politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Worried about BREXIT – fear no more. Tony Blair is coming to t

Hard to know what to make of the above story in today’s Sunday Times about Labour’s most successful leader in terms of winning elections.
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Other than perhaps Jimmy Carter, it is hard to think of any whose post-office machinations have improved their reputations, rather than further shredding them.
* I would not trust the dark-web to be as secure as it is hyped so no rifling about for me.
:waves-hello-at-mi5:
Osborne should distance himself from Blair. The alternative is, like Cameron's referendum, a lose-lose situation. He either fails, or succeeds but by working as/for Blair.
Teaming up with Tony Blair.
Hur hur hur......
Everything the voters hate about politics, in one easily discarded package.
In the long run, the only way to totally stop it is to form a pro EU party and win a GE, nothing short of that would provide the mandate necessary to reverse the previous decision. Labour cannot turn back from. Brexit, without Scotland they don't have the core support to survive that credibly. So it would have to be a new party, and even Blair isn't delusional enough to think he can achieve that.
Even if he could create the organisation, it would be as successful in parliament as UKIP.
The number of people in Britain who think "What we need now is the insight and wisdom of Tony Blair" is vanishingly low, I suspect.
Sure he made mistakes, like not sacking brown in 2001, but otherwise I don't get the hate.
Bush junior has enhanced his reputation a lot by not machinating!
We need some polling.....
And then there's Iraq, and the repercussions of his middle east policy, which has cost millions of people their homes and hundreds of thousands their lives, and caused the largest humanitarian crisis since 1945.
He was the worst snake oil salesman to ever occupy no10
The real question is how many who were convinced by the government's leaflet now see that document as the ridiculous propaganda that it was, and will simply vote to leave based on anti establishment sentiment.
My suspicion is that the hate is more based in online forums and among the corbynite left than among the general public
http://www.breitbart.com/california/2016/11/19/trump-won-state-jefferson/
"Twenty-five California counties chose Donald J. Trump for President of the United States, while 33 went for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And seventeen of the 21 California counties proposed for the “State of Jefferson” went for Trump, most by more than 10 percent.
19 of the proposed 21 California “State of Jefferson” counties currently have active petitions to form the 51st state, according to soj51.net. Of the 25 that went for Trump, 24 voted for him by more than 10 percent — and in 14 of those counties, Trump outperformed 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, according to the Sacramento Bee...
Making a wrong decision about one thing doesn't make you a liar, it makes you human. I detest that corbyn and the rest of the ragtag social justice warriors have done to the labour party off the back of it.
Still, things can only get better from here....
Blair thinks he's Luke Skywalker.
Lol
Ben
BBC risks bias claim as TV chief who sailed on Bob Geldof's pro-EU boat set to host Brexit show.
https://t.co/7U7AsHDVva https://t.co/qjiopZn0Zg
Blair and Osborne. Competing for the lack of political self awareness award? Just wow. This would probably put the Tories on 50%
Edited extra bit
B+O would attract all the hard line remainers from left and right. Majority in the H of C? Full steam ahead and damn democracy
It is not a totally ridiculous idea. Stranger things have happened and we are in unprecedented times where anything is possible. Blair is probably the only person that could lead such a project, and it would have a lot of support.
If the remainers do hold a majority position in the Commons, could they collude and add an amendment to any substantive legislation that would overturn the result of the referendum if passed?
Looking back should have known better and realised that no thought would have been given to what to do afterwards. So you can see why people who supported the original invasion now regret supporting it.
The British would turn away in justified revulsion. .
Herbert Hoover saved thousands of children in Germany from malnutrition or worse by organising a system of free school meals in 1945.
Neither were exactly fully rehabilitated but then they were starting from a very low base.
Or we could mention Taft, who became a justice of the Supreme Court after a presidency that wrecked the Republican Party. Or Major, and his work with cricket charities helping disadvantaged children.
There are plenty of examples out there. It's just more fun to talk about the ones that are lazy, unpleasant or curiously wealthy despite doing no work - like Edward Heath.
BROWN.
The EU's future depends on the results of elections in key Western European countries in the next 12 months. It is to be hoped that HMG doesn't reveal too much of a hand regarding its approach to Brexit until the outcome of these elections is known. For example, if MLP wins in France and Merkel loses, the European political scene will be very different.
(The fact that it would hamstring California in the EC going from +55 to (+14) is incidental)
The people most agitated by Iraq are for the most part left wing activists. For lots of people now I don't think it is a massive issue.
Its nice that he (or his spokesman) is calling Corbyn a nutter. Good to see people speaking their minds, but for what its worth I don't think Corbyn is the nutter, just many of his followers.
Both Thatcher and Blair were disliked, they were not disliked because they were weak.
None of those three ever left politics entirely to live the life of am international jet setter.
Is his stock lower than it was, yes. Is he what the public wants now, probably not. But the comparison with thatcher is Apt. If Blair were as hated by nonpartisan as well partisans there would have been no Blair era. And that he is more disliked now than when hE was in office doesn't change that and even now some like him.
SDPers never understand how distrusted Blair is - police interview, Iraq, scheming with/against Brown, blamed (quite rightly) for much of what is ill with immigration today, too close to Europe.
But interesting you bring Thacher up. No one thought in 2001 - you know what we need, Maggir back. Politics had moved on as well as her being unpopular....
Off topic, Strictly in Blackpool was awesome.
Personal high point for me, apart from seeing Natalie Lowe's knickers, was telling Jamie Redknapp 'I thought your wife was literally on fire on the dance floor tonight'
My wider point re Blair was that much of Brexit is around constitutional implications (however dressed up). If there was an area that the Blair administrations were noticeably weak it, it was constitutional change, its significance and its consequences.
How many British soldiers died as a result of the lies told about the IRAQ war? How many Iraquis ?
But if in 2000 the govt had self destructed as Cameron's just did, if Blair had been replaced by Harman and the govt had created a constitutional clusterfuck on the scale of Brexit, who knows what might have happened.
Blair would only influence Labour negatively. If he had the sense to come out and enthusiastically endorse Corbyn, saying how great he is and how he is completing a grassroots revolution Blair started, Corbyn's position with the membership would drop faster than Bill Clinton's trousers.
But Blair, for all his many strengths particularly in communication and campaigning, is very bad at political tactics. That's why he needed Brown, who was terrible at C&C but a real down and dirty political street fighter. If they worked together instead of against each other, they would have been one of the most formidable political pairings of all time, up there with Lenin and Trotsky. Fortunately perhaps, Brown's ego meant that would never happen.
Unlike many former PMs, his reputation has sunk still lower after leaving office (money-grubbing with dictators, complicated tax arrangements seemingly designed for avoidance purposes, JP Morgan directorships, international and monied jet-setting).
Blair is a perfect symbol of everything that is wrong with the EU and the modern world. He is our Hillary, with his own whiff of dodgy deals and dirty money. and nepotism. After what has happened across the Atlantic, it seems beyond stupid to even suggest Blair could return and win.
It is what he has done after his Premiership -- just as much as the disastrous consequences of some of his decisions during his time as PM -- that dooms this.
Much to TSE's disdain....
The courts will give Hollyrood a veto on Brexit, thus forcing Leavers the awkward descision of either remaining or destroying the Union.
*Calm down we're leaving but the lolz on that would be epic.
But no longer.
Agreed. Thatcher wasn't hated because she lost.
I kept faith in 2001, as I had generally approved of the first government. I sent my party card back after the appalling war mongering in the run up to the second Gulf war, and also the increasing privatisation of the NHS.
I would happily vote for a centrist Labour party again, but I wouldn't piss on Blair if he was on fire. What we see in the Middle East refugee crisis is the direct outcome of his policies, and his lack of implementation of a possible A8 migration freeze contributed more than anything else to the Leave vote. Ditto the Euro Constitution and giving up part of the budget rebate.
His lack of understanding of why the country voted for Leave is why he should have no part in a continuity Remain campaign.
I doubt Blair is seeking a return to the front line himself, but is almost certainly hoping to nudge things.
He remains arguably the most fluent political commentator of our time, and out here in the East Midlands provinces I know plenty of people, Labour and non-Labour, who miss his involvement. But because new parties under FPTP have the killer disadvantage that we all know, I see his role primarily as an effective leader of a fierce anti-Brexit campaign on the lines that Jonathan Freedland suggested yesterday (can't find the link) - uninhibited by the "we must respect the verdict" position of most Remainers active in the major parties. To favour reversing the decision is a perfectly legal stance and at present its de facto leader is Tim Farron, who just doesn't cut through the media as Blair still does.
https://medium.com/@MedicalReport/how-the-trump-campaign-built-an-identity-database-and-used-facebook-ads-to-win-the-election-4ff7d24269ac#.ubz8ljfst
The political scene in such a format would look considerably different. With many more centralist and possibly softer EU policies that could well draw in many Remainers as well of all political views,
EdwardDavid Milliband steps into the breach as the saviour.Lets not worry about the moral and democratic problems with it, eh?
http://www.lrb.co.uk/2016/11/14/rw-johnson/trump-some-numbers
When has anybody suggested reversing the stance is illegal? Anti-democratic perhaps, but illegal?
Back is in the sense of control, as you are well aware.