And Iraq is just the top of it...

[Prophet 451]

So, Blair is on his way out. Forgive me if I'm not grieving for his political career. Over here (England), we're hearing a lot currently from Americans about how wonderful Blair was, true friend to the US and all that. So with that in mind, let's review Blair's accomplishments, shall we?

Blair's decisions (and you might be a Brit so forgive me lecturing to the choir) have led to:

- NHS in crisis

- Crumbling education system

- Massive rise in student debt, creating a looming skills shortage

- Decimated manufacturing sector

- Continuation of Thatcherite economic policies

- the rescinding of Cluase 4 (the clause of the Labour Party constitution which guarenteed common ownership of the mans of production)

- The continued shift of power from the Legislative to Executive branches

- Kicking hereditaries out of the Lords - and then stuffing it with his appointments (Blair has created life peers faster than any PM in history)

- Government by gimmick and soundbite (such as "This is not a time for soundbites but I feel the hand of history upon my shoulder", I still don't know how he got away with that one)

- ASBO's (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, theoretically orders to restrain young hooligans, often abused to punish kids acting like kids)

- Several proposals for on-the-spot fines, before the accused has been convicted of anything thereby challenging the entire basis of the rule of law.

- Wider gap between rich and poor, reduction in overall poverty but concentration of that which remained into smaller areas, creating virtual ghettos in some places

- Failed to fire his deputy after he committed criminal assault on national TV (very famous incident, you can probably find footage on YouTube)

- Broon (his Chancellor {finance minister})

- Steered the Labour Party massively to the Right, over the objections of party activists, many of his collegues and, once they caught on, the electorate (Blair came into power with a 200+ majority. That has shrunk in every election since. He's now down to around 40).

- Waffled on devolution, waffled on crime, waffled on the EU

- Gave away Britain's EU rebate for nothing in return

- Repeatedly reinserted into his Cabinet, a man who was proved incompetant, corrupt and dishonest (Peter Mandelson. It got to be amusing after a while. Mandelson would be forced out in some scandal or other and about a year later, Blair would bring him back, again and again)

- The Millenium Dome fiasco (cost the country hundreds of millions to build for no good reason)

- May well be up to his ears in the "cash for Lordships" scandal (scandal where those who made heavy loans to the Labour Party were rewarded with Lordships. In fairness, still ongoing so he may be exonerated)

- The "cash for questions" scandal (similar thing but involving raising questions or pressure in the legislative chamber on behalf of your corporate sponsors. Pretty much the done thing in the States it seems but very much a no-no here)

- Publically approved the teaching of "intelligent design" in schools (shocked hell out of us, the ID crowd are a tiny, tiny minority here)

- Failed to do something about the atrocious state of school lunches until shamed into it by a TV chef (Jamie Oliver, who I normally can't stand)

- Poll tax shooting upwards even as local services deteriorate

And that's just his domestic record! Add in his cheerleading for Chimpy and whatever the current death toll in Iraq is (I stopping keeping track, too depressing) and you're left with a PM who's only worthwhile achievments were the repealing of Section 28, legalising gay marriage (in all but name) and banning fox hunting (at least, the kind done with dogs).

That's not to say that those aren't important issues, they are (although repealing Section 28 was more symbolic than anything) but they do emphasise Blair's approach to government: A media-friendly blitz of style over substance where his only worthwhile achievments are things no-one in their right mind would object to. Blair was the archetypal politican, a real-life version of Terry Pratchett's Lord Veinari who would say whatever appealed to his audience most at the time, even if it contradicted what he'd said two minutes before and would quietly do whatever he felt like while no-one was paying attention.

When he marched in lockstep with Clinton, we didn't mind too much. Clinton was a man of the centre-left (by US standards, straightforward centreist by British standards), we agreed with him on a lot of things (not everything but you wouldn't expect that) so we didn't mind too much when our PM did as well. But then along came Chimpy. Here, we were willing to give W a chance. OK, he was an idiot but we've had well-meaning idiots as both PM in our countries and president in yours and they don't always work out too badly, especially if they're aware of their limitations and surround themselves with more able advisers. For the first nine months of his reign, Bush was pretty much a cipher to us. Certainly, he was to the right of most of our electorate but that's not necessarily a bad thing in itself. A few of his actions worried us slightly but we were prepared to give him a chance. Then came 9/11 and contrary to what your press has been talling you, nothing changed on 9/11. The rest of us have been living with terrorist incidents for years. The only difference here was scale but still, we were sympathetic. We joined in the war on Afghanistan because that was justifiable. The Taliban were so repressive and so brutal that kicking them out would probably save more lives than it would cost and we figured that would be that. Boot out the Taliban, set up some form of interim government and go home.

And that's where it should have ended. But then Chimpy started talking about Iraq (as it turns out, he was talking about Iraq before that but we didn't know that then) and, horror of horrors, Blair was going along with him. This looked to us like a disaster in the making. This would be the second Iraq War for the US but at least the fifth for Britain and they tended not to turn out too well.

So, Blair's lockstep with the Chimp-in-Chief put a head on things but it wasn't just that which made him so unpopular. Yes, he was eloquent (especially when stood next to President Malaprop) and played the guitar; yes, he said the right things but he didn't do the right things. He also spoke about his faith more than any PM in living memory. You have to be British or have visited Britain to understand why that's troubling. Here, religion is generally not something you stand on street corners and shout about or something you accost strangers and collegues to ask about (Jehovah's Witnesses aside). Here, religion tends to be very much between the individual and their god. That's not to say that there aren't people of strong faith here (my grandmother was a devout Christian for example) but they tend not to talk about it except among themselves or in church (same thing I guess). Partly, that's down to the infamous British reserve but mainly it's because after the Gunpowder Plot, the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, the Papist Plot (either one) and the Irish Troubles, we've had quite enough of fanatical faith, thanks all the same. So when the president of the most powerful country in the world talks about armageddon and seems to be actively trying to bring it about, we get worried and when our own PM stands shoulder to shoulder with him without even so much as a questioning glance, we get worried about that too. And when a president says "God will judge our actions", that might be par for the course but when the PM says the same thing, we start wondering when the electorate were removed from the equation.

There's a bunch of retrospectives doing the rounds here now about "Blair's Legacy". Some are honest, others less so. I've tried here to be relatively honest (although I may be biased on the grounds I don't like Blair, never liked him, never voted for him and have been a member of the Liberal Party since I was old enough to join) but to be honest, Blair's only legacy seems to be the merciless pursuit of power. He defined the "Third Way" in politics (i.e. neither liberal or conservative, the rest of us call that "moderate" but Blair would take credit for inventing fire if he could) and then seemed to define it as "whatever gets most cheers at any given time". Trying to straddle the divide, he talked Left but governed Right (and his opposition, the Conservative ("Tory") Party have shifted to the extreme-right). Like Thatcher, he was lucky enough to have an opposition in dissarray and unable to effectively oppose him. He seemed to believe that the bloodbath of the 1997 elections where he won a collosal 200+ majority was down to him personally rather than widespread revulsion to 18 years of Tory rule and then he was lucky enough to have the Tories fighting among themselves for most of his rule and a rotating Liberal leadership caused by one crisis after another (which has been massively frustrating for us members) but always, there was that pursuit of power. Soundbite policies, alligning himself with the leader of the world's most powerful nation and then jumping into bed with his idealogical opposite, saying one thing and doing another, all of this speaks of a man with no real principles, no actual aims other than staying in office.

Well, he's going now and in fairness, I only have one thing to say:

Goodbye Tony, don't dally on your way to The Hague.