NationStates Jolt Archive

Does anyone like Tony?

To like Tony Blair you have got to be pretty stupid. He has taken the once respectable Labour Party and taken them to the right. He makes Margaret Thatcher look like Ghandi. And he is slowly creeping further and further right. Soon, we the British people, will all have to have portraits of him in our houses, we will have to sing "God save the Blair" and we will all be forced to attend large rallies, proclaiming "Hail Blair". And then all the Pakistani's and Asylum seekers will be put into "Holiday camps" for their own safety ;) .

No.

This is the weird thing I've noticed.

Critisize Bush, and many will leap to his defence.

Critisize Blair and everyone will agree. God knows how he manages to stay elected.

So far I have only one person who likes him and his managing of the country.

To like Tony Blair you have got to be pretty stupid. He has taken the once respectable Labour Party and taken them to the right. He makes Margaret Thatcher look like Ghandi. And he is slowly creeping further and further right. Soon, we the British people, will all have to have portraits of him in our houses, we will have to sing "God save the Blair" and we will all be forced to attend large rallies, proclaiming "Hail Blair".
If Blunkett doesn't effect a coup before then that is.

No.

This is the weird thing I've noticed.

Critisize Bush, and many will leap to his defence.

Critisize Blair and everyone will agree. God knows how he manages to stay elected.

So far I have only one person who likes him and his managing of the country.
Do any of us europeans jump to our leaders defence?

Britain is a no-win situation as far as politics goes:

Labour - 'More Tory than the Tories' as my grandfather puts it, and due to his blind following of Bush, Blair's led us into wars, got British troops killed in a gainless war, made us a target for terrorism and wasted millions of pounds of public money catering for Bush's 'state visit'. He's turned us into little more than another US state and has declared an 'open doors' policy on immigration that is both wrong* and is only going to stir up the racists. The only way he's going to win is not because of his own merits, but because of the lack of a real competitor in the public eye.

Conservative - Most people of voting age still remember the spectre of Tory rule, and this is what Labour trades on. While the Conservatives have undergone a lot of changes, their leadership was for a while (and some say still is) a complete and total shambles. They also have a reputation for wanting to ride over the backs of the poor on their polo horses (i.e. totally neglectful of the 'little guy') and gearing all their policies towards benefitting the elite. Will never get voted in when they're villified by the 'working class' and can't even keep a leader for any length of time, and the ghost of old Tory rule will keep them out - despite the fact Labour's policies are closer to old Tory than the Tories are.

Liberal Democrat - The pointless party. No-one considers voting for them for the same reason no real group of people vote for the third-party candidates in the US elections. They've been around forever but have been for as long as I can remember a spent force, who turn up to every meeting but never get anything done. A lot of their ideas are fairly sound and of the three main parties they are probably the best one to vote for, but because they're quiet and keep themselves to themselves, they will never get the exposure they need for anyone to really consider voting for them. Votes are here, like the US, won through the media, and the Lib Dems seem to actively avoid getting themselves on TV. Thus they lack the exposure, thus they lack the votes.

British National Party - Nazis. Slowly gaining a foothold in the midlands and the north because of local hostility to the amount of immigrants moving into places like Bradford and Leicester (the latter is expected to have an ethnic majority within 5 years, and will be the first real city in England to have it - Bradford is still considered a town but it very much is only Asians). A lot of people are turning BNP because of the discrimination against white people here (we were banned from displaying English flags in public during Euro 2004 because it 'may offend Asians') but the BNP are very much, in my eyes, a Nazi group with no thought for helping the country, they just want to 'kill the Pakis' (several party high-ups were recently exposed saying how much they loved "kicking the s***" out of Asians).

------------------------------

So who would you vote for? We get it in the neck no matter who's box we tick on the ballot form. Admittedly anything is better than Blair's blind following of Bush, but if Kerry wins the US election, will it get better? If it doesn't, the best alternative would be for Blair to resign and Gordon Brown take over the Labour leadership (which has been hinted at for a long time). Labour will be re-elected, as there is no real competitor, just the lot that ruined the country before, the quiet liberals no-one listens to, and a bunch of jackbooted thugs. The only possibility of a good outcome is if Blair doesn't love Kerry quite as much as he does Bush, or if he steps down altogether.

* I am not a racist, I just think that declaring 'open doors' immigration onto an already overpopulated island where there is already a lot of racial tension is stupid, plus I do object to stupid things like not being able to display an England flag while watching us play in football tournaments - though this is less the fault of the immigrants themselves (though there is a certain dissenting element) and mainly due to the politically-correct white beaurocrats who dream these absurd ideas up. I'm yet to find an immigrant who is at all offended by the English flag being flown by English people.

I like Tony Blair, though I´m not British. He is very smart. And he is very good speaker. You really see that he is a lawyer, hehehehe.
Anyway: I really like him.
And he had good reasons for his Iraq policy and his loyality to the US. That is after all the foreign policy strategy of the UK since Churchill. No government would have acted differently. So, shurely he is going to be reelected. I see that the conservatives are still too weak to present an alternative.

Besides of the fact that I like his European policy. He is definating Britain as part of Europe and not as being part of another planet, like the conservatives and even much more UKIP does.
And his liberal economic policy is also good in my view. Should be an example for the political left in continental Europe. But due to the fact that it isn´t I have to support the conservatives of course. But in Britain I would favour Tony Blairs New Labour.

Very, very few people support Tony Blair, but seeing as Britain is a "sort of" left wing(ish) country, no-one will vote Conservative because, let's face it, they're a dead political party. New Labour is the only left wing party or any wing party that people will vote for, becuase the tories are useless and spineless as are the Lib Dems. Labour is the only hope we have of a stable government.

So, although Tony Blair wouldn't be my ideal leader (i'm further to the left, I would like it if Labour were as left as the Spanish PSOE), I support him because any alternatives are dreadful. Also, I am a member of the Labour Party, becuase I am a democratic Socialist, and although the current government are seen as a shambles, I still have faith the Labour party can move further to the left someday, when we get rid of Blair.

Also, no-one will rush to defend Blair, because Europeans aren't like that (they have sense instead of unquestioning loyalty to their leaders). I'm not defending Blair here, but I'm explaining why I prefer him to the right wing tories or the week-kneed Liberals. Britain will always be to the left of the USA, even if Blair is in power, and this is one of the VERY FEW things that makes me proud to be British.

I'm yet to find an immigrant who is at all offended by the English flag being flown by English people.
I know a few immigrants who are against the idea that we should not fly flags. But they see themselves as English.

i used to quite like him, before his political outlook changed and he turned the labour party into a clone of the tories, leaving millions with no other viable party to vote for.

Yeah, I can't argue with that :( We need another Left! I hope respect can actually deliver it's promises

Yeah, I can't argue with that :( We need another Left! I hope respect can actually deliver it's promises
Perhaps we should form our own political party - after all, if we found NationStates, we're clearly all somewhat politically minded...













...I call Minister of Boobies.

...I call Minister of Boobies.


I'm so glad we can all sit down and have a sensible, mature discussion. However, i like your logic!

I personaly support the Lib Dems, I like there polocys and seem to be the only real left wing party. However unfortuntly there never going to get in, due to the lack of publicity. If they got themselves a real press officer and a bit ofTV time they could be a force.

British National Party - Nazis. Slowly gaining a foothold in the midlands and the north because of local hostility to the amount of immigrants moving into places like Bradford and Leicester (the latter is expected to have an ethnic majority within 5 years, and will be the first real city in England to have it - Bradford is still considered a town but it very much is only Asians). A lot of people are turning BNP because of the discrimination against white people here (we were banned from displaying English flags in public during Euro 2004 because it 'may offend Asians') but the BNP are very much, in my eyes, a Nazi group with no thought for helping the country, they just want to 'kill the Pakis' (several party high-ups were recently exposed saying how much they loved "kicking the s***" out of Asians).

i spent many years living in Leicester, and although it is true that there are a lot of asians, they are far from being a majority.
the BNP didn't even run in Leicester East. as far as i know they did atrociously in the rest of Leicester. The BNP will never come to power in Leicester because the people there see them for what they really are, Nazis.
one other point, assuming the Asians become a majority in Leicester then they are hardly likely to vote BNP now are they???

PR of Sanctaphrax

I must admit that I trust Tony Blair more than I would trust the Lib Dems or the Conservatives. The Lib Dems want to raise the top rate of tax to 50%, which would be a bad disincentive affect for entrepeneures. The Tories want to ban A-level resits, which would be the worst disaster both socially and economically since the overzelous Keynesian economics that Labour practiced in the 1945-1979 period.

Although he has made a few mistakes, Tony Blair seems to have his head screwed on right and he seems to have his priorites correctly set. Before complaining that Labour is making a mess of things, you should look at statistics for economic growth, unemployment, inflation, and you should also look at the educational results for KS1, KS2, KS3, GCSEs and A-levels.

You will see that Labour's policies ARE delivering good results.

He makes Margaret Thatcher look like Ghandi.

Do you even know much about Thatcher?

The 30-30-40 Society,

I beg you pardon for bothering you: but what is actually the top rate tax in Britain?
And what is the span of the income tax? Is it a linear-progressive system or a system with steps? And at what income does it start and where does the maximum tax begin? I know it isn´t a flat tax like in Slovakia (19% for all).
I hope someone may answer that.
Thanks anyway.

i spent many years living in Leicester, and although it is true that there are a lot of asians, they are far from being a majority.
the BNP didn't even run in Leicester East. as far as i know they did atrociously in the rest of Leicester. The BNP will never come to power in Leicester because the people there see them for what they really are, Nazis.
one other point, assuming the Asians become a majority in Leicester then they are hardly likely to vote BNP now are they???

PR of Sanctaphrax

It's not the people in Leicester, it's people in the constituencies around it that would vote for them - people in the ones around Bradford are voting BNP because of the immigrants there, rather than the actual residents of Bradford voting for them.