn't. Coming at you with that big clowns mouth. I'd go playying tennis & fake a heart condition too. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 11:34:48 AM | Cheap labour in the form of illegal immigrants for our sweet shops and kitchens
sweat shops
oh and.....
nope oh yes
Think Day to Day and then say
WAR | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 11:42:10 AM | Why oh why would anybody want to be PM in this country, Our Tone got elected with 70% of the peoples vote, He's done more of his manifesto than most new Governments do and yet now everybody hates him! and it would appear even his mates in the cabinet would prefer to work for that Tw*t Brown.
Hands up I never voted for him, ever, but I reckon he's done a reasonable job considering what a load of moaning gits, we, the British Public are.
Seconds away....I'm ready | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 12:26:26 PM | I can only think of one. He ensured the US support of UK for the next 60 years.
If you are trodden, threatened or need a hand, all you will need to do is call. That isn’t much to the common person but to a nation, it can be handy. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 12:36:29 PM | Minimum Wage
Open All Hours for pubs
Foxhunting
I think you'll agree that those have made a massive difference to all of our lives!!
Can anyone actually tell the difference between Tories, Labour and the Lib-Dems?
I dont know which party has had more MPs caught with their trousers down? | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 1:41:06 PM | I'm not being harsh on Tony Blair, Basil, nor am I trying to compare him with previous administrations. I'm asking for your opinion on any benefit he has brought to your life.
Steve N, I wholly agree, Cruella isn't my cup of tea (she probably can't stand me, either). Leo, I think you need to check your figures - 70% of the electorate didn't vote for him at the last election. You forgot to mention the three requested benefits.
I'll assume that Checklist is being sarcastic, and, if I'm wrong, please correct me.
Tot, thanks for having a go. I did ask that foxhunting be excluded, for the reasons stated, so feel free to have another shot. I thought that the minimum wage came from the EU, so thanks for the correction, even though I didn't expect you to be on such a low wage. As for the all-day drinking, the chances of it affecting me are minscule, but it's your benefit, and noted. Now, whose round is it?
Piere, I get your point, but it doesn't benefit you directly. Another shot? | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 1:47:51 PM | | Think we're all gonna agree on this one. I even voted for him one time. Yep, shoot me now, lesson learned! | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 2:02:07 PM | You only voted for him once, and anyone can make a mistake.
Don't any ladies want to comment about this guitar-playing sex- machine (not me, Tony Blair) and his achievements? | |
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2Soxx
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Joined: 2/14/2006
Msg: 11 | |
| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 3:44:36 PM | 1) He kissed G Dub's ar$e (makes him a target for al Qaeda)
2) He pissed of the French (makes him a target for a militant French Chef)
3) He took the piss out of Putin over the plastic rock (Beware the remnant KGB Tony)
All three of these things may improve my life  | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 7:53:07 PM | After reading the posts in this thread..some of which are just `Ton` bashing..some funny..some not so. Well i`m going to throw my hat in the ring.
Firstly...I`m a Labour man..and a card carrying member of the T&G all my working life.
I think, before you can look at Tony Blairs legacy you first have to look the legacy that the Conservative party left Britain before Tony Blair was asked to form a government by the Queen in 1997. The Uk was left in a shambles, with the Conservatives selling off all our nationalised companies to the highest bidder in that huge privatisation drive that they initiated, British Rail, British Coal, British Steel, British Airways, British Telecom and British oil interests in the North Sea..national companies that your grandparents and parents paid for by the way. The Conservatives split the country right down the middle, they considerably widened the gap between the `haves and the have nots`. They made it illegal for Trades unions to stand up, on behalf of their members and disagree with what the tories were doing and how the working man and woman were being treated, we only have to look at the way they treated the miners and the dockers of Liverpool, I am talking specifically about Maggie ( I spit at this point ).And what they, under John 'the grey man' Major did to the transport industry. They, in 2 and half decades absolutely decimated the Industries that were around for centuries and were solely responsible for putting the Great in Great Britain and made our great nation the envy of the world in past and present times. They single handedly destroyed the NHS and the Education service, long before Tony Blair was even elected Labour leader after the late John Smith. All of us who are old enough remember those `Yuppy` days,were greed was the name of the game, and granted it allowed the 'ordinary' man and woman (how I hate that phrase, not one of us can be classed as ordinary) on the street to be able to own their own home, but it got to stage were greed took over and the property market went throught the roof, to the point were it couldn`t sustain itself and the property market crashed, causing those people who had bought, bought, bought to lose everything, and those 'ordinary' men and woman were caught in the negative equity trap and ended up losing their homes because they couldn`t afford to repay their mortages. I could go on, but this is a thread about Tony Blairs legacy.
Those privatisations have now come back to haunt the people of Britain, the ineptitude and incompetance of the Chief executives and managers of these now privately-owned companies are now plain for everyone to see, where they cut corners in the name of profit and put the safety of everyone at risk, and seen that as a justifiable, as they made more profit than they would with pay out in insurance claims. This is the Britain that Tony Blair inherited, and I personally think he has done a great job in trying to rectify that. The reality the fact that those nationalised companies are now in private hands is not something that Tony Blair could change or the country could afford to buy back, but what he has been trying to do is make them more accountable for the public money that they receive and they do receive a huge chunk of OUR money, Tony Blair and the Labour party never said that it would be easy and were honest when he and Gordon Brown said "well we may have to raise taxes to pay for it all", after all it is in the British peoples interest.
As for the Minimum wage, which we all know that in the eyes of a lot of firms and companies that has now become the MAXIMUM wage, the minimum wage by the way was brought in fruitition by the conservatives, not for the benefit of the low paid, but for maximisation of profit for Industry, Industries by the way, that all the then conservative ministers of state and MP`s were main shareholders or on the board or were guaranteed some quango at the end of their tenure, the unions at the time were and are still totally opposed to this as they foresaw that this would happen...HUH..so much for those nasty unions...eh.
As for cheap labour, well I call £5.05 cheap labour. And as a chef, i have seen my chosen proffesion be degragraded to that of office cleaners and bin men, not that i`m slagging off office cleaners or bin men, but I spent 4 yrs in college getting my City and guilds 706/1...706/2...706/3...far better by the way than those NVQ`s that the kids are learning these days...I worked bloody hard, with long hours, s hitty wages and hot sweaty working conditions to get where I have in my proffesion and I wouldn`t even get out of bed for the interview unless they offered at least £10 per hour, you go into the Jobmarket these days all you see is NMW...NMW...and this is indictative of all industries nowaays...and it is one area about Labour that i`m totally against. But I assume that the post was referring to the influx of immigrants..Again..another conservative legacy..Who signed the Maastricht treaty?..which lead to fall of the national borders within Europe, which meant you didn`t need a passport to cross from one mainland European country to the next, which has allowed illegal immigrants to basically come and go unhindered around Europe, I`1m not going to go into that topic as i`ve already posted my point of view in the 'topical debates' thread.
As for him kissing 'dubyas' a rse...actually it was/is the other way around, GB can`t even put one coherent sentence together without a team of speechwriters..and giving him a few days to rehearse it..and even then he has made a complete pigs breakfast of it...maybe i should change 'speechwriters' to 'scriptwriters'. It was printed in US papers and said publicly by US politicians that Tony Blair is the leader that the good old U S of A should have, and he has more respect amongst the people of the US than GB has.
As for p issing of the French...and the problem here is where?...We came to their rescue 60 years ago...at lot good British people never met their fathers or grandfathers because of the French, and they`ve been trying to punish us for it since...they are a bunch of slimy, two-faced, back-stabbing, arrogant FOOKs and should NEVER EVER be trusted....ALLEGEDLY....hehehe.
Now..as for how I have benefitted from Tony Blair. If you have read my profile, you most probably have seen that i`m from Belfast.
Well his legacy to me is the fact that he helped and in reality was the main broker of the peace treaty here and led the good, honest and decent people of Northern Ireland out of the dark times of the terrorist troubles, and bring us into the warm sun-rays that is normality of life, that you on the mainland have enjoyed, granted there have been IRA attacks on the mainland, but nothing compared to what was happening here. And unlike Margaret Thatcher he, through the late great Mo Mowlam was prepared to sit down with the terrorists, from both sides of the community and ask them ...right what is it you want?...and through his and Mo Mowlams endevours, along with the Republic of Irelands Prime minister (the Taoiseach) and Bill Clinton knocked out the memorable `Stormont agreement` with these terrorists and our politicians, who were bitterly opposed to each other. This legacy has far reaching consequence, for it has allowed me, to be able to bring up my child in relative peace and safety, without the threat or fear of terrorist bombings and shootings, and they were indiscriminate by the way, these terrorists didn`t give on ratsa rse who you were. Anyway......and i`m sorry for the length of this post...but this is an issue that I feel very passionate about....BTW....for those people who didn`t vote in the elections, no matter what political party you support, and you should be ashamed of yourselves,and you shouldn`t grumble about the how country is run then. Casting your vote is the one most important thing that you can give to your country and a right that you have, a right that many in the world are not free to express.....Hope that is the kind of thing you were looking for Gary and i`m sorry that there have been more than 3 things.....I`ll think i`ll take my hat back now.... | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/23/2006 8:09:33 PM | | you cant just say because britain was a bit fcuked up when tony got hold of it its not his fault that its in a shi tty state now,that like foster parents putting fags out on a childs eyelids because thats how it was always treated.The thing about polititians is ,they are all fcuking c0cks,im not keen on the royals but its about time we had a proper king.The british kind who gallops off into battle, kicks a*** and comes home to hang criminals before telling parliament what to do. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 1:09:47 AM | Bernard for king!!!! Make a nice change from having a German Monarchy.
OT Got to be honest still cant think of three clear reasons why TBs leadership has improved my life but doesnt mean I would vote Tory. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 1:33:41 AM | Personally don't think T.B has been that bad for our country
it cert could be a lot worse,imagine if the gay liberals or tory clown's were in charge!!
but there's is alway's remove for improving and i'm sure our next P.M
(Scot) Gordon Brown will take us to a new level!!.. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 1:56:46 AM | Thanks for taking the time, Bacchus, to reply. I only asked for three things that Tony Blair has done to improve your life. I only found one - the NI peace process, which allows terrorists to sit in government. However, if you feel that removing the violence from your streets is a benefit, then I accept that. Don't forget that the process was actually started by Major.
You raised several points that I cannot reply to, but here's a couple. Is the minimum wage an achievement which has benefitted you? You seem so angry about it, it's hard to tell. I don't recall Maggie banning trades unions, but I do know that she limited their power to intimidate their members. Surely that was a good thing?
Don't forget, Tony has effectively renationalised the railways. He did nothing to reverse Maastricht, and he signed Nice and the EU constitution. He gave away part of our rebate, thus denying Gordy money to spend on the country.
However, you seem to have missed the point of my thread. It was not designed as a place to air your views on previous administrations; I just wanted three ways in which Tony has directly improved your life. I saw one, not sure about another. Would you like to clarify in less than 50 words? | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 1:58:53 AM | | And Mr. Larrson, please feel free to list three of Tony's achievements that you have personally benefitted from. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 2:04:41 AM | Gary, OK checked the figures not 70% of the electorate only 70% of the electoral seats, but as we don't have Proportional representation it is nearly the same thing but I won't split hairs. And yep I did not mention the top three things that benifited me so having had time to consider which of the many things that has benifited me I choose.
1. Strongest currency in the world
2. Ban on Fox Hunting
3. Maintained British pride worldwide through strength of leadership.
All the above could be argued but I have assumed, maybe wrongly, that personal benefits are subjective and decided but the benificiary | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 2:24:49 AM | Thanks again, Leo, for taking the time. Just want to point out that the foxhunting ban was nothing to do with Tony,and that the figures for last year show that the ban hasn't altered anything. It has actually affected anyone, least of all, the foxes. Also, 70% of the electorate is not even close to being the same as 70% of the available seats.
Not sure what you mean by the strongest currency, nor how it is of benefit to you, unless you are an importer. Don't forget, our currency is not supported by as much gold as it used to be, following Gordy's sale of the century.
As for maintaining British pride, I'm not sure as to whether you mean among the Brits or other nations, or how that has benefitted you.
Look, folks, I know exactly was Tony's legacy will be, and how people of the 25th century will view him, unless he does something miraculous in the coming year. The object was to find out how he has affected you personally with something that he has done. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 2:31:09 AM | | Hey, Mwnci, I see you're having the same problem as I in finding three benefits from Tony Blair. I'm sure someone, somewhere will be able to assist. If Tot is on the minimum wage, and Bacchus survives on it, that's one, then there is the peace process in NI for him, that's another. Waiting for clarification of some more. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 2:32:19 AM | I think in a nutshell bacchus173 is saying that Blair cant salvage a sinking ship and due to all that has gone before it is sinking.
Consider the country as a house with a family in it, mistakes have been made so they all decide to do something about it, but the problems are not just how much money, its how each person handles there side of the family life, the damage has been accumulating for years the house not maintained the cars not been sensible the credit cards over spent the people expectant of too high a lifestyle.
The rot cant be fixed in an hour, nor can it be fixed by constantly changing the approach, a clear solid method has to be worked out an all parties have to stick to it, no matter how hard, in the end there will be an end to the problem.
This means all parties work as one 
The people of this country stop buying cheep imports and constantly wanting cheep goods with high price quality (you don't get it!!)
We nationalise the public utilities and allow them to make a workable profit that allows them to maintain themselves (Something they were not allowed to do).
Little point on the above, I think it is disgusting that we have to pay vat on Gas and electricity we need this to survive I don't see how we could survive without them yet we pay tax on them I think that was part of why the government has not gone to any length to re-nationalize them bang would go a nice little earner for them!!!
We stop this spiralling greed that is making homes more and more unaffordable.
It can take a couple of years to fix one household, so put this on the scale of a country then it must correspondently take many years. Not chance in Five I think.
Ironically I think part of our problem lies in the reason that we have the immigration problem in the first place, we are far too soft and there world is far too hard, we should perhaps start taking a dynamic interest in these butchers around the world who suppress the people and keep them in starvation while lining there own pockets. Once we were an example to the world in our strength and country management, our infrastructure was based on the common good not on money, maybe we should head back down that road and get the world once more to follow Great Britain after all we are the greatest! (Put the economics of the world and the people on the same level!) | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 2:53:32 AM | Garyzac -
1 - Scottish Devolution
2- Completion Of The Good Friday Agreement (got family living there)
3- Minium wage
That's 3.... | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 3:05:59 AM | I just think that all the PM's we have had, except perhaps Churchill have been given a bum rap can you think of one that the public still hold in high esteem? Politics is not for the faint hearted, I think the vast majority of people suppoted Tony Blair at the start of his prime ministership as they did with maggie, Major, Callaghan etc etc. People must realise that even a Prime Minister cannot please all the people all the time, I do think though that Tony Blair has stuck to his principles and done pretty much what he said he would and in my book that gets him a thumbs up, even if you or I don't agree with somthing he has done or is doing I don't think there have been to many bomb shells dropped on us compared to say maggie. Our saving grace is that we do have an electoral system that allows us to change things every four years if we want to. My orginal post said I can't understand why anyone would want the job of PM and this thread, interesting as it is, have enforced that view.
As for giving credit for acheivements you seem to suggest that all achievements are down to someone else, Fox Hunting as an example you say is not down to Blair, I don't think many PM's have had origianal ideas as pretty much any acheivement could be passed back, lets not give Maggie credit for the channel Tunnel lets give it to Napoleon! perhaps Blair will get recognition for the things he has started after he has gone too. | |
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| Tony Blair's Legacy
Posted: 2/24/2006 5:09:59 AM | Thanks for getting back to me, Larsson.
I didn't realise that you have to exist on a minimum wage, nor that, until it was pointed out to me earlier, that Tony was responsible for it. If both are true, then there you go!
The devolution thing won't be complete until it actually happens. As I recall, the Scots didn't vote for devolution, they wanted a devolved form of parliament, which they got. Now, I have no problem whatsoever with a nation deciding its own affairs, but that is not the case in Scotland. At present, taxes raised in England and Wales are used to fund the parliament, and there are a range of matters over which the UK government still holds sway. However, it could also be argued that the Parliament wasn't Tony's big thing, it was the Scots who wanted it. But that's splitting hairs.
As for NI, I, too, am pleased to note an end to all sectarian violence, and that the negotiations which led to the GFA were started by the previous government. Best wishes to your family over there.
Looking forward to a cracking game on Saturday. | |
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