Battered Blair insists he will stay in the job

[Nottingham]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/09/28/1064687672116.html

Battered Blair insists he will stay in the job
By Peter Fray, Herald Correspondent in London
September 29, 2003



The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has vowed to withstand growing pressure within his party to resign as leader before the next general election, despite worsening poll results.

Mr Blair, who delivers his keynote speech at Labour's annual conference tomorrow, admitted he had been "battered" by the fallout from the Iraq war and opposition to his domestic agenda.

But, in a rare print media interview, with The Observer, he said he did not intend to "back off and back away", and indicated for the first time that he would like to serve a full third term.

Polls by several newspapers, timed to coincide with the Labour conference, have shown voter support for Mr Blair falling to record or near-record lows, and found the Prime Minister dramatically losing support within his own party.

more...

Well I guess its going to vote him out by the Liberals to get him out! WOW! :bounce:

[madrchsod]

1. i wonder where tony will

be hiding when georgie and pickles shows up to see the queen? his ratings within his own party is getting worse everyday and if he even "smiles" with georgie he`ll be toast. only british pride is keeping thier troops in iraq and someday soon blair will be forced to pull them out or back the un transfer of power. now we know why tony didn`t show up at the un....

[Frances]

3. I wonder what Bill Clinton will say

when he gives his address. I hope that he doesn't prop up Blair. I would so like to see Blair pay for his mistake by being forced out.

[AP]

4. Clinton actually says that Bush and Blair did the right thing.

He said that the president and the PM can't pick and chose which intelligence to believe, and that he had intelligence and he presumes that after 2001, there was the same intelligence suggesting that there was good cause to do what Blair and Bush did. He also said that Al Gore was the voice within his own cabinet who wanted to take out SH the most.

[Capt_Nemo]

6. And what about you AP

Do you think that bush did the right thing?

[AP]

7. I say he had no choice

better to go down for not being sufficiently liberal (which saves your party) than go down for being too liberal (which dooms the party).

Blair said that the problem with being a liberal is that it always ends in tears. He probably knows that Bush/Iraq was going to be the end of his government. His exit strategy is designed to protect liberalism and the party and sacrifice himself, rather than protect himself and sacrifice liberalism and his party.

Here's an example. Labour ended capital punishment in the UK. The Tories used an increase in crime (caused by social inequality) plus the capital punishment thing to smear Labour as soft on crime. It almost meant the end of the party. If Blair made a stand on Iraq, the US was going to sabotage the British economy and use the media to smear Blair as being a soft isolationist who'd rather stand on liberal principle than ensure Britain a say in global politics. Labour would have be slaughtered at the next election and for years. At least this way, Labour is positioning itself as being more liberal than the PM, and isn't jeopardizing its core principles.

[T_i_B]

8. Being too liberal dooms the party?

In actual fact you got your arse kicked in Brent East by the Liberal Democrats because you were not liberal enough.

Now Capt_Nemo's question again,

Do you think that Bush did the right thing?

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. TiB - you need a paradigm shift

to enter AP's world. In his universe, Blair is nobly 'sacrificing himself' for the greater good of the Labour party. He did 'the wrong thing' on purpose, to lull Bush into a false sense of security. He knew that Bush has complete control of the British economy and media, and that Bush would wreak terrible vengeance on Britain if it dared to cross him. However, if Blair supported Bush, and was then kicked out by Labour, Bush obviously wouldn't give a toss what Britain did, and leave us alone. It's incredible that everyone doesn't see this, because it's been well documented that Bush was going to sabotage the UK economy, hasn't it, AP?

Meanwhile, back in the real world, it's worth noting that bills to abolish capital punishment got passed by a Conservative-dominated House of Commons, as well as Labour (the Lords blocked it under the Tories). Capital punishment has not been a party political issue for decades, if ever.

[AP]

12. Muriel, I've said here before that the last rhetorical refuge of a ...

...scoundrel is to pretend that it's some sort of psychological problem driving the other side's argument. You see this all the time when the right wing has nothing left to say. At that moment they say, oh, you're crazy. Oh, he's just angry. All I'm relying on is facts and logic to draw a different conclusion than you and TiB have drawn. Therefore, all you have left to say is that it isn't logic driving my conclusions, it's madness.

Being that this is an anonymous forum, I'm not bothered at all. So, carry on, if that's what you got.

However, I notice that, in your mind, I wasn't mad UNTIL I started giving the links. Before, when I was just saying I think this or I think that, you pretended to be more diplomatic. Now that I'm saying, listen to what Kiesling says, listen to what they said on Democracy Now, read between the lines with Pallast, now, I'm mad. I should go back to just giving uncited opinion, so you'ld be nicer to me, eh?

You're also very funny. You think the RW doesn't have a lot of control over the media? You think the US doesn't have a lot of control over the EU economy? (It's lesseing daily, which is part of the reason this whole Iraq things is happening.) You think Bush doesn't prefer the Tories to Blair?

By the way, the capital punishment example is from Blumenthal's book. Take it up with him if you don't think it's a reason that Labour got trounced by the Tories. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm citing the fact that someone else agrees with me. I must be delusional. (Incidentally, I was speaking historically, so I don't know what kind of retort "it hasn't been an issue for years" is supposed to be).

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. The reason I waited until you gave links

was that it was possible you had information I didn't. When it turned out that you were making up scenarios without any supporting evidence, and pretending it was what Kiesling or the CIA analysts had said, I called you on it. Your take on Blair always seems to be that when something goes wrong for him, it's because of a conspiracy against him. Even when he says what the reasons for his decisions in Iraq were, you try to rationalise them in terms of sacrificing himself for liberalism.

Bush could try smearing Blair, and there are various newspapers in the UK who'd run with it, but trying to paint him as an isolationist over Iraq wouldn't have hurt him - there was obvious opposition to joining the war. I don't think the US government has much control over the UK economy - even with the ability to set US fiscal policy and laws, it doesn't have a huge amount of control over the American economy.

What book by what Blumenthal? If it's citing capital punishment and a thrashing of Labour, it must be talking about an election at least 50 years ago (not that I know that it was an issue then, it's just that it hasn't been since then). That's why I talked about 'decades' (note, not 'years').

[AP]

13. I think Blair did the only thing he could have done, and it was probably

the best thing, long term.

Of course I think it was outrageous to invade Iraq. I've said a million times, however: "rock and a hard place".

What I'm saying about saving the party is that if Blair leaves the party, he takes all the blame and the party can still stand for the things it believes in without have the Tories smear those basic principles as being out of touch with British attitudes (eg, being soft on crime tarred the entire party).

Had Blair and the party been unanimous in the sentiment that isolationism on principle was the right way to go, the Tories would have had a field day and the whole party would have suffered.

Brent East notwithstanding, if the heat gets to be too much for Blair and the rest of the party dumps him, the party can go forward on the same platform it has had without creating too much of an opening for the Tories. In Brent East the voters punished Blair more than they were punishing the party. If Blair were gone, Labour might have won.

I had a question for you which I don't think you answered. If a Democrat winning in 2004 meant that Blair would be able to give his viability the kiss of life, would you prefer to see a Republican win in the US so that things could continue to be difficult for Blair so that he'd lose in 2006?

[T_i_B]

15. I did answer your question in the other thread

It's just that you are too lazy to read my reply, just as you cannot be bothered to look into any given topic before you make your mind up on the matter. Here is my reply from yesterday.

As to your question, I want to see BOTH go. This is not an either/or question. Both Bush and Blair are corrupt and both are liars. Britain and America deserve better than Bush & Blair.

[AP]

18. Yeah, I'm lazy. Especially about reading about and responding to this...

...issue.

So, if Bush losing meant Blair remaining, you'd still want Bush gone, right?

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[sushi]

2. Bliar must go

Poor Tony Bliar

:nopity:

[EX-CONservative]

5. Can you say...

Prime Minister Charles Kennedy?

[Nottingham]

11. I really think Charles Kennedy is going to be Next PM!

Its being set up as we speak! :bounce:

[rjbcar27]

19. Kennedy has no chance.

The LibDems are at least 2 election cycles away from being electable. The biggest problem in the UK right now is that there's no really viable opposition.

No matter how much you think Blair is being sabotaged AP, the CIA can do all they like, but they can't make the Tories electable. Simple as that.

[AP]

22. That just means the RW will try harder and harder.

I don't know how the Tories match up district by district. However, some national polls have them back up to even with Blair (and lib dems in third). In Summer 2001, Tories were tied for minor party status with Lib Dems. So their trend, nationally, is up. That's the product of the media and the attack from the far left and right on labor. I aslo think Blair can hold out if what we've seen is the best the RW can dish out. However, there's no limit to what the right is willing to do to gain power. Could you have predicted in January 1993 what America became by Dec 2000? I don't think so.

[w4rma]

9. He's not going to give up power even if it costs Labour the election

Keep Britain from going Tory, vote Liberal Democrat!

[AP]

14. Being Tony Blair.

Apparently you found the doorway into Blair's brain. After a few minutes, does it dump you on somewhere on the M4?

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Moderators have nominated this thread

to be the one to discuss the actual speech, so we better have a link. Here's one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/uk_politics/3149164.stm
On the key issue of Iraq, Mr Blair said he respected his critics, but: "I ask just one thing: Attack my decision but at least understand why I took it and why I would take the same decision again.

"Imagine you are PM, and you receive this intelligence and not just about Iraq but about the whole murky trade in WMD .... So what do I do?

"Say 'I've got the intelligence but I've a hunch it's wrong'?"

Whatever the disagreements, people should recognise at least that Iraq was a better place without Saddam Hussein, he argued.

[goforit]

17. He likes to fullfil the "Biblical Revelations".....it's a power high!!!

I had a conversation with my brother 12 years ago about the possibility of someone in the world attempting to fullfill the prophesies of the Revelations and how dangerous this could be.

He said that this could happen and due to the hypnotic vulnerability
of the religious orders, this was going to be most likely at the
turn of the millenium.
I never dreamed in a million years that Bush and Blair would be the instigators.

The irony is that very few in the world are falling for this scam.

And they are laughing at them instead of with them.

Such a sad bunch of suckers.