The End of Blair

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
So it's done. What next?

Is Brown going to shake things up, especially considering US environmental policy and the fact that half of England appears to have drowned this week. What of the wars?

For me Brown is a bit of a unknown quantity, he could surprise his country and do what they hated Blair for not doing, or it could be business as usual pretty much.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
I dunno.

He's remained tight-lipped on foreign policy. I think he could surprise us.

Foreign policy will lose Blair's awful messianic streak and there'll be some significant announcement on Iraq troop withdrawal fairly soon and, in the unlikely event of an attack on Iran, we're less likely to be involved.
 

MATT MAson

BROADSIDE
I suspect there will be an effort to bring war crimes charges against Blair as well. Not that I think they will get very far.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
So what needs to be - or ought to be - sorted out?

I'll start the shopping list with:

* Something - anything - to stop the inexorable rise in houses prices. It's just getting fucking stupid.
* An end to Britain's tax-haven status for all these Mr. Burnski characters. This is closely tied in with the first point.
* Some attempt, other than simply letting rapists and murderers off with a slapped wrist, to try and reduce the ridiculous prison population. Hospital places rather than prison sentences for mental patients, rehabilitation orders, prescribed drugs for addicts, that sort of thing.
* A radical overhaul of our drug laws - which would have a big impact on the above point.
* An end (or at least curtailing) of the targets-and-league-tables culture which is helping to make bad schools worse, and good schools (or rather, their catchment areas) unaffordable.
* A stop to the gradual erosion of civil liberties and encroachment of govt. surveillance.
* An end to this addiction to private finance in public services.
* A reduction in unprogressive stealth taxes and, to pay for it, an honest increase in income tax, especially for the highest earners (see point 2!).

There's more I could add, but I think that'll do to start with. Foreign policy obviously needs a massive overhaul, for one thing.
 
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hucks

Your Message Here
I'm also moderately hopeful. As crackerjack says, he doesn't have Blair's messianic streak that led him into Iraq. But then Blair didn't used to have it, either...
 

leamas

Well-known member
So what needs to be - or ought to be - sorted out?

* An end (or at least curtailing) of the targets-and-league-tables culture which is helping to make bad schools worse, and good schools (or rather, their catchment areas) unaffordable.

your chest mr tea.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I think leamas means one of these:

teachest-bass.jpg


They're going to all over skiffle-step next year.
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
Is this "envoy to the mideast" for Blair some sort of ceremonial title? Or will he actually have an important role in the future of the middle east?
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
Brown: For all the talk of the man's "big clunking fist" he appears to me a coward. He had plenty of opportunities to finish Blair off, to stick the knife in, to rid himself of the man. But he never quite had the guts- indeed this is entirely the reason why it was Blair, rather than Brown, who took the Labour leadership following the death of John Smith. If you wonder why I talk only of personality here, its because essentially that is the only difference between he and his predecessor. Indeed perhaps the only possible difference available within the current political system in the UK. I also believe that whatever the opinion polls state now, Brown will be defeated by Cameron at the next election (which of course again will ultimately change very little fundamentally).
 
Yep, I agree with the above post, depressingly enough.
I thought there would be a few street parties at Blair's departure but I guess that

a) people are largely completely disengaged from politics these days (after all big brother's on the telly and paris hilton just got out of prison)
b) there's not much prospect of anything much changing due to his departure.

still, nice to see the back of the smug megalomaniac.

My mum, who is a fairly genteel lady in her late 60s said to me yesterday, "I hope he gets that middle east envoy job, then he might get blown up or kidnapped and have his head cut off."

People really hate him.
 

gek-opel

entered apprentice
I would've loved to sink a few pints at least to celebrate Blair's departure, even tho surely nothing will change- but most people as you say literally don't give a flying fuck from what I can tell, and are pretty uninterested. The whole thing is quite depressing, the sense of deflation about it all, no matter how much the media try to amp up the sense of occasion.
 

swears

preppy-kei
Yeah, today doesn't feel like an occasion at all. My friend at work checked the BBC website and said "Oh yeah, Gordon Brown's prime minister now."
That's all anyone said all day about it, and these are relatively well educated lower middle class types.
 
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