Tony Blair announces his departure

I expect the usual level headed thhinking will be applied on this thread?

Ten very successful years if you ask me. Apart from that thing in Iraq. But that goes without saying.

Still gonna be in office for about another 6-8 weeks. Has he done a good job? Are Labour better than the Conservatives?

Im of the opinion that, in the long run for the average working class man on the street it doesn't really matter who is in power. They'll always heavily tax fags, beer, petrol etc.

The war in Iraq would have happened no matter who was in the PM's job or which party was 'in power'.

Northern ireland legacy.

that's all.

Thats yet to be proven the right thing though John. After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

He destroyed Socialism in this country. Something we should all be eternally grateful for.

The "Northern Ireland legacy" had been underdevelopment for quite some time before his tenure, he's the guy who will get the credit, but the likes of Major and Thatcher were the ones who paved the way.

Not the most successful ten years England has ever had. The social fabric of the country has been replaced by a nanny state where compensation, blame and fear are the new masters, where we have a generation of semi-literate tossers who don't care and don't see or understand why they should care about anything besides what they themselves want at any one time.

This was the guy who promised to govern without sleaze, with honesty and openness. And didn't he do well? Good riddance Blair.

did he let the Kosovans in?

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

Not to diigress, but its not as if the "Loyalist bandits" are actually involved in the government of NI, is it? Dont the PUP only have one seat in the assembly? They definitley have no Ministers. Which is a bit of a difference if you think about it.

some jocko fella is rumoured to be taking over.

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

Yeah, only because McGuiness/Adams are Sinn Fenn 'politicans'. Lets not forget that years ago they weren't allowed to even speak on TV because OUR country labelled them as 'terrorists' due to their connection to the IRA. The troubles in Ireland are hopefully over and if they can now move forward and have peace it doesn't matter how its been achieved, as long as it works.

Mad Cyril wrote: Not the most successful ten years England has ever had. The social fabric of the country has been replaced by a nanny state where compensation, blame and fear are the new masters, where we have a generation of semi-literate tossers who don't care and don't see or understand why they should care about anything besides what they themselves want at any one time.

This was the guy who promised to govern without sleaze, with honesty and openness. And didn't he do well? Good riddance Blair.

Just at the moment Sarkozy is elected Président in France. I still remember what he said when he visited Blair a few months ago : "He is the best of us". The problem is that Blair is from the Labour party and Sarkozy from the torry one. Well, I wish good luck to all my British friends for the years to come and... have a good laugh looking at us, on the other side of the Channel.

I would like to add that I am happy that W lost his pet in G-B, even if you never really felt Europeans. On the other, W has a new one, more pit-bull like in France...

To conclude and be short, I find your analysis very fair Tim.

El Jarvo wrote:

Steve One wrote: Thats yet to be proven the right thing though John. After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

Taking joint control of their own country, Steve?!

How awful!

You could argue about this kind of thing all day and still disagree. You pointed out they want to take control of their own country, yet they carried out how many 'protests' shall we say on the mainland UK?

El Jarvo wrote:

Steve One wrote: You could argue about this kind of thing all day and still disagree. You pointed out they want to take control of their own country, yet they carried out how many 'protests' shall we say on the mainland UK?

Er, because they saw us (the Briddish) as the 'oppressing' force.

How many people here give a fcuk about Northern Ireland? I certainly don't. Means as much to me as the fcuking Lebanon.

Can't really not ignore it when bombs started going off on the mainland though.

you're right.

we've got an office in Belly, and i don't know half the staffs names.

Steve One wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

The troubles in Ireland are hopefully over and if they can now move forward and have peace it doesn't matter how its been achieved, as long as it works.

I agree, and it's taken a massive leap of faith on the part of the NI people, especially those who lost family/friends during the troubles. It's not really what you infered in your original post though.

it will be sad to see blair go. we should be given a national holiday to go and wave him off.Is it true that june 27th the same day that new order resign?

Two Jags has thrown his hat in too. Better to jump than be pushed eh Prescott?

Uncle Liam wrote: He destroyed Socialism in this country. Something we should all be eternally grateful for.

by "destroyed socialism" you mean "kind of reduced a mamouth welfare state to a big one"?

with no civil liberties, natch.

Steve One wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

The troubles in Ireland are hopefully over and if they can now move forward and have peace it doesn't matter how its been achieved, as long as it works.

NEVER REST UNTIL THE 6 TO THE NORTH ARE FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

or something my grandmother used to tell me when I was little

Well, i was late for work today cos i av to drive through his shitty little constituency town and saw all the BBC & Sky cameras @ 7am, so (as you do) i stuck the V's up (hoping to get on camera). Some plod in a Senator (upps.. a Vecta)pulled me over wanting to know why, where going, blah blah.. Wanker God help if you was an Asian with full pillar box outfit up ere'. You'd av' been later than me. Still amazes me that all the sicophantic cnuts up ere' abandoned their old mining/union values of propa old labour & jumped onto the 'new' labour bandwagon. Cocks the lot of em' cos that twat Bliar has done F**k all for the working-classes up her.

El Jarvo wrote:

Steve One wrote: You could argue about this kind of thing all day and still disagree. You pointed out they want to take control of their own country, yet they carried out how many 'protests' shall we say on the mainland UK?

Er, because they saw us (the Briddish) as the 'oppressing' force.

How many people here give a fcuk about Northern Ireland? I certainly don't. Means as much to me as the fcuking Lebanon.

Can't really not ignore it when bombs started going off on the mainland though.

Well I live there and couldn't give a fuck.

Would like to see a consistent terrorist policy though, Bin Laden as the next Home Sec I think.....or carpet bomb the kiddies of Belfast.

Ermmm who said the Loyalist bandits didn't get power? Looks like plenty of the cunts about to me. "oh they were never as bad"....wrong, they were just as bad, they were just retards who couldn't do anything right.

Mind you, it showed where the UK media held us in regard.

"A cat has fallen from a tree in Kent" "A man tripped over in Brentwood" "and finally, 28 Irish twats were blown limb from limb today"

IRA should worked on the mainland from day one, sinfe an English life is worth 20 of us scum.

Chrissy wrote:

Steve One wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

The troubles in Ireland are hopefully over and if they can now move forward and have peace it doesn't matter how its been achieved, as long as it works.

NEVER REST UNTIL THE 6 TO THE NORTH ARE FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

or something my grandmother used to tell me when I was little

The border is open, anyone wishing to live in the republic under harsh, spanish inquisition religious law, is welcome to leave, likewise folks from the South can come up here.

It's a shame your terrorist loving granny wasn't up the towers on Sept 11 like all the IRA funding NYPD fuckers.

good ridance,,,

for the things that mean so much to me,

dont mean that much to you.

Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway, not like you'd go there for a holiday!

Steve One wrote: Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway,

Same with Mancland Steve.

Steve One wrote: Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway, not like you'd go there for a holiday!

I've had more fun and more mental nights out in Belfast than I've had anywhere else outside of my own wee West Coast village.

Doctor? wrote:

Chrissy wrote:

Steve One wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: After all, some could say that they've ended up backing down to terrorists (IRA) and let them take joint control over the country.

"Some people" being short sighted bigots with an agenda. I notice you only mention the IRA and not the numerous loyalist bandits who helped perpetuate the troubles for so long.

The troubles in Ireland are hopefully over and if they can now move forward and have peace it doesn't matter how its been achieved, as long as it works.

NEVER REST UNTIL THE 6 TO THE NORTH ARE FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

or something my grandmother used to tell me when I was little

The border is open, anyone wishing to live in the republic under harsh, spanish inquisition religious law, is welcome to leave, likewise folks from the South can come up here.

It's a shame your terrorist loving granny wasn't up the towers on Sept 11 like all the IRA funding NYPD fuckers.

yer right there doc, they were all cunts( both sides)

I've never liked Tony Blair. When I was little my Grandad used to go to Labour party meetings in Sedgefield (TBs constituency), (this was before Blair was PM so he actually turned up for them). Me and my little sister (who stayed with my Grandad) would be shoved in the 'crèche'.....an emabarassing thing for a 10 year old! TB used to always come in to see us afterwards and made sure the press photographers took lots of photos to show how nice he was with 'the little kiddies'....wanker.

The taunts at school were most unpleasent...

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway, not like you'd go there for a holiday!

I've had more fun and more mental nights out in Belfast than I've had anywhere else outside of my own wee West Coast village.

I agree for once.

I've had a few top nights in Belfast and Coleraine. boss people.

yet to visit Eire.

King John Honest John wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway, not like you'd go there for a holiday!

I've had more fun and more mental nights out in Belfast than I've had anywhere else outside of my own wee West Coast village.

I agree for once.

I've had a few top nights in Belfast and Coleraine. boss people.

yet to visit Eire.

Honourable mention must also go to the legendary Kelly's in Portrush, NI's first "Superclub". The only nightclub I've been to that's ringed with a ten foot high steel fence and which you need to walk through a football turnstile to get into!

Saw John Digweed there once. Feckin amazing night.

The fuck up in Iraq will shape his legacy more than anything he managed to get right.

Get ta fuck Blair,treacherous Tory mass-murdering cunt!

Because of course, the things that Blair did get right, the main thing that matters to you is something that

a) is taking a place thousands of miles away from you

b) doesnt really affect you

and the things that he has achieved, would affect you (at least based on your posts) a lot more. Higher standards in Primary Education, lower wating times, stable and consistent economic growth etc etc.

You work in the steel business, non? I dont see you marching out on strike over pay every two weeks, do i?

King John Honest John wrote:

GlasVegas wrote:

Steve One wrote: Fuck all worth visiting in NI anyway, not like you'd go there for a holiday!

I've had more fun and more mental nights out in Belfast than I've had anywhere else outside of my own wee West Coast village.

I've had a few top nights in Coleraine.

Boo!

I'm trying very hard to grasp the concept of a good night out in Coleraine. Last good night I had up that end of the world, invloved sleeping in an Astra on top of a cliff in a pea-souper, which we added to rapidly with some "fog" of our own. The next morning we drove down to Murloch Bay and seen the infamous three coloured goats that seem to show up on cue for anyone sufficiently baked to cope with them.

But a night out on the tear? Hmmmmm

As for Holidays.....costa del chav it's not, and Ibiza it's not. But go 2 miles from the centre of any town and you're basically in deepest countryside, go 15 miles and you;re in deliverance country mind. Outside of that fleggy shitehole that is Belfast, most of the place is rather green and lovely.

Personally I'll be glad to see the back of the cheesey lying bastard. When you consider the areas of policy that a UK government can actally have any control over (ie not the things that the EU now manages for us, or matters of globalisation or macro-economics which tend to overide national govnts), we are left with spin and window dressing of minor, trivial issues.(hoodies, foxhunting etc etc) Apart of course from the decision to wage illegal wars which contravenes most agreements and common sense. Not that the other lot would be much better, but at least they have the sense not to try to introduce ID cards.

Uncle Liam wrote: I expect the usual level headed thhinking will be applied on this thread?

Ten very successful years if you ask me. Apart from that thing in Iraq. But that goes without saying.

Best F%$kin laugh I've had in years...A utter wanker in my opinion, this country is now the biggest joke in europe as we seem to have become the dustbin of europe since the f%$k wit got into power and taxed to f%$k as well..I could go on but my laptop will go through the window if I don't stop now.

The 'iraq thing' presumably being the big pile of 650,000 corpses he's left as his main 'legacy'. Seems to me that pretty much dwarfs everything else, good or bad. He should be in prison for that as far as I'm concerned. And I really won't miss that mock 'sincerity' thing he does, "I did what I thought was right", Godalmightly, Lenin or Saddam Hussain could say the same thing, it's no excuse. The whole point of democracy, which he subvertecd by lying about WMDs, is that what one person thinks is right might actually be disasterously wrong, especially someone like Blair, with his lawyerly way of confusing the catagories of 'true' and 'usefull'.

On a much lesser note, its all well and good to bait lefties over his having 'destroyed socialism' but you don't have to be a socialist to be baffled at his obsession with privatising _everything_ whether it makes sense or not. I've just had three days without drinking water thanks to Thames water, and I notice a parliamentary commission just slammed the useless 'regulator' for letting that same record-profit-making-company off despite totally failling to meet its targets on reducing leaks. Likewise the privatisation of the tube and air traffic control really make no sense. The basic problem being the weird logic that says government isn't capable of providing these services directly yet simultaneously assuming it _is_ capable of 'regulating' wealthy private corporations with their armies of cunning lawyers.

On the plus side I suppose there's northern Ireland (though maybe thats more down to the increasing wealth of the Irish Republic and shrinking cultural differences between the UK and Ireland, and the fact that both Dublin and London increasingly take orders from Brussels anyway, so it doesn't matter so much who nominally controls the North? But, um, I don't pretend to understand that issue). And theres also the fact that income growth under Blair has actually been much more evenly spread over income groups than it was under Thatcher (when the rich gained hugely, the middle moderately and the poor not at all). But maybe that's more due to Brown.

He was in France today for the last time. Still this amazing smile... He sent his own greetings to "Nicolas" via youtube in French. I like this... "Bonjour Nicolas, félicitations" and the other French torry "Thank you Tony"... I dislike the way they called themselves, like they had been friends for years... It makes me think of a "happy few" club whatever they are from the labour or from the torry party.

It is interesting to read your comments. I find that most people take more interest in home matters than worldwilde ones (except from the USA) and not to say that Europe is evil on earth.

From here, Blair is : The one who completly destroyed the British welfare state (a dream to a French torry). A man more interested by the USA than UE. The Iraqi war affair.

I did not notice as much how things changed in Northern Ireland. The last and only time I went there was in 1987 and it was a bit scary for a foreigner. Of course I knew that things had turned a good way, but I never realized, as I read your comments, that it had been so important to you...

Anyway, bon vent monsieur Blair.

Uncle Liam wrote: Because of course, the things that Blair did get right, the main thing that matters to you is something that

a) is taking a place thousands of miles away from you

b) doesnt really affect you

and the things that he has achieved, would affect you (at least based on your posts) a lot more. Higher standards in Primary Education, lower wating times, stable and consistent economic growth etc etc.

You work in the steel business, non? I dont see you marching out on strike over pay every two weeks, do i?

But that logic would imply it wouldn't matter if he'd dropped nuclear weapons on cities and wiped out millions of people, as long as he did it 'thousands of miles away'.

And if you think the Iraq war 'doesn't affect you' you presumably don't care about little things like terrorist attacks, the loss of Iraqi oil production, the price of oil, loss of British influence abroad, increase in radicalism in unimportant places like Saudi Arabia, trivial things like that.

But, yeah, the government did indeed do some good things on the economy, and to an extent in the NHS and education, but surely that's more Brown's department, no?

Is there anything much left of our steel industry now anyway?

The labour party was originally set up for the working man......

Blair promised fundemental reforms for the unions,which never happened,unions are still forced to operate under the same legislation that thacher "forced" in in the 80's.

Being a former union man AND a steelworker, life has certainly got worse since labour got in.

Pensions are worth fuck all,companies can close at the drop of a hat (not like in europe), we have the highest rate of small business failure in europe,AND the highest teenage pregnancy rate in europe AND we are the most taxed nation in europe,if not the world!

We are members of the european union but yet we still do not see any kind of benefits that our european partners recieve.

Blair also told us that he would expect 50,000+ immigrants per year from former eastern european states,we now find that we have 500,000 - 1,000,000 poles,latvians,lithuanians and estonians,here in the u.k, that is not to mention immigrants from africa,afghanistan,pakistan and iraq.

What is the true figure of asylum seekers over the last ten years? We have all heard the tales of asylum seekers getting very benefit going,house,tellies,mobile phones and even cars!

Yet the average english working man can get fuck all,this is wrong,wrong,wrong.

He also stated that when Bulgaria and Romania joined the e.u we would expect to recieve 13,000 immigrants per year,apparently the "true" figure is more like 50,000 per WEEK! And this is with SUPPOSED subsidised visas?

Our small country CANNOT handle immigration on this scale.

Dont even get me started on French Farmers subsidies!

He has done fuck all for the average working man,apart from taxing us up to the bollocks!

My town of Barnsley has had a massive labour majority for the last 70+ years,things are slowly changing,in the recent elections labour lost a few seats to independents,and votes for the BNP were pretty high,i think it is time for an overall change,labour,tories,and lib dems all piss in the same pot.

We need a totalitarian government,in my eyes,if you are sentenced to life, then that should mean life.

Apparently that bastard huntley is having the time of his life in Wakey nick(wakefield maximum security prison),this is just wrong.

anyway,thats enough of my political ramblings....

signing off

Mad Cyril wrote: but the likes of Major and Thatcher were the ones who paved the way.

I did nothing of the sort!

Personally, I'll be glad to see the back of the two-faced twonk. I'm thinking of having a virtual party on here the night he goes. Anyone up for it?

Blair's legacy is going to lie w/ the copious amount of Bush chode-licking and being electable for only one reason, reminding Britain over and over how bad the Tory nightmare was.

Oh and he's ruined the Labour party single-handedly, quite the achievement.