Blair & Brown: The New Labour Revolution

zzzzz said:
The 'mistake' over Iraq should be held against him for the rest of his life.

It wasn't a simple 'mistake'. It was a wilfull disregard of intelligence, or the lack of intelligence, that lead us to war under false pretences.

As I said above, he's lucky he's not doing time for war crimes.
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War crimes is way over the top, most western leaders since 1945 would have been in jail on that basis. I think Blair believed that supporting Bush in getting rid of Saddam was the right thing to do for the country and Bush was going in whatever Britain decided. Blair thought he could influence Bush, this was his big mistake. Parliament (including most Conservatives) voted to go to war, the dodgy dossier has been over played and that was also a mistake on Blair's part. I honestly believe that Parliament would have voted to support Bush without the dossier, but Blair wanted to take his party with him too.
 
Ironops said:
We know lots of labour voters stayed at home in 2019 - polling indicates the main reason being Corbyn, although when Ive mentioned that before on here the Corbyn fans went mental and insisted it was the 2nd ref stance, which was a factor but not as much of a factor as dislike for Corbyn
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The voting population wasn't 13% higher in 2019 than 1997.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
So, in the election years:
97 - Blair received 23% of the total UK population.
01 - Blair 18%
05 - Blair 15%
10 - Brown 13%
15 - Ed. M. 14%
17 - Corbyn 19%

So you were right, Corbyn should have got more votes and he did. Well done. Also given that newborns take a while to reach voting age and many immigrants will not have the right or motivation to vote, the figures are even more impressive, don't you agree?
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why did you stop at 2017 and not include the 2019 figure?
 
Otto42 said:
War crimes is way over the top, most western leaders since 1945 would have been in jail on that basis.
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Who? Who went to war on lies?
Who went to war when there was no real evidence of a threat to their Country or a challenge on soveriengty?
 
zzzzz said:
Last time I looked seats got you in Government, not the overall number of votes.
Seats matter and Corbyn left with less than Labout had when he started.
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I was actually replying to someone who said that there were not enough people willing to vote for a socialist and i did point out that the spread of votes meant that not enough seats were gained. You must have missed that.
 
Why do people keep banging on about the number of votes Corbyn got at the last election?
He got less than Boris FFS! By a huge amount.
ITS THE NUMBER OF SEATS THAT MATTERS.

Tbh it just shows how desperate his supporters are.
 
zzzzz said:
Who? Who went to war on lies?
Who went to war when there was no real evidence of a threat to their Country or a challenge on soveriengty?
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Two British examples off the top of my head......Thatcher over the Falklands, particularly the sinking of the Belgrano and Eden over Suez.....Many French atrocities in Africa and Indo-China over independence also
 
Otto42 said:
Brown was always a little indecisive, see his reluctance to run for the leadership in 92 & 94 and the election that never was, probably unfortunate to be up against two charismatic figures in Cameron and Clegg in 2010, but even then his performance was on a par with Corbyn in 2017 and I imagine many former Liberal MPs now regret their coalition partners?!
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Wow, talk about bending the truth.

Brown:
Seats won 258
Seat change -91
Popular vote 8,609,527

Corbyn:
Seats won 262
Seat change +30
Popular vote 12,878,460
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
Wow, talk about bending the truth.

Brown:
Seats won 258
Seat change -91
Popular vote 8,609,527

Corbyn:
Seats won 262
Seat change +30
Popular vote 12,878,460
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How's that bending the truth? Brown won 258 seats and Corbyn 262.....Popular Vote is irrelevant in our political system.
 
There seems to be traits among politicians who have what they see as domestic success. The beginning of a belief in their self image as statesmen. Perhaps it’s domestic politics becomes ‘too easy’ The big ego must continue to be fed.
Initially seen as a brake on Bush…then pretty soon allowing the US dog continue to wag its British tail.
Heady stuff all this regime change garbage, but big money to be made, for the country and business.
And eventually yourself. It all worked out for well him in that respect.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
How do you work that out? Hundreds of thousands of deaths in an illegal war v. lining your own pockets (which Blair also did).
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“What I cannot and will not do is say we took the wrong decision ... As this report makes clear, there were no lies, there was no deceit.”

TB

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. He apologises and acknowledges mistakes.
 
Otto42 said:
Two British examples off the top of my head......Thatcher over the Falklands, particularly the sinking of the Belgrano and Eden over Suez.....Many French atrocities in Africa and Indo-China over independence also
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Which is why I said Sovereignty.
We had zero claim on anything remotely associated with Iraq.

601027 Iraq deaths. 179 British deaths.
Over a lie.
There were no WMDs and there never was.
 
Blair was right for Britain in 1997, but he changed when in power ansd made some major mistakes

Major errors on foreign policy invading countries looking for Bin Laden or non existent nuclear weapons

Not addressing enough structural issues in the British economy and so allowing income and wealth in qualities to get bigger. Also allowed too much gambling by the Banks that led to the 2008 Financial crash.

Allowing completing free immigration fron the New Europen states when every other EU country restricted it bar Sweden. This allowed the rise of UKIP imo.
 
Otto42 said:
Brown was PM, fighting against two popular opponents. Corbyn was leader of the opposition fighting against May and Farron.
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I don't hold Brown completely to blame for 2010 by the way. I thought that between 2008 and 2010 the Labour party as a whole just laid down and accepted all of the blame for the financial crash. It was not their fault but they showed absolutely no inclination to fight their corner. Brown was actually lauded in the rest of the world for showing the way out of the crisis. I liked him.
 
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