Bye then
‘I’m tired’ I said
‘You always look tired’ she said
‘I’m admired’ I said
‘You always look tired’ she said
Fugitive Motel, Elbow
And so, his reign of terror is at an end. His wife was graceless to the last. It’s all been pretty anti-climactic – no matter how breathless and deferential the television coverage – which was probably the plan. Are you dancing a jig or feeling strangely flat? Where’s my street party? Did things just get better or worse? Was the tap gushing Iraqi blood miraculously turned off at lunchtime today?
Be honest now. Examine the depths of the fathomless pit that you call a soul, conscience or whatever. You know, that part of yourself where you buried what you did with that magazine you found in the woods or what you let that boy do to you at that party when you were 14.
Now, you might be a Amnesty International-subscribing liberal, wet of knickers and bleeding of heart. But wouldn’t part of you love to see Tony Blair’s head on a spike outside the Tower of London? His face contorted in a final agony that had even his executioners weeping and vomiting? There, don’t you feel better admitting it, if only to yourself? I know I do.
‘But think of all the good he did,’ say his vestigial supporters. The first ‘good’ to fall from their lips is his three general election victories. The thing is, the Labour Party isn’t like the Brazilian World Cup team – an election victory isn’t a trophy to put in the glass case until the next tournament. To hear most of Blair’s hagiographers speak, winning has been the end in itself.
Once you get past the three golden ‘historic’ election victories, the rest of the trophies accrued over the last ten years look small and brassy. What about economic growth during every quarter of his premiership, cry the faithful. Or the minimum wage? And tax credits?
The thing is, who really cares about such things? Especially when they’re administered in such cack-handed, inhumane ways. Who, now, says of Anthony Eden, ‘Forget Suez, what about the interest rates in 1956? That’s a legacy’? Or of John Major, ‘Say what you like about him shagging Edwina Currie, he bowed to no-one in his grasp of macro-economics’?
Anyway, Blair won’t be missed nor forgotten and a tenner on him slopping out at the Hague before the end of the decade seems a comforting, if not exactly lucrative, wager to make.
The only question left is, will there be so much spit on his grave when he dies that it’ll be an ice-rink in winter? Or will the salt in all the urine deposited there prevent the saliva from freezing?
As a souvenir, here is a cut out and keep guide to the Blair years. It’s an updated version of this. Let me know if you think anything significant’s been missed.
That Blair Legacy In Full
1997 – 2007
- Iraqi deaths survey ‘was robust’
- The Ricin ring that never was
- “Blair saw legal caveats a year before invasion“
- “Tony Blair privately committed Britain to war with Iraq and then set out to lure Saddam Hussein into providing the legal justification“
- “Children ’starving’ in new Iraq”
- “Tube PPP ‘cost public purse £1bn’”
- Cooking the books
- Lobbygate
- “Blair broke code to keep war advice from Cabinet”
- “Almost a third of the government’s arms sales machine is dedicated to selling to a single regime, Saudi Arabia.”
- “Several hundred people plotting”
- MRSA deaths double in four years
- 700 hours to ban fox hunting, 2 days to ban habeas corpus
- Outflanked on the left by Michael Howard
- “Hard choices”
- “It makes you wonder what the other ministers are hiding.”
- 700 hours on foxhunting, 7 hours on Iraq
- Torture flights
- Tuition fees
- Diego Garcia
- Lakshmi Mittal
- Foundation Hospitals
- Bernie Ecclestone
- Creationism in schools
- Ozzy Osbourne but not injured soldiers
- Our Culture of Fear
- Imprisoned without trial
- Straw wants to sell guns to China but Blair has no time for Dalai Lama
- “We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.”
- Privatisation of the air
- “I have no doubt that he will be exonerated.”
- Mandelson
- Mandelson
- Jackie Milburn
- Blair the Stowaway
- Turning unaccompanied asylum-seeking children away
- Making corporate bribery easier
- “Reforming” the House of Lords
- Holidays with Big Tobacco
- Democratic only when it suits
- London Underground privatisation
- Paul Drayson
- Half-arsed Freedom of Information
- Alastair Campbell
- Alastair Campbell
- Alastair Campbell
- Alastair Campbell
- Minimum Wage = Poverty Wage
- “Tony Blair repeatedly intervened in a bid to deport asylum seekers to Egypt despite being told that they might be tortured and sentenced to death”
- “Well, Britain gave its support but I did not see anything in return.”
- Hawks to India
- Craig Murray
- Pervez Musharraf
- Uzbekistan
- ID Cards
- PFI Hospitals
- Outsourcing hospital cleaners
- PFI Schools
- A golden future. For some.
- 45 minutes from Doom
- The Dodgy Dossier
- Ken Bigley
- Margaret Hassan
- Iraq
- Why aren’t they counting the dead?
- “Putting King Herod in charge of a maternity wardâ€Â
- Astroturfing
- Tax credits
- Basra: “a mini-Iran-come-Sicily”
- “Several hundred” terrorists was actually only 11
- John Reid: Firebombs are better than napalm
- Margaret Hodge to Rover workers: Get a job at Tesco
- Stifling protest
- UK arms sales to Africa reach £1 billion mark
- Pisspoor computer system #1
- Verah Kachepa
- Walter Wolfgang
- Memorandum of Understanding #1
- Charles Clarke: “I welcome the decision” on allowing information extracted under torture.
- Memorandum of Understanding #2
- Sent back to Iraq by mistake
- Pisspoor computer system #2
- Innocence is no defence
- The Respect Action Plan
- Pisspoor computer system #3
- The Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill
- Olive Mukaraguwiza
- Pisspoor computer system #4
- ID cards
- The treatment of the July 7 bombings survivors
- “A decent and honourable man”
- Cash for peerages
- “Here we are not tortured physically but mentally we are tortured.”
- “Get away from me, I will not be insulted by you, this is an insult“
- “Hoon plans curb on MPs’ questions”
- “If this was anything to do with trying to appeal to the electorate, he wouldn’t be so excruciatingly honest”
- Pisspoor computer system #5
- Pisspoor computer system #6
- A slight miscalculation
- Maya Evans
- Extraordinary rendition: ignorance is bliss
- Pisspoor computer system #7
- Pisspoor computer system #8
- Sally Cameron
- Pisspoor computer system #9
- Immigration cells ‘like kennels’
- John Reid: Be slow to condemn
- The politicisation of the police…
- …or maybe not
- 28 days
- The Politics of Fear
- No inquiry into 7 July bombings
- Project Allenby-Connaught
- Charles Clarke
- Charles Clarke again
- Siding with torturers. Again.
- Charles Clarke. Again. Again.
- “…at worst an unacceptable disdain by the Home Office for the rule of law, which is as depressing as it ought to be concerning.”
- £100m PFI windfall
- RAF pilots ‘asked for tank foam’
- Deep-sixing the BAE fraud inquiry
- Iatrogenesis
- John Prescott, unpunished sex pest
- Alastair Campbell
- NHS computer system
- Charging for prisoner’s bed and board
- Cutting compensation for the wrongly convicted
- Abusers left without supervision
- Summary justice
- Baha Mousa
- Elizabeth
- Appeasing terrorists
- 3000 new offences
- Lebanon
- The farewell memo
- The death penalty
- Cash for honours
- Arms to Libya
- A spiralling Olympic bill
- Bunker busters to Israel
- The Trident ‘debate’
- Halima Basheer
- Britain blocks Italy’s bid to ban death penalty
- Blackmailing the police
- Abdullah Tokhi
- The Bokhari family
- Public engagement
- The Medical Training Application Service
- Still no 7/7 public inquiry
- Corruption
- Every single useless, pointless, infuriating, nauseating, unedifying and unenlightening Prime Minister’s Questions where he never failed to sully his office by answering questions with evasion, obfuscation and petty insults.
What’s left to say that hasn’t already been said? I would suggest that Blair radicalised millions of people, just not in the way he would have liked. It’s because of Blair that I’m as political as I am. If it wasn’t for Blair it’s likely this blog and thousands like it wouldn’t exist. That’s another thing to hate him for.
Let’s end on a song.
Posted on June 27th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
| See also • Cut out and keep guide to new labour • Voting New Labour? • backing blair back |
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• 23 Comments |
Love the grave/freezing fluid speculation.
I miss him already. Now we’re stuck with Brown and Cameron, both of whom I merely dislike. Hate is far more fun.
(I’m still hoping Her Maj decides not to ask Gordon to form a government and opts for rule by Privy Council instead. That’d be tops.)
[...] wouldn’t part of you love to see Tony Blair’s head on a spike outside the Tower of London?
Oh, my, that was such a wonderful thought I have to go clean my pants.
Excellent and comprehensive list Justin, but ID cards surely have to be higher than 55- well above Jackie Milburn & Blair the stowaway.
Also, there are 2 things which I think are unfair to be included on this list:
#57 – outsourcing hospital cleaners. This started long before Blair (a neighbour of mine who was a hospital cleaner was outsourced in the early 80s before he was even an MP) and, since Brown has been in charge of the economy, the continued outsourcing should be really regarded more as his;
#62 – ken bigley. The greedy fucker chose to go to a war zone and got killed. So fucking what? Yes, it’s blair’s fault that it’s a war zone, but that has been extensively covered by your other points
You know in Darkness At Noon where Gletkin writes off one of Rubashov’s charges right at the end?
I’d have thought we could do him two out of 151.
What about disenfrachisng over 200,000 voters with a cackhanded ballot system in Scotland courtesy of Jnr Toad in Residence Douglas Alexander, surely worthy of a sot at, say 128?
Incidentally I don’t think it’s totally Blair’s fault that so long was spent on foxhunting. I’d find fault with the loony-Telegraph set who were so grotesquely ill-behaved about it and I don’t think they should have been allowed to get their way.
Blair did lie about that issue too, though – well of course he did, it’s his default position.
Could you give me hint about Cherie’s gracelessness. Didn’t watch, didn’t want to. Totally different to when Thatch went, and yet I despise him more.
I’ve just seen it on t’web. Is Gordon getting the kids then?
[...] Chicken Yoghurt » Bye then If you have retained one iota of regret for our dear ex-leader passing from office or maybe one shred of misguided conviction that ‘he wasn’t such a bad bloke really after all’, let me help purge your system clean by directing you to Chicken Yoghurt’s impressingly comprehensive Cut out and keep guide to the Blair Years. [...]
aceness
[...] I hear from the Today Programme that President Bush thinks that History will judge Blair kindly. Well its possible, I suppose. Though I know some of the people who’ll have a hand in actually writing it, and many of them will have quite a lot of sympathy with This sort of list. [...]
How about a few more points:
[1] Reversing the burden of proof.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theissues/article/0,6512,334007,00.html
[2] 7 days detention without charge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000#Detention_without_charge
[3] 14 days detention without charge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_Act_2000#Detention_without_charge
[4] Internment in Belmarsh
[5] Setting up a system to track every single car journey everywhere.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/15/vehicle_movement_database/
[6] Extra judicial executions on the tube
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article556227.ece
[7] A voting system that would disgrace a banana republic
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article377468.ece
Excellent, much better than any of the eulogies I’ll expect to read over the coming days.
Interestingly I was interviewing a Conservative MP the other day about Tony and asked if there was anything positive Blair had achieved. His answer included a bit about the economy but otherwise it was ‘England’s a nice place to live at the moment.’
I would have challenged him, but other than the few economic bits you (and he) already raised, bar Northern Ireland, I was completely stuck.
only 150 odd reasons?
Nice one Justin
This is why I miss the Friday Thing
[...] legacy (although for an entertaining and distinctly partisan take on the last 10 years, Justin McKeating’s your man) but one commentator really stood out today – Jonathan [...]
I miss it too.
Too bad he couldn’t find time to outlaw corporate manslaughter before he left either.
Your missing the undermining of the democratic system inside Labour 1993-take your pick. That probably rates another few points.
Also:
Forcing Robin Cook to choose to end his marriage at the airport in pursuit of a better headline.
£300m per annum on GP contract incomes pa because Patsy is a negotiating dolt when drugs cannot be afforded for patients.
Handling of foot and mouth.
Single farm payments cocked up, and resulting cuts to heritage budgets.
Millenium Dome.
I’d have 2 spikes and put Ken Livingstone on the other one. Preferably alive.
I can’t see tuition fees on the list (especially given the original promise njot to introduce them). See also Blunkett: ‘Read my lips: no selection’
Yiou could throw in Blair’s kicking at the hands of the WI as well.
[...] support for torture/rendition etc, the craven submission to the right-wing press agenda, err, all these things. Oh, and ….. Iraq. The Hague’s too good for him. __________________ Ian "You have a [...]
[...] “Bye then” do Chicken Yogurt: As a souvenir, here is a cut out and keep guide to the Blair years. [...]