[Politics] Sir Tony Blair .................. ?

I didn’t realise that each PM is honoured after leaving Office, but Sir Tony Blair ... really?

Queen's dislike for Tony Blair is 'bed-blocking' the honours system
https://mol.im/a/9091145

Surely it is up to the Monarch or her advisers to bestow such an honour?

Some PM (love them or loath them) have made a real difference to this country; some have served for a short period & some longer; most have won general elections (not all); some have been at the top in good times & others when the going has been tough - but for all to receive an honour? Doesn’t seem right to me.

I can't work out if you're fishing (a very appropriate phrase given your last thread) or whether you have been on the sauce for the last 24 hours.

Logged into the wrong account again?

Tony Blair was an exceptionally gifted PM . Not everyone agreed with all his foreign policy although you could argue he had no choice but to support the Americans at the time.

His running of the country was very good , much better than the rubbish we have nowadays . Blair is also a far far cleverer man than either Johnson or Corbyn or starmer .

You do have to be politically inept to think the queen decides on knighthoods ! Of course she doesn’t - The PM’s office submits the list .

Steve Foster said:

I didn’t realise that each PM is honoured after leaving Office, but Sir Tony Blair ... really?

Queen's dislike for Tony Blair is 'bed-blocking' the honours system
https://mol.im/a/9091145

Surely it is up to the Monarch or her advisers to bestow such an honour?

Some PM (love them or loath them) have made a real difference to this country; some have served for a short period & some longer; most have won general elections (not all); some have been at the top in good times & others when the going has been tough - but for all to receive an honour? Doesn’t seem right to me.

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You seem in conflict with another one of your threads, have you forgot to use your other account when posting this ?

Live by the sea said:

Tony Blair was an exceptionally gifted PM . Not everyone agreed with all his foreign policy although you could argue he had no choice but to support the Americans at the time.

His running of the country was very good , much better than the rubbish we have nowadays . Blair is also a far far cleverer man than either Johnson or Corbyn or starmer .

You do have to be politically inept to think the queen decides on knighthoods ! Of course she doesn’t - The PM’s office submits the list .

Click to expand...

Good post. He shouldn't have gone into Iraq but when a US president tells you WMD have been found, why would you not believe that? That would be his argument anyway.

He made other much smaller mistakes too - the loosening of casino licensing laws wasn't a good thing IMO - but his management of the economy was as good as we've seen. Only John Major holds a candle to Blair's domestic economic management.

It makes me sad thinking of these people when you look at the shower of shit running the country now, never mind the substandard opposition.

Live by the sea said:

Tony Blair was an exceptionally gifted PM . Not everyone agreed with all his foreign policy although you could argue he had no choice but to support the Americans at the time.

His running of the country was very good , much better than the rubbish we have nowadays . Blair is also a far far cleverer man than either Johnson or Corbyn or starmer .

You do have to be politically inept to think the queen decides on knighthoods ! Of course she doesn’t - The PM’s office submits the list .

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Blimey Live, I’d always assumed you were one of the paid up members of The British Union of Facists on here! Maybe your y-fronts aren’t Tory blue after all.

Blair made labour electable. He had charisma and intelligence. I worry that Starmer, although more presentable to the electorate than Corbyn, lacks the former.

Before he wanted to become a world statesman I thought he was a very good conservative PM

Oh dear. This really sums up the New Year and Queen's birthday honours list. The Good Friday peace agreement was his finest hour but the rest.......

28 pages and into the bear pit.

I think the OP has once again turned to the bottle at 6am in the morning, struggling to come to terms with only being the third wealthiest person on NSC, and it is eating him up.

El Presidente said:

I think the OP has once again turned to the bottle at 6am in the morning, struggling to come to terms with only being the third wealthiest person on NSC, and it is eating him up.

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Third ?

Simster said:

Good post. He shouldn't have gone into Iraq but when a US president tells you WMD have been found, why would you not believe that? That would be his argument anyway.

He made other much smaller mistakes too - the loosening of casino licensing laws wasn't a good thing IMO - but his management of the economy was as good as we've seen. Only John Major holds a candle to Blair's domestic economic management.

It makes me sad thinking of these people when you look at the shower of shit running the country now, never mind the substandard opposition.

Click to expand...

That was never the case. We went into Iraq because America was going in and we had the choice to line up with uncle Sam, or incur the wrath of the Mail, Sun, Times, Telegraph and Express, all regurgitated on radio and TV news, with spin-off investigations on Panorama, Newsnight, and on and on, etc., for letting down our closest allies at their time of need, and behaving like the French.

When the press announcement (invasion) was made I started to listen with the view that we should not engage in another overseas fiasco like Vietnam, with countless civilian casualties and no clear end game. I was against the war. But I'm happy to listen to arguments. I listened to Colin Powell and I listened to Jack Straw. Every word. They explained that Blix of the UN had attempted to inspect Saddam's weapons repeatedly over ten years (I didn't know that). Every time Blix went in, the UN were prevented from doing the job properly (I didn't know that). This raised the question 'what does Saddam have to hide?' (the though crossed my mind as well). The Blix solution was to ask for another UN resolution to ask Saddam if it would be OK if we come and see if you have any WMDs (I hadn't known that). Again. After ten years of identical attempts that had failed. OK, I though, that's rubbish.

So America felt that they either let Saddam carry on taking the piss, or they send in a force to topple him.

Should the UK stand shoulder to shoulder with its great ally (incidentally I never bought the great ally thing, but it had been heavily promoted by none other than Maggie Thatcher, so I invoke it here since it was de facto for the right of centre, as exemplified by the newspapers listed above), or tell them 'sorry, we don't really want to.....and, oh, Saddam, you're OK mate '.

Mr Tony had no choice.

Later he showed a lack of judgement by allowing the idea that actual WMD had been found, probably, as reported in the dodgy dossier, to surface. There was absolutely no need to aftertime with 'physical evidence' - the invasion was already justified. And there was the expert bloke who killed himself. That was made out to have been a murder instigated by Tony Blair in order to, er, prevent someone saying 'actually I never told you there were actual WMDs, I just said that....oh, never mind'. All this allowed all the Tony haters to summon up their very best hypocrisy and accuse him of lying to the nation to drag us into war. And sadly a lot of labour supporters fell for these lies. Let me tell such people again, you've been had, and as a consequence Tony handed over to the hapless jock, and consequently have now suffered more than 10 years of tory shitwittery culminating in Boris.

We had a great prime minister, one with simple kindly vision, an ability to compromise with capital, and show decisive leadership. The people who hate him most, still, are the 'would vote for a pig if it wore a blues rosette' style tories, and the old labour dinosaurs who think the worst thing a party can do is 'compromise with the electorate'. The same people who claim the war was 'illegal' (it wasn't) include many who would be quite happy if Boris were to break UK law for the sake of Brexit.

Compared with the venal, dishonest and incompetant shower we have 'running' the country now.....Mr Tony was decent. Not perfect, no sir (I resigned from labour during his tenure owing to one policy of his), but decent.

If this thread is correct in that Boris has offered Tony a knighthood, one can imagine this has been done simply to whip up the 'shouldn't have gone to war, Tony B Liar!' brigade. If he has any sense Blair'll tell Boris to do one. Unfortunately he probably won't. Either way, I'm not bothered. I think the honours system works extremely well for the people who feel the need for an honours system. Incidentally Blair turned down a peerage a few years ago so accepting a knighthood would seem unlikely.

seems a bit of nonsense story, if a knighthood is given former PMs as etiquette, then Blair would get a gong out of following etiquette. personal feelings of Queen wouldnt come into it.

Since when did the Queen decide on knighthoods.

The honours system is a purely political set of appointments. Betty Windsor does nothing.

Live by the sea said:

Tony Blair was an exceptionally gifted PM . Not everyone agreed with all his foreign policy although you could argue he had no choice but to support the Americans at the time.

His running of the country was very good , much better than the rubbish we have nowadays . Blair is also a far far cleverer man than either Johnson or Corbyn or starmer .

Click to expand...

Each Prime Minister seems to have at least one disaster in their locker.

I thought Blair was a brilliant Prime Minister in so many areas but I still struggle to forgive him for Iraq. Whether or not he was driven by religious fervour, historical justification in not repeating Chamberlain’s ignoring of Nazi Germany until it was too late or just reverence and obedience to the USA; there was no exit plan to rebuild a divided Country and 100,000s of people died as a result.

Simster said:

Good post. He shouldn't have gone into Iraq but when a US president tells you WMD have been found, why would you not believe that? That would be his argument anyway.

He made other much smaller mistakes too - the loosening of casino licensing laws wasn't a good thing IMO - but his management of the economy was as good as we've seen. Only John Major holds a candle to Blair's domestic economic management.

It makes me sad thinking of these people when you look at the shower of shit running the country now, never mind the substandard opposition.

Click to expand...

Hang on.

Was that the same overlevered business friendly economy that went to shit during the GFC? The one driven by unnecessarily low rates which spawned a huge amount of PE takeovers and too much debt? Blair did well to get out of that just in time, although you could argue Brown was responsible under Blair's watch, and why wouldn't Tony let Gordon hang himself out to dry? And that comment about Iraq is just weak. Bush wants me to invade Russia, think I better had.....

History is not judging Blair as well as your post. Few rose tinted spectacles there.

Took us into an illegal war on the back of complete lies. He deserves something, but it aint a knighthood.

Live by the sea said:

Tony Blair was an exceptionally gifted PM . Not everyone agreed with all his foreign policy although you could argue he had no choice but to support the Americans at the time.

His running of the country was very good , much better than the rubbish we have nowadays . Blair is also a far far cleverer man than either Johnson or Corbyn or starmer .

You do have to be politically inept to think the queen decides on knighthoods ! Of course she doesn’t - The PM’s office submits the list .

Click to expand...

All of this, plus he is a staunch Remainer, and generally talks an awful lot of common sense.

All good things in my book, and one of my fave politicians.