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Tony Blair

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May, 1953) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 2, 1997 to June 27, 2007. He was an employment law barrister before being elected to Parliament as Labour Party MP for the constituency of Sedgefield in 1983. Becoming Labour Party leader in 1994, he adopted moderate pro-free market policies and won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. His decision to send UK forces to assist in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was highly controversial and surrounding scandals tarnished his image, although he was re-elected in 2005.

Blair likes to say that his party is best when it is bold. So is he--and when he has an unconflicted view of the right and wrong of an issue... Blair is not at his best when his vision of what is right is blurred. ~ Irwin M. Stelzer

Quotes

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1980s

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  • I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th Series, vol. 45, col. 316.
    • Maiden speech as MP for Sedgefield (6 July 1983).

1993–April 1997

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  • I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again.
    • Philip Webster, "Blair sets sights on Downing Street", The Times (22 July 1994).
    • Speech on being elected Leader of the Labour Party (21 July 1994).
  • The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.
    • The Mail on Sunday (2 October 1994).
  • Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do.
    • "Mr Blair opts out", The Guardian (2 December 1994). Statement (1 December 1994) defending his decision to send his eldest son Euan to the London Oratory School which had opted out of local education authority control under a policy which the Labour Party opposed.
  • Tony Blair: Has the Prime Minister secured even the minimal guarantee from the Euro-rebels that, on a future vote of confidence on Europe, they will support him?
    John Major: I can sense the concern in the right hon. Gentleman's voice. Perhaps he would like to tell me whether he has received the support of the 50 MPs who defied his Front Bench over Maastricht; of the 40 who defied him over European finance; on a single currency, where the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) was in dispute with the deputy leader of the Labour party; and on clause IV, which half his, I think he called them, infantile MEPs want to keep. He does not, and his deputy leader does one day and does not the next. These are party matters. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what his position is?
    Tony Blair: There is one very big difference—I lead my party, he follows his.
    • Hansard, House of Commons 6th series, vol. 258, cols. 655-6.
    • Prime Minister's Question Time (25 April 1995).
  • We have no plans to increase tax at all.
    • Philip Bassett, "Blair pledges he will not raise tax", The Times, 21 September 1995, p. 1.
    • Response to questioning about Labour Party tax plans at a CBI seminar in Birmingham (20 September 1995).
  • I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
    • Michael White, "Blair wants 'to make UK young again'", The Guardian (4 October 1995).
    • Speech to the Labour Party conference (3 October 1995).
  • I want to see a publicly-owned railway, publicly accountable.
    • Paul Routledge, "Why the unions aren't rocking Blair's boat", The Independent on Sunday (8 October 1995).
    • Speech to the Labour Party conference (3 October 1995).
  • The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth, and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few.
  • Socialism for me was never about nationalization or the power of the state, not just about economics or even politics. It is a moral purpose to life, a set of values, a belief in society, in co-operation, in achieving together what we cannot achieve alone. It is how I try to live my life, how you try to live yours—the simple truths—I am worth no more than anyone else, I am my brother’s keeper, I will not walk by on the other side. We are not simply people set in isolation from one another, face to face with eternity, but members of the same family, same community, same human race. This is my socialism and the irony of all our long years in opposition is that those values are shared by the vast majority of the British people.
  • I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves.
    • Sunday Telegraph (7 April 1996).
  • Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education. We are 35th in the world league of education standards – 35th. At every level, radical improvement and reform.
    • Speech to party conference (October 1996) [1]
    • "We are back as the people's party, says Blair", The Times (2 October 1996).
    • Speech to Labour Party conference (1 October 1996).
  • If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum.
    • "New Britain: My vision of a young country", p. 70.
  • In the end there is no escaping from the fact that businesses run business. And the best thing government can do is set a framework within which business has the stability to plan and invest in the future [...] I want a situation more like the Democrats and the Republicans in the US. People don't even question for a single moment that the Democrats are pro-business party. They should not be asking the question about the New Labour [...] New Labour is pro-business, pro-enterprise, and we believe there is nothing inconsistent between that and a decent and just society.
  • Isn't it extraordinary that the Prime Minister of our country can't even urge his Party to back his own position. Weak! Weak! Weak!
    • Prime Ministers Questions (30 January 1997).
  • Powers that are constitutionally there can be used but the Scottish Labour Party is not planning to raise income tax and once the power is given it is like any parish council: it's got the right to exercise it.
    • The Scotsman (4 April 1997).
    • Asked whether he would intervene to prevent the Scottish Parliament from raising taxes.

May 1997–1999

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  • A new dawn has broken, has it not?
    • Victory speech at Labour election-night party, Royal Festival Hall, London (2 May 1997).
  • My message to Sinn Fein is clear. The settlement train is leaving. I want you on that train. But it is leaving anyway and I will not allow it to wait for you.
    • David McKittrick, "Blair offers a fresh start for Irish peace", The Independent, 17 May 1997, p. 1.
    • Speech at the Royal Ulster Agricultural Show (16 May 1997).
  • I was born in 1953, a child of the Cold War era, raised amid the constant fear of a conflict with the potential to destroy humanity. Whatever other dangers may exist, no such fear exists today. Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. That is a prize beyond value.
    • Martin Bentham, "You're the boss, Tony", The Sun (28 May 1997), p. 2.
    • Speech at a summit in Paris between NATO and Russia (27 May 1997).
  • She was the people's princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.
  • I would never do anything to harm the country or anything improper. I think most people who have dealt with me think I'm a pretty straight sort of guy, and I am.
    • Trevor Kavanagh, "Blair: My big blunder", The Sun, 17 November 1997, p. 8.
    • Interview with John Humphrys on BBC TV's On the Record (16 November 1997).
  • A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really - we can leave those at home - but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do.
    • Julia Langdon, "The gloves are off in the Speaker's corner", Herald (Glasgow), 9 April 1998, p. 21.
    • Statement to the press on arriving at Hillsborough Castle for the Northern Ireland talks (7 April 1998).
  • We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.
    • David Hughes, "'Don't flutter around us' Blair warns lobbyists", Daily Mail (8 July 1998), p. 2.
    • After a scandal about lobbying and access; this statement is often misremembered as "whiter than white".
  • A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege, class or background, but on the equal worth of all.
  • I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so … prudent.

2000–2003

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  • We have done all that, but lots of people like you say because it's not perfect, you've done nothing and therefore I'm walking away from it – it's pathetic. And as for this rubbish that we took the whole of the social services budget and blew it on Kosovo – first of all, the figures are nonsense; secondly, I want to tell you this about Kosovo. I think the day that this movement, with its values, when we could do something about it, would walk away from the worst case of ethnic cleansing and racial genocide since the second world war, then we'd have something to be ashamed of.
    • Answer at a Labour Party question-and-answer meeting (January 2000), quoted in Michael Cockerell, 'The secret world of Tony Blair', New Statesman (14 February 2000)
  • There have been the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last hour or so, including two hijacked planes being flown deliberately into the World Trade Center. I am afraid we can only imagine the terror and the carnage there and the many, many innocent people who will have lost their lives. I know that you would want to join with me in sending the deepest condolences to President Bush and to the American people on behalf of the British people at these terrible events.

    This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.

  • When we act to bring to account those that committed the atrocity of September 11, we do so, not out of bloodlust. We do so because it is just. We do not act against Islam. The true followers of Islam are our brothers and sisters in this struggle. Bin Laden is no more obedient to the proper teaching of the Koran than those Crusaders of the 12th century who pillaged and murdered, represented the teaching of the Gospel. It is time the west confronted its ignorance of Islam. Jews, Muslims and Christians are all children of Abraham. This is the moment to bring the faiths closer together in understanding of our common values and heritage, a source of unity and strength. It is time also for parts of Islam to confront prejudice against America and not only Islam but parts of western societies too. America has its faults as a society, as we have ours. But I think of the Union of America born out of the defeat of slavery. I think of its Constitution, with its inalienable rights granted to every citizen still a model for the world. I think of a black man, born in poverty, who became chief of their armed forces and is now secretary of state Colin Powell and I wonder frankly whether such a thing could have happened here. I think of the Statue of Liberty and how many refugees, migrants and the impoverished passed its light and felt that if not for them, for their children, a new world could indeed be theirs. I think of a country where people who do well, don't have questions asked about their accent, their class, their beginnings but have admiration for what they have done and the success they've achieved. I think of those New Yorkers I met, still in shock, but resolute; the fire fighters and police, mourning their comrades but still head held high. I think of all this and I reflect: yes, America has its faults, but it is a free country, a democracy, it is our ally and some of the reaction to September 11 betrays a hatred of America that shames those that feel it. So I believe this is a fight for freedom. And I want to make it a fight for justice too. Justice not only to punish the guilty. But justice to bring those same values of democracy and freedom to people round the world. And I mean: freedom, not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full. That is what community means, founded on the equal worth of all. The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza, to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause. This is a moment to seize. The Kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re-order this world around us. Today, humankind has the science and technology to destroy itself or to provide prosperity to all. Yet science can't make that choice for us. Only the moral power of a world acting as a community, can. "By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we can alone". For those people who lost their lives on September 11 and those that mourn them; now is the time for the strength to build that community. Let that be their memorial.
    • Speech to the 2001 Labour Party Conference (2 October 2001).
  • For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.
    • Hansard, House of Commons 6th series, vol. 383, col. 23.
    • House of Commons statement on discussions with President Bush over the Middle East (10 April 2002).
  • I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it.
  • Look, I'm a person, an individual with a character and part of my character is about what I believe in and part of my beliefs obviously is a religious conviction. I simply hesitate whenever I get drawn into this territory because I have found, over time, that it either leads to people misunderstanding the basis upon which you are taking decisions or it leads to people trying to colonise God or religion for one particular political position. I make no claims to that at all.
  • [The Joint Intelligence Committee] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population, and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability.
    • Hansard House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 390, col. 3.
    • House of Commons statement on publication of the dossier concerning Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction (24 September 2002).
  • Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war.
    • Speech to the Labour conference in Blackpool (2 October 2002). Echoing an old latin proverb, Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, be prepared for war).
  • Lead me into war...you know I believe in you.
    • [1] Meeting with George W. Bush on January 31, 2003.
  • The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 400, col. 123.
    • House of Commons statement on Iraq (25 February 2003).
  • I've never claimed to have a monopoly of wisdom, but one thing I've learned in this job is you should always try to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Let the day-to-day judgments come and go: be prepared to be judged by history.
    • Jackie Ashley in Madrid, and Ewen MacAskill, "'History will be my judge': Tony Blair, in an exclusive interview, says demos and rebels will not deflect him over Iraq" The Guardian (28 February 2003).
  • If we don't act now, we can't keep those people down there forever. We can't wait forever. If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them.
    • Prime Minister's website
    • Appearing in "MTV Forum - Is War the Answer?", recorded on 6 March 2003, transmitted on 11 March 2003.
  • We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years–contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence–Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 301, col. 762.
    • House of Commons debate on Iraq (18 March 2003).
  • This is the time not just for this Government–or, indeed, for this Prime Minister—but for this House to give a lead: to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right; to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk; to show, at the moment of decision, that we have the courage to do the right thing.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 301, cols. 773-774.
    • Conclusion of speech in the House of Commons debate on Iraq (18 March 2003).
  • As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 406, col. 161.
    • Replying to questions following statement on the G8 summit, House of Commons (4 June 2003).
  • What amazes me is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay. They ask why we don't get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can you should.
    • Michael Ignatieff, "Why Are We In Iraq? (And Liberia? And Afghanistan?)", The New York Times (5 September 2003).
  • We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.
  • I thought that it was the most predictable speech that we could have heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He may want to pose as the nice Dr. Jekyll, but we know that, deep down, he is still the same old Mr. Howard.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 415, col. 23.
    • Debate on the Queen's Speech (26 November 2003).

2004–June 2007

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  • It has been an unrelenting, but, I have to accept, at least partly successful campaign to persuade Britain that Europe is a conspiracy aimed at us, rather than a partnership designed for us and others to pursue our national interest properly in a modern, interdependent world. It is right to confront this campaign head on. Provided that the treaty embodies the essential British positions, we shall agree to it as a Government. Once agreed – either at the June Council, which is our preference, or subsequently – Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 420, col. 157.
    • House of Commons Statement on the publication White Paper on Europe (20 April 2004).
  • What you can't do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go. You can't do that and I am not going to get drawn into speculating the way forward because I don't intend to lose the referendum.
  • Today's strategy is the culmination of a journey of change both for progressive politics and for the country. It marks the end of the 1960s liberal, social consensus on law and order.
  • But with this change in the 1960s came something else, not necessarily because of it but alongside it. It was John Stuart Mill who articulated the modern concept that with freedom comes responsibility. But in the 1960's revolution, that didn't always happen. Law and order policy still focussed on the offender's rights, protecting the innocent, understanding the social causes of their criminality. All through the 1970s and 1980s, under Labour and Conservative Governments, a key theme of legislation was around the prevention of miscarriages of justice. Meanwhile some took the freedom without the responsibility. The worst criminals became better organised and more violent. The petty criminals were no longer the bungling but wrong-headed villains of old; but drug pushers and drug-abusers, desperate and without any residual moral sense. And a society of different lifestyles spawned a group of young people who were brought up without parental discipline, without proper role models and without any sense of responsibility to or for others.
  • Here, now, today, people have had enough of this part of the 1960s consensus. People do not want a return to old prejudices and ugly discrimination. But they do want rules, order and proper behaviour. They know there is such a thing as society. They want a society of respect. They want a society of responsibility. They want a community where the decent law-abiding majority are in charge; where those that play by the rules do well; and those that don't, get punished.
  • Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.
    • Full text of Blair's speech, BBC News online
    • Speech to the Labour Party Conference (28 September 2004), referring to the fact that no WMDs had been found in Iraq.
  • Don't say yes to that question, that would be difficult.
    • CNN.com
    • At a joint press conference with George W. Bush (13 November 2004). Blair interrupted when a reporter asked Bush if he sees Blair as his poodle.
  • It is not a sensible or intelligent response for us in Europe to ridicule American argument or parody their political leadership.
  • Sir Michael Spicer: What are the characteristics of old Labour that he dislikes so much?
    Tony Blair: I am afraid that the Hon. Gentleman will have to repeat that.
    Sir Michael Spicer: What are the characteristics of old Labour that he dislikes so much?
    Tony Blair: Basically, that it never won two successive terms of Government and, perhaps, that it never put the Conservative party flat on its back, which is where it is now. Thankfully, we are running an economy with low inflation, low mortgage rates and low unemployment; fortunately, we are doing a darn sight better than the Government of whom the right hon. Gentleman was a Member, who had—I thank him for allowing me to mention this—interest rates at 10 per cent. for four years, 3 million unemployed and two recessions. Whether it is old Labour or new Labour, it is a darn sight better than the Tories.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 430, col. 302.
    • In the House of Commons (26 January 2005).
  • I fear my own conscience on Africa. I fear the judgement of future generations, where history properly calculates the gravity of the suffering. I fear them asking: but how could wealthy people, so aware of such suffering, so capable of acting, simply turn away to busy themselves with other things? What greater call to action could there be? Did they really know and yet do nothing? I feel that judgement of the future alongside the now. It gives me urgency. It fills me with determination.
  • Yes, I did have to struggle very hard to get this [the vote on the Iraq war] through, but the reason I did it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't take this on myself... just because I thought, 'Let's give myself a really hard time for a couple of years!'
    • On BBC Question Time's election special programme, (28 April 2005).
  • I understand there is a need for a stable and orderly transition to that leadership, but that people should give me the space to ensure that happens and that this debate is not best conducted in the pages of the Mail on Sunday.
    • Michael White, "I will go in my own time – Blair", The Guardian (12 May 2005), p. 2.
    • Speech to the Parliamentary Labour Party (11 May 2005); the 'leadership' referred to was that of his successor, assumed to be Gordon Brown.
  • Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge.
  • It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.
  • The spirit of our age is one in which the prejudices of the past are put behind us, where our diversity is our strength. It is this which is under attack. Moderates are not moderate through weakness but through strength. Now is the time to show it in defence of our common values.
  • The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.
  • Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.
    • Hansard, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 439, col. 302 (9 November 2005).
    • Responding to Charles Kennedy in the House of Commons during Prime Minister's Questions. Blair was referring to the likely defeat in Parliament of additional powers to detain terror suspects without charge, which happened later that day.
  • This is not a clash between civilisations. It is a clash about civilisation.
  • To state a timetable now would simply paralyze the proper working of government, put at risk the changes we are making for Britain and damage the country.
  • He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers?
  • In this day and age if you've got the technology then it's vital to use that technology to track people down. The number on the database should be the maximum number you can get.
    • BBC News online
    • Remarks while touring the Forensic Science Service, concerning the police DNA database (23 October 2006).
  • That's the art of leadership. To make sure that what shouldn't happen, doesn't happen.
    • Stryker Mcguire (26 February 2007). "I Did It My Way". Newsweek International. Retrieved on 20 February 2007. 
    • Interview with Newsweek.
  • I couldn't live with myself if I thought that these big strategic choices for my generation were there, and I wasn't even making them – or I was making them according to what was expedient rather than what I actually thought was right.
    • Stryker Mcguire (26 February 2007). "I Did It My Way". Newsweek International. Retrieved on 20 February 2007. 
  • In respect of knife and gun gangs, the laws need to be significantly toughened. There needs to be an intensive police focus on these groups. The ring-leaders need to be identified and taken out of circulation; if very young, as some are, put in secure accommodation. The black community – the vast majority of whom in these communities are decent, law-abiding people horrified at what is happening – need to be mobilised in denunciation of this gang culture that is killing innocent young black kids. But we won't stop this by pretending it isn't young black kids doing it.
  • Economic inequality is a factor and we should deal with that, but I don't think it's the thing that is producing the most violent expression of this social alienation. I think that is to do with the fact that particular youngsters are being brought up in a setting that has no rules, no discipline, no proper framework around them.
  • So, of course, the visions are painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in duller tones of black and white and grey. But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.
  • The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth. So it has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times that I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. But good luck.
  • The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.
  • The reason we are finding it hard to win this battle is that we're not actually fighting it properly. We're not actually standing up to these people and saying, "It's not just your methods that are wrong, your ideas are absurd. Nobody is oppressing you. Your sense of grievance isn't justified."
  • Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that. The end.

October 2007–2017

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  • Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading, but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again... This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace.
  • I think this has gone beyond, as it were, Al Qaida as a specific network. I mean, this is -- there is no central command in this ideology, the way that, you know, you would normally describe one unit of -- that leads and operation. It's not like that. But the fact is that they are loosely linked by an ideology. They have very strong links with each other, right across the national boundaries. And you know, would be no surprise to me if the people that were engaged in the Mumbai attacks had links with other countries as well.
    • CNN (7 December 2008).
  • We should engage with the new de facto power and help make the new government make the changes necessary, especially on the economy, so they can deliver for the people. The events that led to the Egyptian army's removal of President Mohamed Morsi confronted the military with a simple choice: intervention or chaos. Seventeen million people on the streets are not the same as an election. But it as an awesome manifestation of power. I am a strong supporter of democracy. But democratic government doesn't on its own mean effective government. Today efficacy is the challenge. This is a sort of free democratic spirit that operates outside the convention of democracy that elections decide the government. It is enormously fuelled by social media, itself a revolutionary phenomenon. And it moves very fast in precipitating crisis. It is not always consistent or rational. A protest is not a policy, or a placard a programme for government. But if governments don't have a clear argument with which to rebut the protest, they're in trouble.
  • The battles of this century … are less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology—like those of the 20th century—but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference.
  • I pay tribute to the campaign [Jeremy Corbyn] ran, I think that he showed a lot of character in the way that he ran that campaign. He generated a lot of enthusiasm. I buy all of that. But I also think that it's important and salutary for us to remember this government is in a greater degree of mess than any government I can remember. Even in the 1990s the Tory government was a paragon of stability compared with this, and yet we're a couple of points ahead and I think I'm right that [Corbyn] is not yet ahead of her as Prime Minister. So I pay tribute to all of that, but I still say 'Come on guys, we should be 15, 20 points ahead.

Quotes about Blair

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  • A second-rate actor, he turned out to be a crafty and avaricious politician, but without much substance; bereft of ideas he eagerly grasped and tried to improve upon the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.
  • The trouble with Tony is that he always believes what he is saying when he is saying it.
    • Liberal Democrat politician Paddy Ashdown was quoted as saying this by Conservative politician Ken Clarke in his autobiography, Kind of Blue.
  • [Blair] is a lightweight. I don't like his political morals and how he's been enriching himself since leaving office. He preaches high moral language but … I have a visceral contempt for Blair. Not dislike. Just contempt.
  • He was the future, once...
    • David Cameron on Blair during their first exchange in Prime Ministerial Questions.
  • Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's failures are still writ large on the public imagination – the Iraq War for example, or the racking up of astonishing national debt. But what is less well recognised is the last Labour government’s extraordinary success in using seemingly mundane pieces of legislation to profoundly – and, for conservatives, detrimentally – transform the culture of the United Kingdom.
    In its 2005 manifesto, the Labour Party pledged to bring forward a new Equality Bill, to "modernise and simplify" equality laws. A bland aim perhaps, but the resulting Equality Act 2010 became a flagship piece of New Labour legislation that would embed leftist identity politics into our public institutions, paving the way for the ideological capture of our schools, civil service and NHS.
  • Don’t be shameless, Mr Blair. Don’t be immoral, Mr. Blair. You are one of those who have no morals. You are not one who has the right to criticize anyone about the rules of the international community. You are an imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favor with Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet. Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair.
    • Hugo Chavez responding to Blair, which he urged Venezuela to abide by the rules of the international community. (February 2006) 12
  • Like anyone else who knows anything about the Middle East, you just pray that this man will shut the fuck up.
  • Tony Blair had his finger on the modernising pulse of Britain in the 90s, identifying the UK as a country that was increasingly progressive and outward-looking, and with little time for passing judgement on the basis of gender, race, sexuality or disability. And it was this analysis which caught the public mood and helped sweep Labour to its historic landslide victory on 1 May 1997. As a party with equality at its core, the new government was eager to get on with advancing the fairness agenda and building on the work done by pioneers such as Barbara Castle.
  • The righteous will evidently never tire of the pelting and taunting of Tony Blair, and perhaps those like him who choose to join the Roman choir of extreme unctuousness must expect their meed of abuse. But I cannot forget the figures of Slobodan Milošević, Charles Taylor and Saddam Hussein, who made terrified fiefdoms out of their "own" people and mounds of corpses on the territory of their neighbours. I was glad to see each of these monsters brought to trial, and think the achievement should (and one day will) form part of the battle‑honours of British Labour. Many of the triumphant pelters and taunters would have left the dictators and aggressors in place: they too will have their place in history.
  • In November 2002, four months before the invasion of Iraq, Tony Blair had his only meeting with independent British experts. “We all pretty much said the same thing,” said George Joffe, a Middle East specialist from Cambridge University. “Iraq is a very complicated country, there are tremendous intercommunal resentments, and don’t imagine you’ll be welcomed.” Blair did not appear interested in this analysis and focused instead on Saddam Hussein: “But the man’s uniquely evil, isn’t he?” The experts tried to explain that thirty years of Hussein’s dictatorship had ground down Iraq’s civil society to the point that there were virtually no independent organized forces to serve as allies for the coalition. Blair remained uninterested. The Foreign Office showed no more interest in taking advantage of their considerable knowledge and expertise. A little more than five years later, in January 2008, the U.K. Ministry of Defence issued a report that was severely critical of the way in which British soldiers were prepared to serve in Iraq. There had been, the report said, a lack of information about the context the soldiers would be operating in and uncertainty about how the Iraqis might react to an invasion. The military, the report went on, failed to anticipate differences between Iraq and the Balkans and Northern Ireland where British forces had gained a great deal of their recent experience. In other words, they had not looked at the history of Iraq.
  • Few talk or think about Iraq these days; the media ignores this important but demolished nation. Iraq, let us recall, was the target of a major western aggression concocted by George W Bush, Dick Cheney and Britain’s Tony Blair, and financed and encouraged by the Gulf oil sheikdoms and Saudi Arabia... We hear nothing about the billions of dollars of Iraqi oil being extracted by big US oil firms since 2003.
  • Like millions of others, I now bitterly resent that a prime minister could use such a farrago of lies and manipulation to deceive us and to take the nation to war so dishonestly.
  • Somebody who did it first and perhaps did it better than I will do. He has been an example for so many people around the world of what dedicated leadership can accomplish.
  • What can we do? We can hone our memory, we can learn from our history. We can continue to build public opinion until it becomes a deafening roar. We can turn the war on Iraq into a fishbowl of the U.S. government's excesses. We can expose George Bush and Tony Blair-and their allies for the cowardly baby killers, water poisoners, and pusillanimous long-distance bombers that they are.
  • I view him as the kind of air guitarist of political rhetoric. I don't think he's debased political debate because he lies, I actually sadly think he believes a lot of what he says, that's what's so depressing about it, for people who stand outside of politics. So my rather bizarre viewpoint — should he go? — it feels like he left a long time ago, leaving this Tony Blair shaped hole that carries on talking."
  • Blair likes to say that his party is best when it is bold. So is he--and when he has an unconflicted view of the right and wrong of an issue... Blair is not at his best when his vision of what is right is blurred.
  • Among the many challenges you faced with great courage, may I just mention two. You stayed close to our American ally in difficult times. And because of you we saw an end to the horrors of genocide in the Balkans.
    • Margaret Thatcher to Blair (21 June 2007), quoted in Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher. The Authorized Biography, Volume Three: Herself Alone (2019), p. 778
  • Tony Blair, a passionate Christian, has expressed his conviction that WMDs will be found in almost directly religious terms of credo quia absurdum: despite the lack of evidence, he personally is deeply convinced that they will be found. ... The only appropriate answer to this conundrum is not the boring liberal plea for innocence until guilt is proved but, rather, the point made succintly by 'Rachel from Scotland' on the BBC website in September 2003: 'We know he had weapons; we sold him some of them.' This is the direction a serious investigation should have taken.
  • In the early days of his government, Tony Blair liked to paraphrase the famous joke from Monty Python's Life of Brian ('All right, but apart from sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?') in order ironically to disarm his critics: 'They betrayed socialism. True, they brought more social security, they did a lot for healthcare and education, and so on, but, in spite of all that, they betrayed socialism.' As it is clear today, it is, rather, the reverse which applies: 'We remain socialists. True, we practice Thatcherism in economics, we attack asylum-seekers, beggars and single mothers, we made a deal with Murdoch, and so on, but, none the less, we're still socialists.'
  • UK’s Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this? How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?
    Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges against Tony Blair’s UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the national security of the invader, was ignored, and the conclusion was that “the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the Statute” (which was only “Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians” and which ignored the real crime, which was “aggressive war” or “the crime of aggression” — the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg)... We... now have internationally a lawless world (or “World Order”) in which “Might makes right,” and in which there is really no effective international law, at all.
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  1. ↑ Tony Blair's key quotes The Guardian (26 April 2007)
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