Bliar – The Movie: Part 3, Blair’s Toxic Legacy

On the 27^th June, 2007, Toby left office as UK Prime Minister and disappeared into the wilderness, ha, ha, if only that were the case! He should have been charged and taken to taken to court on numerous criminal acts which vary from war crimes, to lying to parliament in general, there was the cash for honours scandal,  then there were the lies about his part in giving Formula One an exemption from a ban on tobacco advertising after meeting Labour £1M donor Bernie Ecclestone. Seven years on the list continues to grow but still no summons.

All the time Toby continues to strut the world stage, pretending to be bringing peace to the Middle East whilst he rakes in £20 million per year (or maybe even more) to support his vast property empire. He also thinks he is a suitable candidate for the office of President of Europe. But maybe he doesn't realise that should he assume that office, he would then be located somewhere handy for the War Crimes Court at The Hague.

So What Did He Leave Us With?

• A political culture of unelected quango’s; special advisors and spin doctors.
• A 'No responsibility for their actions' culture for ministers and senior civil servants.
• A system in the NHS involving paying people off with a gagging order to stop them revealing how bad things had become under New Labour's "Targets Before People" culture. The North Staffs fiasco brought this to a head.
• Let thousands of patients die needlessly in hospitals with appalling standards of "care" whilst introducing a totally ineffective hospital inspection body.
• Doubled the pay of GPs then let them shed responsibility for providing evening, weekend and holiday medical care to their patients while privately making a fortune, moonlighting at A&E departments.
• Thousands of PFI deals across the country which at the time went under the New Labour investment banner but which we will still be paying for in twenty years time at ten times the original cost.
• The 'vulgarisation of Britain' campaign where to fly the national flag is deemed a racist act.
• A 'peace process' in Ulster, which involved rolling over and letting the IRA tickle his tummy while he gave them more or less anything they asked for.
• Turned the police force over to management speak target-chasers, who deflected the aim of the force from fighting crime and protecting the public to persecuting anyone with loose change. The victim was turned into the criminal.
• In the decade before the 2011 census, let 4 million migrants into Britain to fulfil "social objectives", which included trying to get more potential Labour supporters into the country to become dependent on benefits courtesy of the taxpayer.
• Politics as a career rather than a vocation now being the norm, leading to selfish, gutless MP’s who’s only convictions are to themselves.
• A looming ‘lights-out’ issue in the power sector, no investment in new power stations during the New Labour reign whilst existing power stations were closed means we are approaching potential supply problems.
• Bliar was one of the instigators of a war that led to the deaths of three-quarters of a million people, that became the best recruiting tool of jihadists from Dhaka to Vancouver, that destabilised a region, that re-enforced the attitudes of the most tyrannical and violent regimes around the world, that fractured this nation's belief in ethical and honest government, and in large part contributed to the economic mess we find ourselves in now.

The True Legacy

Anyone looking for the true legacy of Bliar and New Labour need look no further than the riots of the summer of 2011. A know drug dealer who was the target of a Metropolitan police operation against guns and drugs was shot dead during an arrest operation. His "community" rioted, looted everything they could lay their hands on and burnt down their own shops and homes.

The rioting spread to other parts of the country, including Manchester, Salford, Birmingham and Liverpool. Looters operated under the noses of police, which had been emasculated by New Labour's cult of bogus human rights and which were led by senior officers who had bought into New Labour's culture of a society without responsibility and blame.

The Labour party and its allies at the BBC called the riots a direct consequence of "Tory" cuts in public spending – cuts which at the time, hadn’t yet been made! Labour apologists ignored the uncomfortable truth that New Labour's 13 years of reckless spending had driven the economy into bankruptcy and left a mountain of debt which will be a burden for at least a generation. They also failed to acknowledge that the rioters were schooled during the New Labour era of “Education, Education, Education” or were immigrants brought in when New Labour opened our borders. We had ended up with the worst behaved teenagers in Europe, who sought a New Labour ASBO as a badge of dishonour to rule their neighbourhood with.

High taxes, low tax thresholds and distorted welfare policies created an army of welfare junkies, families in which no one works or indeed intended to work, and a culture in which idleness paid more than employment. This is what Bliar’s policies created, what really lead to the 2011 riots was a toxic legacy of Bliar.

The Women

After leaving office, whilst Bliar remained married to the awful Cherry there were other women in the frame, were there any affairs? Was he playing away? We’ll probably never know. What we do know is that Rupert Murdoch divorced his wife, Wendi Deng after ‘something’ went on between her and Bliar alone at the Murdoch family home. There’s also a level of ‘closeness’ between him and the former News Of The World editor Rebekah Brooks that seems to go way beyond a professional relationship. We know he sent her a series of text messages signed off with kisses at the height of the phone hacking scandal. He repeatedly offered her his help as she prepared to face questions from MPs in the days before she was arrested. Getting a little too close there Toby?

Succession

On leaving office, Toby fulfilled his pre-election deal with Brown allowing Brown to replace him as both Labour leader and Prime Minister. However, with the economic storm brewing, Toby knew that Brown didn’t stand a cat-in-Hell’s chance of being re-elected so he’d already started the process of grooming his true protégée. This was a guy from a similar background, with a similar ambition, right wing, New Labour tendencies and was liked by the people. Toby set about grooming David Milliband as his ultimate successor, this was the man who would bring Labour back to power in 2015 and keep Toby on as a highly paid “special adviser”. All was going to plan right up to the leadership election in 2010 when David won the first round of elections as planned.

What Toby hadn’t forseen was David’s ultra-left brother, ‘Red’ Ed Milliband !! RedEd had gone native and gained the support of the unions. Ever since being banished to the far corners of the earth by Mrs Thatcher, the unions had been looking for a leader who could allow their re-birth and re-growth, up until then, all the party leaders (Labour and Conservative) knew it was political suicide to allow the unions back into politics. Red Ed however didn’t care about that, he didn’t care about the future of the party, he didn’t care about his own brother either. He was going to win this election and the union vote would win it for him. And so it came to pass that Ed shit on his own brother beating him by the narrowest of margins (1.35%). Yet another of Bliar’s legacies went toxic.   

Blair’s Toxic Legacy

Bliar carried on to the end insisting that everyone thought he had done the right thing, and that he was viewed as a combination of Lady Thatcher, Winston Churchill and Mother Teresa, with a touch of Eric Clapton thrown in for good measure. The public however, saw a corrupt liar, who postured, failed and moved on other disasters. He became the first Prime Minister ever to be interviewed (several times) by the police following the exposure of New Labour's policy of selling honours for donations and loans to the party. Public perception is also one of a man who saw trouble coming over the hill and scarpered, leaving others to clean up his mess.

Bliar's government failed to undo the worst excesses of the earlier Tory governments, with New Labour effectively becoming Thatcherism-Lite. The PFIs were kept in place and increased, the City allowed its head, civil liberties weakened, unemployment and the welfare state allowed to grow while employers were given the wink to keep their workforce "flexible", the nation ended the noughties torn apart by inequality and geography, all in the name of Bliar’s political expediency.

I like to think that upstairs in Bliar’s attic there is a Dorian Gray type painting which keeps a track of his moral decay. While downstairs, he continues to pamper himself and strut on the world stage, his painting in the attic acts as a reminder of the effect of each act of deceit and betrayal, every unnecessary death in Iraq, and each dodgy million pound deal, has upon his soul. Each sin is displayed as a disfigurement of his form, or through a sign of aging - for this painting was completed before Bliar expediently became a Catholic. By now the vision which greets Toby when he dares venture upstairs most be truly stomach churning.

The Ultimate Irony

How ironic is it that a man who promised to be purer than pure while trying to wrap himself in Lady Thatcher's successes should end his career as a raddled old political money grabber; as someone tainted to the hilt in lies, corruption and sleaze?

How ironic is it that a man who was always ready to apologize for every single one of his country's imagined past misdemeanours never saw any disgrace in his own crimes against the British people?

I’d like to think that if the Scot’s do get their independence they’ll extradite him and put him on trial for his war crimes, unlikely but a nice thought nonetheless. Maybe one day someone will make “Blair The Movie” and tell the real story of his life.

  

Credits

A specific credit for this blogpost goes to @LeonieThomas18 who first came up with the phrase “Blair’s Toxic Legacy” on Twitter and inspired me to write this trilogy. Thanks Leonie.