[cycloon]

Historians are going to have a field day with this partisan discourse in a few decades time.

Blair is all liberals who all love fascists E Z MODE

[crabcakes_windermere]

This line of thought will last precisely as long as it takes for someone to milkshake Corbyn.

[visage]

Corbyn condemns all lactose based drinks equally.

[Winegums]

Corbyn already got punched by someone holding an egg.

[Biggus Robbus]

I just watched Blair with Andrew Neil.

Neil was on top form but Blair outmatched him. After this amount of time I forgot how persuasive Blair could be.

[youngian]

Blair articulates more solid opposition to Brexit on his lunch break than most of the shadow front bench can after three years practice in the job.

[Bones McCoy]

That's the sort of sensible talk that the Gammons hate.

[visage]

Yerbutiraq....

[read some orwell]

Good to see the big man back in the spotlight. I wonder if Starmer is taking notes. "Solidarity and sympathy with those in power" is the sort of sensible position he should be learning from.

[Oblomov]

Good to see the big man back in the spotlight. I wonder if Starmer is taking notes. "Solidarity and sympathy with those in power" is the sort of sensible position he should be learning from.

yebbutiraq!

[mattomac]

Isn’t that what Starmer has been doing?

[crabcakes_windermere]

I’m not against supporting the government if they are getting it right in a situation like the one we find ourselves in, but not sure of the choice of words either. Solidarity sounds like sticking by them against <enemy>, and any sympathy I have is somewhat tempered by the fact that there’s been clear mismanagement of the whole crisis, and the NHS has been being deliberately run down for years.

[Abernathy]

Just a note in passing that when I kicked off this thread 8 (yes, 8!) years ago, I did so on the basis of a report of Blair opining that going after "bankers" for their role in precipitating the global economic crisis was basically wrong. I was angered by what I saw then as his crass intervention, so much that I originally gave the thread the intemperate title "Jeebus, Tony, why don't you just FUCK OFF?". It's since been changed to something less gratuitously offensive.

However, it's instructive to consider the contrast between then and now. Now, I invariably welcome Tony Blair's interventions wholeheartedly, as, particularly during the recently-emerged-from nightmare of the Corbyn years, he was and is usually almost the sole political figure talking any kind of sense - on Brexit, and now the government response to the viral outbreak of Covid 19.

I was never a "Blairite". I did not vote for him to be leader, was uneasy about some of the stuff he did in government, and vehemently opposed his decision to get the UK embroiled in GW Bush's insane Iraq invasion. But you know what? With the insane waste of Corbyn's half-decade at the head of the party, and without really shifting my basic political principles or position at all, I seem, much like Roy Hattersley, to have become one.

[youngian]

However, it's instructive to consider the contrast between then and now

An unusually sober piece in the Spectator described Starmer as a conservative in the sense that he understands and respects institutions that separate powers that have come under attack from dimwit zealots and demagogue chancers. In that respect I have become a small c conservative who respects professionalism over fruitcakes like Cummings that wish to appoint judges.

[Bones McCoy]

However, it's instructive to consider the contrast between then and now

An unusually sober piece in the Spectator described Starmer as a conservative in the sense that he understands and respects institutions that separate powers that have come under attack from dimwit zealots and demagogue chancers. In that respect I have become a small c conservative who respects professionalism over fruitcakes like Cummings that wish to appoint judges.

Being the spectator, it'#s likely the article was sandwiched between ones by a zealot and a chancer.