One of those moments where you look back at your previous voting record during the #Blair years (never voted #Labour during this era) and the protests you went on, including the big 1 million anti-war march on London…and think yup, zero regrets.
The man was a neoliberal Thatcher wannabe then and now just wants the UK to live up #Trump and the techbros collective arsehole.
Why has #Blair chosen today when we’re all melting from record May temperatures to tell #Labour to abandon #NetZero and just ‘drill baby drill’?
Does he never leave the confines of some air conditioned mansion now?
When was the last time he met someone earning the minimum wage?
Does he honestly want children from poor families to suffer for their parents deciding to give birth to them?
What’s his solution to AI taking huge swathes of jobs and endangering life as we know it?
I’ve thought for the last three decades this quote by Lord Acton (Victorian politician and historian) absolutely describes #Blair:
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority."
#Blair never wanted to give up the reins of democratic power…so he decided instead to subvert it by creating the Tony Blair Institute. Opaque funding and furthering whose views exactly?
‘As prime minister, Tony Blair oversaw a few hundred Downing Street staff and one country. Sixteen years later, he is now responsible for more than 800 staff who help advance his policies in nearly 40 countries’
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/sep/17/tony-blair-institute-rise
Can you judge a man by the company he keeps?
Yes, yes you can in the case of #Blair and his enthusiasm to join the so called #Trump Board of Peace.
He just loves hanging out with these guys who are also members:
Benjamin Netanyahu (Israel)
Mohammed bin Salman (Saudi Arabia) Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (Qatar) Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (UAE)
Alyaksandr Lukashenka (Belarus)
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (Türkiye)
Javier Milei (Argentina)
And until recently Viktor Orbán (Hungary)
Hmmm…’peace’.
In terms of his dismissal of #NetZero he thinks it’s unfair on public who he claims are being made to make ‘painful lifestyle choices for minimal reductions in global emissions’
I’ve yet to meet someone in social housing who was upset/angry because their home had been retrofitted to make it more energy efficient. They have greater thermal comfort and their home costs less to run.
It was ‘so painful’ charging my car from sun for free yesterday. How I wish I could get fleeced at petrol pumps.
#Blair also believes in throwing everything at #carboncapture - not proven at scale and insanely expensive.
Whereas #renewables are proven, scalable and coming down in price year on year.
It makes you wonder rather loudly whether he’s been captured by any of those leaders of the Gulf oil states that he so loves to be in the company of on the #Trump Board of Peace?
But ultimately #Blair ‘s 5700 word essay is not aimed at Starmer, Burnham or Streeting…I assume this is about retaining the favour and ear of whom he assumes will be heading up the UK government in the not too distant future…Nigel Farage.
For the Tony Blair Institute to continue having influence at the highest levels (which frustratingly it does despite this latest missive) it needs to be selling a vision of the world that appeals to future leaders.
So I decided to reread #Blair ‘s essay this morning.
He finds the latest #Labour leadership battle very retro and ‘20th century’…but his prescription is still to do what he did to the Labour Party in the 1990’s.
What I missed last night was his narcissism.
His fawning over rightwing populists who have a ‘project’ is grotesque.
This is a man who admires the Trumps, Farages and Milleis of this world…for they will advance his neoliberal views (which he pretends are the ‘radical centre’).
I could see nothing for voters - real people in what he said. This was entirely about pleasing business - their growth, removing pesky red tape and assuming they will be the beneficiaries of efficiencies through AI.
It reminded me that #Blair allowed #Mandelson to rise, who was then most famous for saying he was:
"intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”
@JugglingWithEggs To be fair that was supplemented by ‘as long as they pay their taxes’
And Mandelson went on to help them by being part of an administration educing taxes and that never put resources into chasing the super rich for taxes.
Not a surprise, he's always been on the Right, there's a reason he was known as "Tory Plan B"
Almost his first act as leader of Labour was to repeal Clause 4 of the Labour Party's Constitution...
Even though nobody believed that it would be instituted at any point.
It was his government that disappeared down the "Public/Private Partnership" resulting in the UK saving a few pounds in the short term to pay massively for building hospitals etc for decades instead!
Attached: 1 image Nicola Jennings on Tony #Blair and his critique of #Labour policy @Guardian – political cartoon gallery in London original-political-cartoon.com
My dad sent me that cartoon this evening!
The board of piece-meal autocrats
Message from Blair to Henry Kissinger
The greedy git is really missing yer
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas
Juggling With Eggs
Wen
swisslet
annaf
CockneyLaurie
woe2you
Hugs4friends ♾🇺🇦 🇵🇸😷
Just Tom... 🐁
HeatherMJ
Su_G
Charlie Stross
Mike Spencer
George Collins
In league with the future
Walrus 🏴
Patrick H. Lauke
Mitch Rose
Stella C