What should Tony Blair do?

[sweetheart]

Mr. Blair has a "trust" issue with the british people, and he's doing his best to stay on top of the labour warhorse... but he's gonna fall off one day.

What should Mr. Blair do to empower the british left government that it support the greater global socialism by example?

I support his initiative not to make the lords and elected house, as appointment keeps it non-political... but i don't support his refusal to make voting proportional once and for all for all elections... ideally with postal ballots that no voter is left out for the dated practice of visiting a polling booth. The legacy of proper democracy is one he really should support.

I think Mr. Blair should take a radical initiative to overturn the drugs war on millions of british people... and its results in disenfranchising and destroying lives. Mr. Blair is criminally negligent in not overturning this ugly government behaviour. If the entire drugs war budget is focused only on treatment, and the drugs stigma is left out of the closet, it will heal a great wound... larger than the northern ireland war wound blair takes such pride in his healing hand... a real peacemaker can end a drugs war Mr. Blair.

That initiative would open up a new front for the british labour left who feels a bit screwed by the right wing PM.

If he REALLY had balls on top of that, he should change the constitution that the monarch is not head of the church that britain can suggest it has separated church and state...

Do you have any inspirations for tired Mr. Blair?

[Resistance Is Futile]

1. Resign

He has lost the trust of the British people and lacks credibility with his party. The best action he can take to restore confidence in his party is to call an election and tender his resignation effective immeidately.


Incidentally, Labour no longer has anything to do with socialism. There an off-brand of corporate fascism--i.e. the GOP with a few digits of the serial number filed off.

[sweetheart]

2. isn't that giving up?

I don't think he should, as much as i understand why people say so. He is still alive and kicking politically, and at the brighton party conference, he has the opportunity to be a new man with a heart.

If Rt. Hon. Mr. Blair resigned now, who would replace him but Mr. Brown who is just as much part of the administration as blair is... no improvement... same inertia problem. It is now an issue far beyond individual personalities, the british left is disempowered by its own leadership... no wonder the lib dems are picking up seats.

[T_i_B]

5. Blair resigning is the best new start possible.

Blair has shown that he has no intention of reforming himself and the only way that the party can put right the things that are going wrong with it is to jettison Blair and to rediscover the reason why the labour party exists in the first place.

Brown has more chance of doing that the the pig-headed and arrogant Blair ever will. Even if Brown does have his faults Blair has more faults and I cannot see the labour party rediscovering its purpose with Blair in Downing Street.

[sweetheart]

7. could your comment be unspun?

I cannot see the labour party rediscovering its purpose with Blair in Downing Street. Given that he ain't going to brighton to resign, isn't there any policy action he could undertake to reform your conclusion? I think there is... but if he does not undertake it, then i was wrong about blair and he really should resign.

So much depends on whether he tries to win a next election with college tuition fees and foundation hospitals... sadly mediocre and unprincipaled things that are as boring as blair's administration has become.

[T_i_B]

17. AllI can say is U-Turns please.

On tuition fees,foundation hospitals, PFI and most importantly Iraq. Even just the matter of UN involvement is one which Blair is badly off base with. See Spentastic's comments for more on that.

However, since none of this will happen with Blair in charge Blair should go so that the labour party can start looking to the future as opposed to looking to the right. here's a fellow Sheffield Wednesday supporter to explain more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1051721,00.html

[roguevalley]

3. your ideas are good but he has no political capital

the only thing he can do for labour is resign. isn't brown slated to be the new boy and if he is, isn't he a bit off America? (That is, not a yankophile> But then, isn't everyone a bit off America these days.

SOB.

RV, American

[sweetheart]

4. a bit off america

The popular sentiment against neocon-america could be harnessed by Mr. Blair to end the drugs war, as it is a neocon invention to repress the left truth be told... and in taking such an action, he would be able to distance himself from being too yank-o-poodle.

A chap at my local pub got "done" for having a few grams of cannabis resin a while back. He did 6 months in prison in inverness and now he is unemployable and will likely be unemployed the rest of his life as the criminal record has destroyed his work prospects. Multiply this example by the millions across britain and you have a serious problem... government-induced tabloid stupidity. Even more amazing is that this war has killed 1000's more than ever died in northern ireland troubles... yet it is undeclared.

Blair should bring back mandelson to his cabinet as minister for drugs and let peter work his magic to end a war.

Brown is indeed a bit off america, but perhaps "a bit off" is generally applicable to him without the america part. If he becomes PM, then c'est la vie, but geez, i hope not...

[billyskank]

20. Gordon Brown loves America

All of his policy ideas seem to come from the States. I despair, because I despise Blair, but can see no improvement in the prospect of a Brown premiership.

[Syrinx]

6. what should blair HAVE DONE?

[sweetheart]

8. The future now.

The labour party's conference in brighton is sorta a place for blair to re-make his presidency... and he still could.

Ironic that he is being done for criminal warmongering and lying with the bush... that this action is what he "HAS DONE" and NOT doing that would have been wiser. Too bad he wasted all his political capital on murdering people.

I hope he is smarter today than yesterday, or he's toast.

Appreciating the irony of your comment...

regards,
-s

[Spentastic]

9. Interesting

As someone here said the other day " a little contrition goes along way". Unfortunately Mr Blair has demonstrated absolutely none. He appears to me a man on a mission. Unfortunately it's a mission that plenty of the country do not agree with.

Iraq - Mr Blair should at least conceded that the intelligence of which the war was sold to the British public was fundamentally flawed. He should initiate an enquiry to find out exactly why the U.K ended up committing troops. He should state that he will resign should the government be found culpable.

The Lords - "I support his initiative not to make the lords and elected house, as appointment keeps it non-political". No, it doesn't it keeps it uber political. Look at the appointments made and I think you'll find they reek of cronyism. An elected second house is a far more attractive proposition. Tony's failure to endorse this view is entirely in keeping with the rest of his strategies. He wishes to retain control of people in key places. A 100% elected second chamber seems far more democratic to me.

Drugs - Look at the furore surrounding the reclassifying of cannabis. This was a fantastic example of follow the leader politics. David blunkett had the chance to formulate a policy effectively decriminalising use, under pressure from the right the Labour government crumbled and now we have an unenforceable, unfair law. Tony Blair will never go further than the right want him too. The war on drugs will continue and young men will continue to shoot each other in city centres.

Now for things that annoy me:

PFI - This is key to Labour's strategy and it amounts to legalised theft. A formula for concentrating wealth with the already rich and powerful. It would appear that Tony's "private good public bad" mantra will lead to him destroying our health service and selling off anything else to make a profit. Read "captive state" by George Monbiot for a truly frightening perspective. In order to foster a truly left leaning approach, all Tony has to do is live up to some pre election promises. I.e renationalise the railway. Instead what happend? More quangos and free cash for executives.

Asylum - Stop David Blunkett ranting about the U.K being swamped by immigrants. It's not true, it also enables the BNP to gain credence with the wider British public. Formulate a strategy not involving ID cards and demonising people.

University fees - Just a general point. What is the point of 80% of people attending an instituion that historically has been used to hone the abilities of the most able. I'm 100% for equality of opportunity, but that does not mean that there is 100% opportunity. Furthermore, the goverment's strategy will force millions of students further into debt. The Government should just drop this idiocy.

Spin - Tell the truth. Just once in a while.

Finally, Tony will not touch the Monarchy more's the pity. He's a corporate shill who looks right for inspiration, he's beginning to show his utter disdain for the left. The Labour party needs to rid itself of the likes of Blair or just admit that it's "compassionate conservatism". Third way politics is the road to hell.

[sweetheart]

10. PFI and constitutional reform

He did finally abolish the lord chancellor job and set up a supreme court that the judiciary is separate... but that was the easy change.

TB was all hot on lords reform, but now he's tony-crony in that regard. I like that the lords retains a longer term view apolitical in britain, also that it incorporates people that are not politiicans at all poets and such... that is good in my view... but all that is achievable with a more democratic way of structuring.

PFI... i've heard this phrase for years now, and it seems the idea was getting private cash in to make public spending less stressed... what is your understanding of it?

Tony Blair is a blessing for the tories. He's a tory at heart and with a gigantic parlimentary majority, he can't implement a policy from labour constituency... so while the non-entity of the tory party can't oppose his actions, he does not act... dumb, but that explains why he is a blessing. Perhaps he should not resign, rather change party affiliations to his true nature: tory.

I agree that on current course, Tony's legacy will be like bill clinton's... third way vapor and no legacy. I guess that is what the third way was all about after all... DLC mediocrity of another national ilk.

[Spentastic]

11. Errr

The abolition of the Lord Chancellors position is typical Tony. Probably the right decision, compromised by the fact his ex flat mate is now in charge of the job of reform.

Lords reform. The Lords is anachronistic. Heritidary peers were bad but apointees are not much better. A political class is emerging in the U.K and this is profoundly dangerous for democracy. Cronyism could end up disenfranchising the populace. I believe this is exactly what Tony wishes will happen.

PFI _ essentially you are right. Private Finance Initiative was a way of financing public projects using private money. Unfortunately the implementation of this policy in effect amounts to privitisation by stealth. Essentially private companies bid to build Hospitals for example. They bear virtually none of the risk, contracts are badly designed and essentially the goverment ends up giving tax payers money directly to companies who provide a poor service. PFI in hospitals have led to less beds, coupled with contracting out of services removing protections for people that actually work in hospitals. More info here

http://society.guardian.co.uk/privatefinance/comment/0,8146,526625,00.html

PFI was supposed to move risk from public to private. It does not. It just steals from the public.

[T_i_B]

12. PFI?

The must read book on the subject is captive State by George Monbiot. Here is an old Spectator article to explain more.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2002-03-09&id=1646

Because the private finance initiative mobilises private capital, ministers have argued, it allows the government to start more schemes than it would otherwise be able to commission. Private companies provide the money for public infrastructure the state can’t afford, and the government pays it back over a number of years. Because the private sector is more efficient, they insist, PFI schemes offer better value for money than public funding. And because private companies, rather than the government, provide the capital, the money spent on new projects does not contribute to the public sector borrowing requirement.

The reality is that PFI, or ‘public private partnership’ as the government now prefers to call it, is a scam. It works for neither socialists nor free marketeers, as it offers neither effective public provision nor business efficiencies. Far from introducing market disciplines, it has become an official licence to fleece the taxpayer. Far from reducing the public sector borrowing requirement, PFI is, as the Accounting Standards Board has noted, simply ‘an off-balance sheet fiddle’. Most alarmingly, the ministers I have spoken to simply do not understand how it works.

The initiative was a Conservative experiment. In opposition, Labour fiercely contested it. But, as soon as the party came to power, it resolved that PFI would become the means by which most of our new public infrastructure would be built. By the time it became obvious that the experiment was failing, Labour had waded in too far. Awestruck by its glittering new friends in business, but baffled by the complexities of the scheme it supports, it has been consistently outwitted and outmanoeuvred.

The first of the problems Labour has failed to grasp is the process by which the private investors are chosen. The government announces a new scheme, companies make their bids, and the government selects the bid which appears to offer best value for money. The chosen consortium is named the ‘preferred bidder’, and the government starts to negotiate the contract.

The consortium then has the government over a barrel. In theory, the contract is still open to competition. In practice, preferred bidders have been deselected only, as far as I can discover, in two of the hundreds of PFI schemes the government has launched. Once the consortium has its foot in the door, it can raise its price and reduce its services. Costs which weren’t envisaged before will emerge. The likely inflation of labour and materials will be priced as generously as possible. In some cases, I have found, companies have simply slipped extra figures into the spreadsheets.

Most importantly, value for money in PFI contracts is a function of the extent to which the projects’ risks are transferred to the private sector. Because the government is hopelessly outclassed in negotiations, companies routinely transfer most of the key risks back to the taxpayer. As a result, PFI, from the corporate point of view, is a far better deal than privatisation. The consortia get the assets but not the liabilities. In some cases, they carry no greater risk than ordinary contractors for the public sector, but they are rewarded as if they were the most reckless entrepreneurs.

[sweetheart]

18. sounds like dot com bubble

Methinks blair latched on to the idea seeing how much capital was being raised in the private sector by the wall street bubble. As London is the largest financial center in europe, it benefitted intensely from this bubble... and surely nobody could have forseen after 3 years of bubble that it would have changed? ;-)

I don't think mr blair realizes how evil his opponents are in the american right wing, that they dumped their entire wall street market and their entire economy rather than share wealth... the neocons fucked blair by dumping the economy and they hope it will sweep labour out of office. All the world that bet with the american-clintonesque globalization period got fucked. Its truly hardblall, and PM is in the children's league. He should dump on america and call the neocons on their game. The british economic miracle ;-) is fragile as long as neocons are around AND as long as a government left of them is in power in britain.

The german healthcare system is the best i have heard about and it seems to use more private provision, but then again, there are those landesbanks providing publically backed regional risk capital that don't exist in USA. Methinks single payer health insurance... not government mediccal doctors in every villiage.

[Capt_Nemo]

13. Hara Kiri

[dudeness]

14. here is a sword Mr Bliar

fall on it..

[billyskank]

23. Was that a purposeful mis-spelling,

or was it just serendipitous? Tony Bliar - I like it.

[jrthin]

15. RESIGN!!!!

nt

[Lexingtonian]

16. probably just resign

Anything he does now will be regarded with suspicion. To make any cleaning up of some major 'issue' credible, he needs to concurrently supply a date on which he will resign the office.

He's probably too tory-ish to dismantle any more of the Empire systems/institutions. The time for that has come, and he's evidently the wrong man to do any more of it.... Maybe they can make him the figurehead (i.e. public salesman) for some major government effort in a new Labor government.

Btw, off this topic, a significant new book on California is out now, Where I Was From by Joan Didion. Old California explained, her parents' California, then her lifetime with a long middle part about the SoCal aerospace industry and how its mill towns (she knows Lakewood) came apart around the time of the L.A. riots. Not an easy read by any means, but insightful. I thought it might interest you.

(I kind of hope she manages to write a book about the emerging California- her daughter Quintana is an adoptee from Mexico, that could be a team that sees and tells things well about the way the place is going.)

[sweetheart]

21. thanks cool

book.

I miss those sweet southern california warm afternoons by the ocean that i never had commuting on the 405 every day for hours. ;-)

[billyskank]

19. Tony Blair should get stuffed

just my humble British opinion.

[sweetheart]

24. I hope you go to 10 downing street and tell him

Like that chap who walked up to him at a highland games near aberdeen and called him an "explicative" before being referred away by police. :-) The guy had 2 kids and was a normal brit in every way just needing to vent a good insult on the PM. The more people who tell him, that invisible britain he chooses not to see... it is his bane.

:-) Ha!

[AP]

22. Hold out until a Dem gets elected in 2004. Then, the two of them can kick

Haliburton out of Iraq, turn over political control of Iraq to the UN and then to the people of Iraq, and then ride off into the sunset, remembered as a PM who fought to make life better for the average Brit and who outmanoeuvered and outsmarted W.

[sweetheart]

25. courageous course indeed

That a heroic knightly monk warrior might indeed pursue in his political shrewdness... but the daggers are out as this thread indicates. TB in my opinion needs a major new front to keep things interesting which is why i suggest the drugs war. It is a way to win hearts and kudos with regular people in real life britain, as the drugs war is in every bleedin house one way or another... either through bad policing as police are busting cannabis smokers, or higher taxes for more prison spaces, or more dead teenage girls from ecstacy bad doses, or more dead teenage heroin kids who would not die were there medical supervision and proper hygenic dosages. Preventable deaths these are... and he could play up to his best qualities of heroically appearing to champion ALL OF BRITAIN in her concerns over a dreadfully failed victorian guilt that blair still carries by maintaining the ugly war of criminalization. He should become born again and give up this guilt, embrace and love those people who come afoul of addiction to all drugs, and build a more noble peace with the british people than a new war.

I think Mr. Blair is a really honourable fellow and i know he tries to do what is right... but he should just do it then.