craner

Beast of Burden
The Tories couldn't handle Blair. That video is from a moment when he was fatally damaged, and he still wipes the floor with them.
 

Leo

Well-known member
did he actually have an affair with Wendy Deng? Murdoch is on record saying how hurt he was by their closeness.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
There was a big and very funny Vanity Fair article about the Wendy Deng liaison. I'll dig it out later.
 

luka

Well-known member
First chino prime minister. People say that about him. Cameron was the heir to the chinos.
 

WashYourHands

Cat Malogen
It’s not that power corrupts, it’s that it attracts humans already corrupted and pathologically unsound, like the great man-boobed leader.

He got the GFA through by bribing Sinn Fein and the DUP. As my aunt asked at the time, “when the fuck did Newry become an outpost for brand new Range-Rovers?”

The blue eyed killer shaking hands with that Oasis cunt, the Iraq War, Afghanistan, cctv everywhere, the surveillance state, cosying up to rendition practitioners, throwing a monster like Gadaffi an international platform bone, inflating the education sector, devaluing degrees, married to a defender of war criminals, fixated on legacy projects while missing the greased piglets opposite. But it’s Saturday and this is a bit too heavy.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
The Tories couldn't handle Blair. That video is from a moment when he was fatally damaged, and he still wipes the floor with them
same as Clinton + the GOP. charisma and political acumen (and, with luck, the ineptitude of one's enemies) can go an awful long way.

Obama too, but the hatred there was uncomfortably racial, a clash of historical forces beyond just politics and individual bitterness

whereas Clinton + Blair, personal/policy. their enemies lusted savagely after their demise but could not never procure it.

were also probably both their own worst enemy.

Clinton definitely (way) more of a personal scumbag, Blair probably more of a political scumbag (if only cos Clinton didn't sell himself on ideals)
 

luka

Well-known member
is it fair what people say about blair and clinton getting an easy ride cos the world economy was cruising?
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
is it fair what people say about blair and clinton getting an easy ride cos the world economy was cruising?
to some extent, tho what exact is hard to determine

any elected leader in a time of relative peace and prosperity is going to have an easier time of it

otoh, the ones accorded greatness by history are inevitably those who hold things together through times of strife and crisis
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Clement Atlee was by all accounts one of the greatest PMs in British history - even Thatcher admired him

but Churchill gets the glory (and as a bonus, historical elision of his vast racist and colonial baggage)
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
one thing Tony Blair is, is a quintessential illustration of the limitations of neoliberalism

the hypocrisy of the neoliberal elite, the (same old) brutality, grossness, corruption, lurking beneath the veneer of the neoliberal project

the Tories/GOP are "worse" in many ways, but still - look at where decades of privatization, abandoning working class people, etc has got us

combined with continuing foreign policy as usual - gladhanding dictators etc - and benighted military adventurism

he's no fucking Clement Atlee, you could say
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Clement Atlee was by all accounts one of the greatest PMs in British history - even Thatcher admired him

but Churchill gets the glory (and as a bonus, historical elision of his vast racist and colonial baggage)

Not by all accounts, but he did preside over one of the most consequential political administrations in British history, and made some crucial decisions with his cabinet that the Left, to put it mildly, does not exactly love (the nuclear bomb programme, NATO, the Korean war).

Attlee shared many of the racial and imperial prejudices as Churchill. Also, you cannot totally dismiss the measures of social reform that Churchill was responsible for as a Liberal minister working with Lloyd George, reforms that actually set the foundation upon which the 1945 Labour government built their welfare state.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
does that work?

It's pretty good. But for full points it would have to go something like

LAIRY BLAIR DONGED DENG, NOW RUPE WANTS TO MURDOCH HIM

Edit: although ironically it's only really The Sun that has this sort of 'house style' for its headlines, and I doubt they covered this story in detail (or at all).
 
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padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
Not by all accounts
sure. I was generalizing. you're more expert in 20th C. British history than I am, I'm sure.

my point was just that greatness in leaders is historically attributed usually to those who lead in times of crisis, not times of plenty
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
(tho also, I wouldn't doubt Atlee shared some of the same prejudices as a person of his time, but he didn't - unlike Churchill - do a vast amount of actual damage as a colonial administrator. and no one's making fawning biopics about Atlee starring Gary Oldman.)
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I feel that foreign policy is the undoing of all "great" leaders. Corbyn is kinda like an inverted mirror to Blair and it led him to make terrible errors of judgement (the Skirpal case illustrating this most clearly).
 
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