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Was Tony Blair a conservative in disguise?

Evidently, before Blair's landslide victory in 1997, Labour were completely unelectable particularly because of their socialist ideologies that mainland England in particular, would not take.

New Labour meant no nationalisation. I do feel that he had some Tory Policies implemented in his manifestos.

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Original post by GrigorijC1997
Evidently, before Blair's landslide victory in 1997, Labour were completely unelectable particularly because of their socialist ideologies that mainland England in particular, would not take.

New Labour meant no nationalisation. I do feel that he had some Tory Policies implemented in his manifestos.


The great thing about Blair was he himself was basically Thatcherite, and thus won over those on the right. Meanwhile He carried out some excellent changes in this country such as minimum wage, dramatically decreasing nhs wait times, peace in Northern Ireland, entitlement to paternity leave, more Drs and Nurses, surestart, winter fuel payments, the right to 24 days paid holiday, banned fox hunting, free breast cancer screening, free nursery places, and add to that an incredibly successful intervention in Kosovo, to the extent a lot of people there pretty much idolise him.

I think if Iraq hadn't happened he would have been considered a great primeminister to this day.

I think for me it just seems to show we need to pretend to be right wing to get in since Thatcher. She changed the country so irreversibly.
Mr Blair showed that you could be right wing, edgy and cool at the same time. I do not see why Mr Cameron should not invite him to join the new Govt.
Original post by redferry
The great thing about Blair was he himself was basically Thatcherite, and thus won over those on the right. Meanwhile He carried out some excellent changes in this country such as minimum wage, dramatically decreasing nhs wait times, peace in Northern Ireland, entitlement to paternity leave, more Drs and Nurses, surestart, winter fuel payments, the right to 24 days paid holiday, banned fox hunting, free breast cancer screening, free nursery places, and add to that an incredibly successful intervention in Kosovo, to the extent a lot of people there pretty much idolise him.

I think if Iraq hadn't happened he would have been considered a great primeminister to this day.

I think for me it just seems to show we need to pretend to be right wing to get in since Thatcher. She changed the country so irreversibly.


Thatcher remarkably transformed the country from what it was in 79. The state of the country in 1979 and in 1990/1 is unrecognisable. Thatcher said in one of her interviews that one of her greatest achievements was making the Labour Party electable.😂 Very true.

What Blair proved is that the United Kingdom, well perhaps not everywhere but definitely mainland England will not put up with a true Left wing government, and Blair had to implement some Tory Policies and move his party to the centre if Labour had any chance of becoming electable.
Original post by GrigorijC1997
Thatcher remarkably transformed the country from what it was in 79. The state of the country in 1979 and in 1990/1 is unrecognisable. Thatcher said in one of her interviews that one of her greatest achievements was making the Labour Party electable.😂 Very true.

What Blair proved is that the United Kingdom, well perhaps not everywhere but definitely mainland England will not put up with a true Left wing government, and Blair had to implement some Tory Policies and move his party to the centre if Labour had any chance of becoming electable.


Yes I agree entirely. Most of his cabinet, however, were nowhere near as right wing as he is.
Original post by the bear
Mr Blair showed that you could be right wing, edgy and cool at the same time. I do not see why Mr Cameron should not invite him to join the new Govt.


Cool it might be, but when it comes to conviction politics it isn't really cool. Blair i feel was partly responsible for the narrowing between left and right, and so many today just can't see the difference between left and right. The beauty of politicians like Thatcher was that you pretty much either totally agreed with her or you couldn't stand her. We don't really have that today.
Original post by GrigorijC1997
Cool it might be, but when it comes to conviction politics it isn't really cool. Blair i feel was partly responsible for the narrowing between left and right, and so many today just can't see the difference between left and right. The beauty of politicians like Thatcher was that you pretty much either totally agreed with her or you couldn't stand her. We don't really have that today.


ermm i think that Mr Duncan Smith arouses similar passions... at least on TSR ?
Original post by redferry
Yes I agree entirely. Most of his cabinet, however, were nowhere near as right wing as he is.


Yes, thats true as well. The people who were really pulling the strings of the New Labour campaign, were the people like Alistair Campbell, Peter Mandelson etc, not really the cabinet. Those kinds of people had the real influence over the campaign and the cabinet really didn't have a lot of influence. Campbell and Mandelson were both people who i feel didn't really like socialism and wanted Labour to dominate the centre, populist ground; his cabinet didn't really have the same influence.
Original post by the bear
ermm i think that Mr Duncan Smith arouses similar passions... at least on TSR ?


Duncan Smith doesn't have anywhere near the influence that a leader of a party would have. The only reason he's got so much, well lets say, hatred on hear is the manner in which he speaks about benefits etc, not really to the same extent of thatcher where she would implement a policy she believed in regardless of public opinion.
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n00
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Original post by redferry
The great thing about Blair was he himself was basically Thatcherite, and thus won over those on the right. Meanwhile He carried out some excellent changes in this country such as minimum wage, dramatically decreasing nhs wait times, peace in Northern Ireland, entitlement to paternity leave, more Drs and Nurses, surestart, winter fuel payments, the right to 24 days paid holiday, banned fox hunting, free breast cancer screening, free nursery places, and add to that an incredibly successful intervention in Kosovo, to the extent a lot of people there pretty much idolise him.

I think if Iraq hadn't happened he would have been considered a great primeminister to this day.

I think for me it just seems to show we need to pretend to be right wing to get in since Thatcher. She changed the country so irreversibly.

Urgh, so more spin, lies, deception, manipulation and authoritarianism? How depressing.
Original post by the bear
Mr Blair showed that you could be right wing, edgy and cool at the same time. I do not see why Mr Cameron should not invite him to join the new Govt.


Lol, I can imagine Tony saying yes to that! :giggle:
Original post by GrigorijC1997
Yes, thats true as well. The people who were really pulling the strings of the New Labour campaign, were the people like Alistair Campbell, Peter Mandelson etc, not really the cabinet. Those kinds of people had the real influence over the campaign and the cabinet really didn't have a lot of influence. Campbell and Mandelson were both people who i feel didn't really like socialism and wanted Labour to dominate the centre, populist ground; his cabinet didn't really have the same influence.


You say that but they did achieve a lot of left wing things, under the guise of being right wing.

Clearly someone was bringing in policies from the left of center.
Original post by n00
Urgh, so more spin, lies, deception, manipulation and authoritarianism? How depressing.


Still better than what the Conservatives are going to do. Blair might have been a total scumbag but at least he actually did something for the most vulnerable in society.
Original post by GrigorijC1997
Evidently, before Blair's landslide victory in 1997, Labour were completely unelectable particularly because of their socialist ideologies that mainland England in particular, would not take.

New Labour meant no nationalisation. I do feel that he had some Tory Policies implemented in his manifestos.


Arguably Blair had a bit of an easy ride electorally, as Major was already very unpopular (seen as weak) and Blair's later Tory opponents were nonentities.

I don't think he was exactly a 'Conservative' (big-C anyway) exactly, but he used some of the language of Thatcher and US conservatives to win votes. It wasn't just him who perfected this - Mandelson, Campbell and others were involved - but Blair cleverly led and used the process.

He was actually quite left wing on many social issues, but he was clever enough politically to realise that in Britain, up against a right wing media, he needed to win the right over. He did, in large numbers.

The trouble is that he also abandoned some parts of the left wing agenda that make good sense. For example, he and Brown actively promoted deregulation and 'hands off' the City, which led to the financial crash, or helped it along. Some London-based banks were involved in deep criminality and London accountants and financial institutions helped hide the bad situation that leading American banks were in. That was permitted by the Brown financial regulation framework.

Iraq is a different kind of issue - Blair felt between a rock and a hard place after 9/11 and although he went along too much with the Bush agenda, he probably hoped that if he showed strong support and stuck around, he could help moderate it. That proved to be false. Despite all the support, British views were regarded as only of minor interest in Washington. The lack of proper preparation for postwar Iraq and all that followed was predicted by British experts but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

Blair now seems to be a sad figure, desperate to make money and simultaneously pose as some sort of moral world authority. He really has become a parody.
Original post by redferry
Still better than what the Conservatives are going to do. Blair might have been a total scumbag but at least he actually did something for the most vulnerable in society.


That's true and he also helped and worked hard to bring peace to Northern Ireland, however ragged around the edges, which has been a huge achievement.
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Quady
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Original post by GrigorijC1997
Evidently, before Blair's landslide victory in 1997, Labour were completely unelectable particularly because of their socialist ideologies that mainland England in particular, would not take.

New Labour meant no nationalisation. I do feel that he had some Tory Policies implemented in his manifestos.


They were pretty electable in '92.
Reply 16
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n00
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Original post by redferry
Still better than what the Conservatives are going to do.


That's not exactly a high bar.
Problem with our electoral system is that political parties themselves need to neutralise in-order to become elected (essentially a game of pandering to middle classes by moving to the right or the left), and at the same time neturalising our 'lobbyists' - the parties themselves start lobbying a less partisan policy.

This is why I always advocate the D'Hont method of elections. Under this method parties get to lobby more partisan policies, and only 'neutralise' after getting into parliament while debating legislation. The method has worked successfully on the continent.
Original post by redferry
The great thing about Blair was he himself was basically Thatcherite, and thus won over those on the right. Meanwhile He carried out some excellent changes in this country such as minimum wage, dramatically decreasing nhs wait times, peace in Northern Ireland, entitlement to paternity leave, more Drs and Nurses, surestart, winter fuel payments, the right to 24 days paid holiday, banned fox hunting, free breast cancer screening, free nursery places, and add to that an incredibly successful intervention in Kosovo, to the extent a lot of people there pretty much idolise him.

I think if Iraq hadn't happened he would have been considered a great primeminister to this day.

I think for me it just seems to show we need to pretend to be right wing to get in since Thatcher. She changed the country so irreversibly.


Such a shame he had to dick suck George Bush and jump into 2 wars. History will be kinder to Blair.
Reply 19
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whorace
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Original post by redferry
The great thing about Blair was he himself was basically Thatcherite, and thus won over those on the right. Meanwhile He carried out some excellent changes in this country such as minimum wage, dramatically decreasing nhs wait times, peace in Northern Ireland, entitlement to paternity leave, more Drs and Nurses, surestart, winter fuel payments, the right to 24 days paid holiday, banned fox hunting, free breast cancer screening, free nursery places, and add to that an incredibly successful intervention in Kosovo, to the extent a lot of people there pretty much idolise him.

I think if Iraq hadn't happened he would have been considered a great primeminister to this day.

I think for me it just seems to show we need to pretend to be right wing to get in since Thatcher. She changed the country so irreversibly.


Sadly for you this brilliant evaluation is overlooked. If Labour keep thinking Blair was just a right wing zealot and there are no differences between them, they'll never get into power again.

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