Tony Blair's words of 1993 are as prophetic as ever in setting out what we do as a society to tackle this huge problem of urban unrest. We need to come down on rioters and looters hard. People don't want that and those involved need to know that there is no place for that behaviour.
People will speculate about the causes of the riots. Nobody will ever agree. A poverty of ambition and aspiration among the criminal rioters seems prevalent. This comes despite many years of additional education funding and opportunity. That obviously wasn't enough. Taking away much of that, as the Tories have done and are doing, won't help. It explains but doesn't excuse.
Today's parliamentary debate saw some agreement between David Cameron and Ed Miliband. That is promising. If this tragedy is turned into a political game of ping pong nothing will get done. A lot needs to get done.
It would send out the wrong signal to cut police numbers and budgets now. It did anyway but eve more so now. Otherwise how will the authorities react in future if something like this happens again? Cameron still wants to cut budgets which threatens to roll back the progress made over recent years to reduce crime and make our streets safer. In London I've personally felt the benefit from Safer Neighbourhood Teams. Cuts to those in this context will show that the Tories really just don't get it and don't have the backs of ordinary Londoners covered.
The key challenge is to ensure that the right words now don't filter away as they did in the 1980s and in the USA after Hurricane Katrina. We need to show that we've learnt from that. Cameron needs to show that Conservatism really is compassionate and that it won't just be tough on crime, but also its causes. This means that budget cuts should never take precedence, as they seem to be, over public safety or rebuilding our communities.
Cameron isn't Blair yet and never will be.
Showing posts with label Tony Blair. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Blair. Show all posts
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Blair book breaks records in first week
Tony Blair's A Journey sold almost 100,000 copies in its first week making it one of the fastest selling autobiographies since records began.
Over £1.2m was spent on the book in four days, the profits of which Blair is donating to an army charity. The Bookseller reports that four pence of every pound spent in UK bookshops last week went on his book. I have mentioned before that this book has brought Blair back into the public eye and shows what a big drawer he still is. I'm currently reading both his and Peter Mandelson's books and shows that the doubters were wrong to suggest his book wouldn't be of interest.
Whatever your view on Blair, the British public seemingly still haven't had enough of Tony.
Over £1.2m was spent on the book in four days, the profits of which Blair is donating to an army charity. The Bookseller reports that four pence of every pound spent in UK bookshops last week went on his book. I have mentioned before that this book has brought Blair back into the public eye and shows what a big drawer he still is. I'm currently reading both his and Peter Mandelson's books and shows that the doubters were wrong to suggest his book wouldn't be of interest.Whatever your view on Blair, the British public seemingly still haven't had enough of Tony.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Tony Blair's Richard Bacon interview
I've been following the media reaction to the launch of Tony Blair's book with interest and some incredulity. According to today's Telegraph the "revelations" in his book have caused a "war" in the Labour Party. I'm sure the Telegraph would like there to be a war, though I've not seen any evidence of it (this story is no longer on the Telegraph site otherwise I'd link to it).
Blair is still big news and the book has been selling fast. I'm looking forward to receiving my own copy shortly. Not because I expect to learn anything new from it, most of the highlights have been heavily covered in the media already or have appeared in other books, such as those by Andrew Rawnsley, Chris Mullin and Peter Mandelson. I'm looking forward to understanding more about Blair and to remind myself, for sentimental reasons, what Labour in power achieved.
I listened to his interview today with Five Live's Richard Bacon. The focus was predictable: Iraq, Northern Ireland and Gordon Brown. On Iraq Blair expressed a human regret for the bloodshed but stood by his decision to go to war. Nobody could expect anything else. He also reminded us of how dreadful Iraq was when Saddam was in power. That is often overlooked in the revisionist analysis of the chaos in the aftermath. Listening also took me back to 9-11 and 7-7. When thinking about Afghanistan is is also often forgotten about the context and terrifying events that led to that war. Northern Ireland is undoubtedly Blair's biggest and most lasting achievement domestically. Iraq often buries it as the focus of this interview showed.
Much of the media coverage has focused on Gordon Brown. Today Blair said:
The media has focused on the negatives, but in the book and in his interviews Blair should be credited for admitting his troubles on working with Brown but also for painting a balanced picture. He was careful to meet every negative with a positive.
What I thought was very telling and quite revealing was that he strongly felt that Brown and his team didn't have the right answers to govern. He said to Bacon that he had no problem with people who think their plans are the right thing for the country to seek power. He had a problem with these ideas in the first place. I find that a little harsh because to suggest that Brown added nothing of value when PM would be wrong. The criticism that there was no clear agenda for reforming public services is valid.
Rather than focus on the negatives, which should be left to the media to fight over, Labour needs to remember how much progress was made with Blair as leader. While it is wrong to apply the same tactics and arguments that were successful in 1997 to 2010, it would also be wrong to forget what worked too. Listening to Blair and reading his book should provide support and guidance. He shouldn't be forgotten.
What does this mean for his legacy? It should serve as a reminder, as Alistair Campbell said today far better than I ever could:
How do you think that history will judge him? More kindly than most of the commentary in the UK. He was a winner, serving longer in office than any Labour leader by far … he presided over a decade of growth and prosperity, turned round investment in public services, got crime down, delivered on a major programme of devolution, the minimum wage … I could go on and on … and whilst many people like to pretend Iraq is his only legacy, don’t forget Kosovo, Sierra Leone, the leadership he showed after 9/11, Northern Ireland. He was without doubt one of the major reforming Prime Ministers in our history.
I listened to his interview today with Five Live's Richard Bacon. The focus was predictable: Iraq, Northern Ireland and Gordon Brown. On Iraq Blair expressed a human regret for the bloodshed but stood by his decision to go to war. Nobody could expect anything else. He also reminded us of how dreadful Iraq was when Saddam was in power. That is often overlooked in the revisionist analysis of the chaos in the aftermath. Listening also took me back to 9-11 and 7-7. When thinking about Afghanistan is is also often forgotten about the context and terrifying events that led to that war. Northern Ireland is undoubtedly Blair's biggest and most lasting achievement domestically. Iraq often buries it as the focus of this interview showed.
Much of the media coverage has focused on Gordon Brown. Today Blair said:
- "Gordon could be extremely difficult"
- "He was also somebody who made an enormous contribution to government"
- "He is also brilliant"
- "His personality is out of line with 21st century politics"
The media has focused on the negatives, but in the book and in his interviews Blair should be credited for admitting his troubles on working with Brown but also for painting a balanced picture. He was careful to meet every negative with a positive.
What I thought was very telling and quite revealing was that he strongly felt that Brown and his team didn't have the right answers to govern. He said to Bacon that he had no problem with people who think their plans are the right thing for the country to seek power. He had a problem with these ideas in the first place. I find that a little harsh because to suggest that Brown added nothing of value when PM would be wrong. The criticism that there was no clear agenda for reforming public services is valid.
Rather than focus on the negatives, which should be left to the media to fight over, Labour needs to remember how much progress was made with Blair as leader. While it is wrong to apply the same tactics and arguments that were successful in 1997 to 2010, it would also be wrong to forget what worked too. Listening to Blair and reading his book should provide support and guidance. He shouldn't be forgotten.
What does this mean for his legacy? It should serve as a reminder, as Alistair Campbell said today far better than I ever could:
How do you think that history will judge him? More kindly than most of the commentary in the UK. He was a winner, serving longer in office than any Labour leader by far … he presided over a decade of growth and prosperity, turned round investment in public services, got crime down, delivered on a major programme of devolution, the minimum wage … I could go on and on … and whilst many people like to pretend Iraq is his only legacy, don’t forget Kosovo, Sierra Leone, the leadership he showed after 9/11, Northern Ireland. He was without doubt one of the major reforming Prime Ministers in our history.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Tony Blair's journey: Labour's journey
Many of the leadership contenders have made much of attempting to distance themselves from New Labour, saying we need to move on. They are of course correct to say that Labour needs new policies and solutions as the world today is very different to that of the mid-1990s.
At the same time I am concerned that we need to heed the same lessons that Labour was harshly taught in the 1990s. A lurch to the left isn't wanted by the country when they have just voted to the right. If Labour takes that path the party will end up shouting to an empty room. Labour needs to talk to the whole country, not just the heartlands. That was Tony Blair's greatest gift to the Labour Party and one that must not be surrendered.
Friday, May 22, 2009
John Smith
Recently linked to Labour blog Red Threads tagged me in a post about John Smith to mark the fifteenth anniversary of his death. The idea is to get as many Labour people talking about our late (great) leader.
Where were you when you heard John Smith had died?
I had just got home from secondary school, I was 14. My mum was standing by the radio in our kitchen and told me the second I walked in the door. When she told me I felt like the world I had hoped for had just been snatched away from me. I felt a slightly desperate. I can remember staying up late with my dad in 1992 to watch the election results come in and getting deeply upset. John Smith was Labour's last hope and he was no longer.
How did you view John Smith when he was leader and how do you view him now?
In the run up to the 1992 election it had seemed that the media and much of the public was deeply suspicious of Neil Kinnock. John Smith was painted as the sensible alternative who would have led Labour to victory - despite his disastrous shadow budget and the subsequent Tory Labour's tax bombshell adverts.
At the time I viewed him as the only man left who could lead Labour back into government. Now I view him as a man who probably would have led Labour to victory in 1997, but who would have led a different party to that which Tony Blair took into government. Reform of the party would have been less aggressive than under Blair, Smith's victory was OMOV, I'm not sure he'd have wanted to take on more. As a result it could be argued that Labour might not have been able to hold onto power for as long as it has. Or it could be argued that he might have kept Labour old and that the party would have remained stronger. I'm not necessarily convinced of the latter. Key strands of his policy as Shadow Chancellor in 1992 were a national minimum wage - something enacted by Blair's government.
Do you think he would have made a good Prime Minister?
Smith would have made a good PM. I don't know if he'd have been able to decimate the Tories in parliament and in elections as the centrist Blair managed. They were so tired by 1997 though, so who knows?
What do you think is his lasting legacy?
Smith carried on necessary reform of the Labour Party and his commitment to social justice was undoubted. It is important that we continue to remember him in the Labour movement. It is so easy to forget that Blair's dominance of British politics and Labour Party came about by accident.
Where were you when you heard John Smith had died?
I had just got home from secondary school, I was 14. My mum was standing by the radio in our kitchen and told me the second I walked in the door. When she told me I felt like the world I had hoped for had just been snatched away from me. I felt a slightly desperate. I can remember staying up late with my dad in 1992 to watch the election results come in and getting deeply upset. John Smith was Labour's last hope and he was no longer.
How did you view John Smith when he was leader and how do you view him now?
In the run up to the 1992 election it had seemed that the media and much of the public was deeply suspicious of Neil Kinnock. John Smith was painted as the sensible alternative who would have led Labour to victory - despite his disastrous shadow budget and the subsequent Tory Labour's tax bombshell adverts.
At the time I viewed him as the only man left who could lead Labour back into government. Now I view him as a man who probably would have led Labour to victory in 1997, but who would have led a different party to that which Tony Blair took into government. Reform of the party would have been less aggressive than under Blair, Smith's victory was OMOV, I'm not sure he'd have wanted to take on more. As a result it could be argued that Labour might not have been able to hold onto power for as long as it has. Or it could be argued that he might have kept Labour old and that the party would have remained stronger. I'm not necessarily convinced of the latter. Key strands of his policy as Shadow Chancellor in 1992 were a national minimum wage - something enacted by Blair's government.
Do you think he would have made a good Prime Minister?
Smith would have made a good PM. I don't know if he'd have been able to decimate the Tories in parliament and in elections as the centrist Blair managed. They were so tired by 1997 though, so who knows?
What do you think is his lasting legacy?
Smith carried on necessary reform of the Labour Party and his commitment to social justice was undoubted. It is important that we continue to remember him in the Labour movement. It is so easy to forget that Blair's dominance of British politics and Labour Party came about by accident.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
London Oratory School and Alistair Campbell
I was interested to read in Alistair Campbell's diary that Neil Kinnock dubbed the London Oratory School a "waffen SS academy" whileCampbell himself held strong reservations about the school. I have a number of friends who went there and I could never get over the ridiculous rules and discipline of the place. It always reminded me of a private boarding school, without the fees, though pupils are expected to pay for lunch there, by the school magazine, pay for school events and buy an extensive uniform...Saturday detentions for 6th formers etc.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Labour and the media
Tony Blair's speech yesterday where ghe dubbed the media a "feral beast" has gained plenty of coverage. His point that the media no longer reports news, instead comments (and passes judgement on it) struck me because about five years ago I went to a Camden Labour Party meeting at which Alistair Campbell made the same point.
Isn't this because newspapers specifically are always behind the 24 news agenda, they are no longer in real time and are never informing their readers of events for the first time. Campbell gave this response to my question in Camden when I asked why Labour, a government meant to be obsessed with spin, is so poor at getting it's message across.
I do feel that Blair's analysis of the present situation of the media - politics relationship is correct. However, I feel it is much more a chicken and egg situation as to who is to blame. I do feel though that Labour's paranoia was inevitable after 18 years of opposition and unfavourable media coverage. The easy answer is that the media despite claiming to have been pro-Labour at least in the immedate post 1997 years, is naturally anti-Labour.
Many have commented that Blair is feeling sour grapes as the tide as turned against him and while there is truth in that, I think he has prompted a worthwhile debate about our political media. Michael White states that his analysis is "hard to dispute" and I was interested to note his comment that Blair downgraded Parliament, but so did newspapers in stoppoing Parliamentary reports in the early 1990s.
Isn't this because newspapers specifically are always behind the 24 news agenda, they are no longer in real time and are never informing their readers of events for the first time. Campbell gave this response to my question in Camden when I asked why Labour, a government meant to be obsessed with spin, is so poor at getting it's message across.
I do feel that Blair's analysis of the present situation of the media - politics relationship is correct. However, I feel it is much more a chicken and egg situation as to who is to blame. I do feel though that Labour's paranoia was inevitable after 18 years of opposition and unfavourable media coverage. The easy answer is that the media despite claiming to have been pro-Labour at least in the immedate post 1997 years, is naturally anti-Labour.
Many have commented that Blair is feeling sour grapes as the tide as turned against him and while there is truth in that, I think he has prompted a worthwhile debate about our political media. Michael White states that his analysis is "hard to dispute" and I was interested to note his comment that Blair downgraded Parliament, but so did newspapers in stoppoing Parliamentary reports in the early 1990s.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Neil Kinnock - legend
I went to the Fabian's event with Neil Kinnock in conversation with The Guardian's Michael White last night. The Fabians have led their press release stating that Kinnock opposed Trident replacement last night. From my recollection he said so because he didn't support the Government's reasoning and that they haven't asserted a full and proper case for spending billions of pounds. He has a point though I'm not sure that the UK should be scrapping their weapons when others are not.
Like many, Kinnock also said that he regretted Tony Blair's statement that he would not serve a fourth term. I agree, as I stated recently, that you neuter yourself as soon as you say you are going to quit.
However, Kinnock disagreed with those who think Blair obsessed with creating a legacy or himself. He said that Blair is more likely to carry on working after he quits as PM, perhaps seeking a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. He said that Blair would do this even if it could damage his reputation. We shall see, as Blair's reputation is obviously already damaged. This is a tremendous shame I think, because the country is an immeasurably better place now than it was a decade ago. For evidence of this we need look no further than Northern Ireland, though of course we could look at all the new schools and hospitals...
Kinnock came across as a man of tremendous passion, wit and charisma, he always does.
Like many, Kinnock also said that he regretted Tony Blair's statement that he would not serve a fourth term. I agree, as I stated recently, that you neuter yourself as soon as you say you are going to quit.
However, Kinnock disagreed with those who think Blair obsessed with creating a legacy or himself. He said that Blair is more likely to carry on working after he quits as PM, perhaps seeking a solution to the conflict in the Middle East. He said that Blair would do this even if it could damage his reputation. We shall see, as Blair's reputation is obviously already damaged. This is a tremendous shame I think, because the country is an immeasurably better place now than it was a decade ago. For evidence of this we need look no further than Northern Ireland, though of course we could look at all the new schools and hospitals...
Kinnock came across as a man of tremendous passion, wit and charisma, he always does.
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Labour's future
Does it matter whether Labour's next leader is put in place through coronation or contested election? A contested election between feasible candidates, not John McDonnell or Michael Meacher from the left of the Party.
Yesterday's 2020 Vision "announcement" from Milburn and Clarke adds a further to the debate. The main problem is not whether or how Gordon Brown should take over the leadership. The problem is that Blair rather stupidly stated that he was going to stand down at a point in the future.
I've always been a far stauncher Blair supporter than most, but when he said that he was going to stand down it would have been better for the Party if he did so sooner. Dragging the whole process on for months has left Labour with an "empty chair" crisis.
That aside, we have a leader to elect. In 1992 John Smith was always going to win the leadership election (beating Brian Gould) and in 1994 Tony Blair was always going to beat John Prescott. I don't recall there being any problem with that. If there is one candidate clearly stronger than anyone else what is the problem with that?
Perhaps much of the discussion has been caused by scepticism of Brown. Those who don't want him as leader say there is a need to debate. By debating you can then propose someone else. Those who support Brown don't see a need for a debate when in their minds the choice of next leader is already obvious. David Milliband has been suggested and I'm keen for himn to be a future Labour leader but I think we should leave it there. In a few years his profile will be higher and the time will be right then.
One thing is for certain, I'm not going to be voting for McDonnell or Meacher.
Yesterday's 2020 Vision "announcement" from Milburn and Clarke adds a further to the debate. The main problem is not whether or how Gordon Brown should take over the leadership. The problem is that Blair rather stupidly stated that he was going to stand down at a point in the future.
I've always been a far stauncher Blair supporter than most, but when he said that he was going to stand down it would have been better for the Party if he did so sooner. Dragging the whole process on for months has left Labour with an "empty chair" crisis.
That aside, we have a leader to elect. In 1992 John Smith was always going to win the leadership election (beating Brian Gould) and in 1994 Tony Blair was always going to beat John Prescott. I don't recall there being any problem with that. If there is one candidate clearly stronger than anyone else what is the problem with that?
Perhaps much of the discussion has been caused by scepticism of Brown. Those who don't want him as leader say there is a need to debate. By debating you can then propose someone else. Those who support Brown don't see a need for a debate when in their minds the choice of next leader is already obvious. David Milliband has been suggested and I'm keen for himn to be a future Labour leader but I think we should leave it there. In a few years his profile will be higher and the time will be right then.
One thing is for certain, I'm not going to be voting for McDonnell or Meacher.
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