So Blair is off soon and I would like to see what people think of his time in office. Has he been a good prime minister? Built this country up? Or is he, to put it bluntly, crap? Has he wrecked the place?

To copy my comments from a Digg post recently:

Disastrous, you expect this kind of thing to happen with Tory politicians, but a so-called Labour government?!

The media and the Labour party would like us to believe it's all Tony Blair's fault, so once he's gone we can pretend no-one else had anything to do with it and happily elect another Labour government.

The removal of "New Labour" from the Labour Party website means nothing other than they wish to distance themselves from the stigma of the Blair regime, it doesn't necessarily mean any of their policies will be Socialist or that they'll reform any of the blunders carried out in the last decade.

I guess all we can do is wait and see how Gordon Brown turns out, has he been held back by Blair all these years, just waiting for his chance to come out with radical Socialist policies and do what's really best for the country, or is he a similar Thatcherite-in-disguise like Blair? Probably the latter, but I'm still optimistic there's a socialist heart beating within that New Labour chest.

I think Blair has been a complete disaster.

He wanted to get more people into university to demonstrate the point that lower class/underprivileged people could now get a privileged education under Labour. Unfortunately, you can't suddenly increase the intelligence of the mass population to allow them to enter university. So, he had to reduce the intake standards.

He reduced them so much that now the top 50% of the population enters university compared to the top 5%. Obviously this can't be funded by the government, hence tuition fees. Who is less likely to want to take on debt to cover a university degree. Yep, you guessed, lower class/underprivileged people.

The erosion in examination standards has led to employers not knowing who is actually able or not because A grades are now the norm. Universities and employers are now looking towards the international baccalaureate in place of A' levels. This is because A' levels have become useless as a measure of ability.

What about wasting money on extortionate private finance initiatives to fund new hospitals (and schools). More interested in meeting self produced targets than gettting actual work done. Targets, unfortunately a John Major leftover that Tony loved.

The there are the lies. Not the obvious Iraq ones but the distortions over unemployment figures. The distortions over amounts of money spent. The obsession with targets to measure how well Labour are doing.

What about NHS deserts for dentists who the governmen screwed. Soon to be done with legal aid lawyers (he's already done it to criminal lawyers). Amazingly these things don't hit the headlines, just a small paragraph inside.

Obviously, with our increased education and intelligence we don't want trifling issues like that, we want heavy weight headlines about Eastenders or the latest problems besetting the most recent no-mark addition to the celebrity ranks.

What about Brown? How did he get away with the great pension robbery. His deeds are far worse than Maxwells (on an overall level). Brown's much sneakier though. He has to be, half of us have now got a university education, so we're not mugs.

There's just so much more but my fingers are tired.

Great Britain............. land of hype and glory. (Thanks Tony).

Definatly Bad in fact one of the worst Prime Ministers we had produced in this country.
In the 70's and 80's we were stuck with Thatcher who taught Blair how to be the lying toe-rag he is. She lied about the Falklands and the Belgrano, he lied about Iraq.

We have no rights in this country, what other country has signed treaties to allow their own nationals to be deported to another, even if there a person has not committed a crime in that country. We do not have free speech and are not allowed to protest.

We are spied on by our own government and watch by unelected organisations, and others are able to force entry into our homes and take away our possessions.

We as a nation are disliked by many other nations and are despised by more.
Brown is not much better and will not do this country any favours.

All this under the pretext of fighting terrorism but the biggest terrorists are the government itself.

The sad thing is though take in two years time we might just allow them to be voted into office once again using a system which strongly supports those with the fewest votes being given to office.

R

He did some stuff... some good some bad, but the bad was so terrible it makes me wonder how the hell he became leader of the labour party? He managed things that Maggie Thatcher could only dream of. That Brown bloke is nothing to write home about either... shifty if you ask me. The last budget, don't get me on about that one, make the poor, poorer to give stuff to the well off.

I'm 42, for most of my adult life before Tony, was spent under a Tory government. God I hated them! You know what, now I hate Labour. Is that I hate any long standing government??

During the last general election I heard something that has a ring of truth about it...
"Governments, like nappies need to be changed regularly, and for the same reasons!"

When it became clear Labour had won the election in 1997 I listed to Billy Braggs version of Red Flag at full volume in my flat. This was at about 4am . . .

How foolish

It's even worse. We haven't got a point in the Eurovision song contest yet and that's flippin' Blairs fault too.

lol awesome quote

hes made a total arse up of most things hes got his hand in, crime is fuckin awful nowadays, so much more than it was in 97, weve been taxed out of our arses for many a thing, and lets not forget the big cock up that he'll be remembered for, the war on iraq. i dont particuarly like the torys but at least they were a viable alternative, now that David Camerons taken over ive got no choice but to vote monster raving looney party...

There is always the Green party or even the Lib Dem's

Both too pro-EU for my liking, UKIP is a bunch of single issue right wing radicals. Bring back "Old" Labour. Bugger it maybe I should move to France! A 35 hour week and a nap at lunch time sound awfully nice right now... Ever since the work time directive 48 hour is now the norm in a lot of places. Well, every job I have had since, there you go that's another thing to blame Blair for... Me having to work 50 hours a week! (50 not 48 because I haven't had a lunch break in years)

Haven't you heard, Sarkozy has got in, BBC NEWS | Europe | French voters split on working week

I don't beleve that the French will really change. It's in their blood. The French are the French long hours and skipping lunch just isn't going to happen... Paris maybe, just a little, but it will never be as bad as here in the UK. We have had 25 years of right of centre govenments.

I think that both in dealing with Britains'/American government/politics, most people focus too much of the front man, Blair and Bush.
Also, perhaps there is simply too little opposition in the politics, so the criticisms are not considered properly? My understanding is that there are two mayor parties in Britain, the Tories, and Labour, I feel like two parties is simply to guarantee that there will be good opposition.
Of course, one could also try to rely on members of a party (in seats) starting discussion wether certain proposals are a good idea. I mean, encourage this by voting on those members that do this. If you know a lot about some issue and have opinions on a proposal, send a (well-written)letter with arguments to a member of the party that deals with that issue. Or perhaps, someone is already arguing against some proposal, and you have some arguments-ammo.
Remember, you can be part of the democracy too. Given a chance, dont be a couch-critic.

One of the biggest changes TB has made to British politics is the centralisation of power. He ran the government like a US style presidency. Keeping secrets from his own party, (currently under investigation by the police) funding irregularities may still see him facing a court room. Spending time and effort trying to control his own backbenchers, MP so appalled by his polices that they would face political isolation and ridicule rather than support TB.

There is the slim possibility (well technical at least) that he may face charges for war crimes.

Indeed, did you catch The Trial of Tony Blair when it was on More4? I missed the second half, downloaded it in torrent form instead

Robert Lindsay had a rather... interesting portrayal of Blair as a loud-mouthed and aggressive control freak, but with all the spin and conflicting accounts it's hard to tell if that's what he's like in real life.