The Red Dawn

 

Always amazed that people think Blair was ‘right-wing’….the BBC likes to peddle that message…

The voting public might have bought into New Labour’s blend of Thatcherite free market economics and social justice, but it never had very deep roots in the Labour Party itself.

It was the product of a tight-knit group headed by Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson and media chief Alastair Campbell.

But he was if anything an archetypal socialist masquerading as an almost right-of centre social democrat.  A man who indulged in a massive borrow and spend spree, who spent billions he didn’t have on infrastructure in order to buy votes, who deliberately deregulated the City and almost destroyed it, a man who threw open the borders in order to undermine national loyalty and identity, a man who set out to destroy the United Kingdom by introducng Devolution knowing full well that it would always be ratcheted up, and a man who was intent on selling out what remained to the EU along with the population as obedient citizens…an EU that is, if nothing else, more like the Soviet Union than a democratic, accountable, open and transparent entity.  Blair no doubt felt it would be like going ‘home’.  Blair was not in any way right-wing.

Which is probably why the BBC seems to like him giving him as it does a glowing obituary….yes I know, there’s a slight problem there, Blair’s still alive, you just can’t keep a good man down can you?  The BBC has definitely got the rose tinted specs on here…

Tony Blair’s legacy 20 years on

It is 20 years to the day that Tony Blair won a landslide general election victory for Labour – how did he change the country and what is left of his legacy?

“A new dawn has broken, has it not?”

With these words, spoken to a cheering crowd of supporters as the sun rose over London’s South Bank, Tony Blair ushered in the first Labour government in 18 years.

This sounds familiar…

Blair sketched out, in vague but confident terms, his vision of a modern, united country fit for a new millennium. A country for the “many not the few”.

Ah yes…recycling…very good…no doubt the BBC will do a whole series of programmes and articles on Corbyn soundbites ala May’s ‘Strong and stable’…no?…thought not….

Blair was wonderfully inclusive and diverse…the working class, women and gay people…blimey….

“Traditional values in a modern setting”, as John Prescott, a man who straddled the new/old divide with more agility than he was often given credit for, would say with a knowing smirk.

They were a diverse bunch – with more women than had ever sat in a British cabinet before and the first openly gay cabinet minister, Chris Smith.

Blair had some wonderful policies, basic but sound, and yet…‘the new government did not lack ambition.’

On the day after their election victory, Gordon Brown surprised everyone by handing control of interest rates to the Bank of England – a move that would have far-reaching consequences for the economy.

Blair was also determined, like many a prime minister before and since, to fix some of the country’s longstanding social problems.

Failures are anodynely reported as nothing much to see here…despite the BBC blitzing the Tories for the gap between rich and poor…

The gap between rich and poor remained more or less the same during the Blair years, according to analysis by the Resolution Foundation, although there was a big increase in pay at the top end of the income scale.

Education…a brilliant success….

Education was Blair’s other top priority. He oversaw a big expansion in higher and further education, and poured money into early years learning, as well as pioneering academy schools.

As was his funding of health….outcomes in both improved the BBC approvingly reports….no sense of where the money came from or any mention of the massive debts from PFI now crushing public services….

His first term was characterised by caution on tax and public spending, thanks to Labour’s commitment to stick to tight Conservative spending limits for the first two years.

That changed after the party’s second landslide election victory in 2001, when billions began to pour into the health service and education, on the back of a booming economy. Outcomes improved as a result.

Oh, and immigration….another Blair success….nothing to see here…

Blair’s 2004 decision to open the door to East European migration was entirely in keeping with his values as an ardent pro-European, who had championed the eastward expansion of the EU and who believed globalisation and flexible labour markets were the answer to industrial decline.

What was so successful?

The plentiful supply of cheap labour arguably helped the UK economy to expand without facing the issue of spiralling wages – and this in turn held inflation and interest rates down, contributing to a decade-long boom in property prices, adding to the feelgood factor among middle income home owners, even if fewer people could afford to get on the property ladder in the first place.

Ah yes…so having your wages cut or even losing your job due to cheap imported labour and employers not bothering to invest in training, research and development and thus not improving productivity [that ‘puzzle’ that the BBC always blamed on the Tories] was a great little plan as well as really expensive housing.

Oh wait the BBC recognises there was some discontent…due to ‘the pace of change’..er… not the resultant low wages, no jobs and no houses, no school places and a crowded NHS then?  No, just that amorphous pace of change….

It also sowed the seeds of discontent in Labour’s heartlands, as growing numbers felt left behind and marginalised by the pace of change in their communities, and a growing anti-EU feeling began to take hold.

And look at this…a complete whitewash from a BBC that has otherwise relentlessly hounded Blair over Iraq and blamed him for every subsequent disaster in the Middle East….

In 2003, Blair had drawn on every last ounce of his persuasive skill to make the case for joining the US-led invasion to MPs and the wider public.

He had become convinced of the value of military action in pursuit of humanitarian aims and the need to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, in the wake of 11 September, 2001.

‘Every last ounce of his persuasive skill’?  WTF?  Last time I heard the BBC was calling him a war criminal and a lying bastard who took us to war on a lie.  And what’s this crap about ‘humanitarian aims and standing loyally shoulder to shoulder with an ally’?  The BBC has never ever put that forward as a credible explanation for the Iraq War.  The BBC must have taken something…they’re certainly sexing this dodgy dossier up no end.

Oh wait…a slight tinge of guilt about blowing smoke up our backsides…

The subsequent failure to find weapons of mass destruction appeared to confirm many people’s worst suspicions about him – that he relied too much on spin and was not to be trusted.

Just a bit o’ ‘spin’, no hint of the extremely serious accusations, so many from the BBC itself, that Blair lied and completely misled Parliament and the People?

And finally his legacy…yes a few problems over Iraq and the Corbynistas may boo  him but he’s a good egg really with some really good ideas….like how Blair is responsible for keeping the NHS state run and free…and now he’s a bit of a saint…working for the good of the country….

Blair’s supporters claim that his vision of a self-consciously modern, multicultural, socially liberal country, has endured – and that David Cameron’s six years in government were shaped by it.

It is there in the Conservatives’ commitments on foreign aid and promotion of gay rights, they say, as well as Britain’s continued commitment to a health service free at the point of delivery, funded by taxation.

And, at 63, the man himself is still in the game.

He has ditched his business interests – that had generated so much negative publicity for him – to work full time on promoting moderate, centrist policy solutions, fighting battles that 20 years ago he must have hoped would have been won by now.

Curiously I don’t remember Thatcher ever getting such a glowing legacy report…did she get thanks for the economy that Blair inherited or for keeping the NHS free at the point of delivery ?  [she and the Tories must get some credit as after 18 years in power they managed  not to privatise it…and all without Blair’s help…amazing!]