the UK went to war because of God

Because he represents our country, he should feel ultimatley answerable to his private "God" for judgement on descisions that are taken on a national level; his private conscience should bear no relevance to his prime ministerial role.

If you have faith about these things then you realise that judgement is made by other people. If you believe in God,it's made by God as well.

No it is a story! An increasing mélange of politics and religion is a story!

'an increasing melange of politics and religion'.

It matters because when Tony Blair makes decisions for our country, such as going to war in Iraq, he should be held ultimately to account by our nation and its system of democracy, not by his private adjudicator; "God".

Because he represents our country, he should not feel ultimatley answerable to his private "God" for judgement on descisions that are taken on a national level; his private conscience should bear no relevance to his prime ministerial role.

He is answerable to the country. But any decision you make as someone in a position of authroity can never be completely seperated from your own personal morality.

He made a decision that will ultimately be linked back to him as a person, so if he truely adheres to the morality of Christianty he cannot help but let it affect his personal conscience.

In the same way a socialist would make a decision based on his set of personal morality and later reflect upon it.

If his personal religion is anchored so deeply in him that he cannot leave it out of his national policy making, he is not fit to be the leader of the UK.

He WAS held to account by the nation, last May in the election. What, do you want him to take every decision as PM based on what is construed to be popular opinion? What'd be the point of him being PM if that was the case, this is a representative democracy, not 'mob-rule'. So what IF he also thinks that one day he might be judged by something other than 'the nation', that doesn't mean he is not and has not been held accountable to the nation or doesn't take the good of the nation in to account in his decisions.

As I said before, he, as anyone else, has a whole host of beliefs, ideals and ideologies. He was elected PM broadly based on those beliefs and intentions for the country. To try to un-hook certain elements of his mind and character from them is impossible, his views are the result of a vast number of factors. He takes decisions based on everything from personal beliefs, to political expediency, to his view of where the country should be headed, often a complex mixture. You can't say that any decision he took was for solely one reason or unhook his own conscience from his world-view. That's not how it works.

He is effectively saying that he can do what he likes irrespective of our contry's opinion because he is only really answerable to "God" in the end.

Here is an excerpt of what he said:
"The only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing according to your conscience"

I believe that the only way to make decisions (especially if you have such responsibility as the PM) is to go on the facts you know, not just the "right thing according to your conscience". That is simply ludicrous.

His conscience is not the same as mine anyway. He should take decisions based on facts and known intelligence, which are undisputable. Not his own personal conscience which does not reflect society.

*******s, all decisions are made from a personal moral perspective. The doctor only agrees to a professional code of ethics because his personal morality says he must obey the Hippocratic oath etc. A politician however is a public figure, in which there is no "code of ethics", all politicans first refrence point is their own morality when making all decisions. If a politican has a personal morality that says he must do what is in the national interest first he will do that, if his personal decision making is christianity he will base it of that. If you want someone with a different personal morality you vote for someone else.

His conscience is not the same as mine anyway. He should take decisions based on facts and known intelligence, which are undisputable. Not his own personal conscience which does not reflect society.

The public re-elected him. Ergo, they agree with his conscience and he reflects society. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean he should be removed from office.

Not true. Tony Blair's spin chief Alastair Campbell famously declared "we don't do God", but yet he suddenly does after all?

No decision can be made in some scientific, positivist manner. Yes you can go so far with it (whether he did is a matter for a different thread) but the point is all decisions have fundamental social constuctions behind them and fundamental value judgements that must be confronted. In such cases the only source one can draw from to make such a decision is one's conscience.

It is not the morality of the religion that I am disputing (despite the fact that this is pretty dubious in and of itself!). I am expressing my distaste at the idea that Tony Blair feels that he is ultimately answerable to "God" in descisions taken on a national level.

If his personal religion is anchored so deeply in him that he cannot leave it out of his national policy making, he is not fit to be the leader of the UK. He is effectively saying that he can do what he likes irrespective of our contry's opinion because he is only really answerable to "God" in the end.

This is a bad analogy. A socialist would not feel themsleves ultimately answerable to a deity, would they?

Here is an excerpt of what he said:
"The only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing according to your conscience"

I believe that the only way to make decisions (especially if you have such responsibility as the PM) is to go on the facts you know, not just the "right thing according to your conscience". That is simply ludicrous.

I would argue that a decision that costs a hundred lives should be.

a) The 'facts' said there were weapons of mass destruction. We went to war to destroy them.
b) Retrospectively, we should never then have gone to war with the Nazis. The facts were, Hitler didn't want to invade Britain. He admired our empire. It was our conscience (and alliances) that led us to defend our allies and repel a tyranny.

You're deeply misguided if you seriously think that an effective leader bases his opinions on fact, rather than ideology.

No. Obviously not. When did I say or even imply this? But a 'nice and pwetty' Straw man from the early learning centre of debating all the same.

I didn't say that this was the case... he did:
"The only way you can take a decision like that is to try to do the right thing according to your conscience"

He should take decisions based on facts and known intelligence, which are undisputable.

Not his own personal conscience which does not reflect society.

a) the facts were wrong admittedly, but "God" should not be used "as a get-out for total strategic failure"

b)Oh dear. Now who's being idealistic. The Munich Agreement mean anything to you at all? What about Operation Sealion? Please don't garble about a rose-tinted view of history. whoops...

Misuse of the word 'opinion' there mate. It's 'policies' you're looking for instead. His opinions can be based on anything for all I care, but his policies whilst representing the UK must be based on fact.