Blair was on CNNI giving "the speech of his political career"

[lebkuchen]

...talking about the Labor Party having created millions more jobs, that the minimum wage has increased, as have earnings overall, that the country's health system is sound, providing everyone in the country with health care, that the education system is designed to open up opportunities, "not just for the privileged few, but for all," developing Britain's full human potential.

Boy. Nothing like highlighting all of Bush's short-comings before Poodle-Boy gets the boot.

[eek]

1. "we are not America's poodle"

I clicked on just in time to hear that!

I thought it was the Jon Stewart show but in fact was CNN.

Ha!

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Did he really say that?

Translation: We are not America's bitch.

[eek]

3. the British papers routinely depict blair as a poodle

in cartoons.
With aWol as a cowboy monkey.

Awwww!

[AP]

4. Here's the text of the speech

http://labour.org.uk/tbbournemouth/

[AP]

5. Here's a good part

I could recite you the statistics: The lowest inflation, mortgage rates, and unemployment for decades. The best ever school results, with over 60,000 more 11 year olds every year now reaching required standards in English and Maths.  Cardiac deaths down 19 per cent since 1997, cancer deaths 9 per cent.  Burglaries down 39 per cent. 

 But it's not statistics that tell us what has changed, it's people.

The lone parent I met, for years unemployed and unemployable. Now not just in work through the New Deal but winning promotion.

 What mattered to her most?  Not the money alone but the respect her child gained for her, seeing her work, grow in confidence, becoming a role model.  One of two million people the New Deal has helped since 1997. That's what  this Labour government has done for Britain.

[AP]

6. The difference between having Tories and Labour:

The money isn't wasted.  It's not disappearing down some black hole.  It's there in bricks and mortar, in computers and machines.

[AP]

7. And how Labour is different from US King George's Republican party:

And there is one piece of unfinished business which we will soon be completing.  The abolition of the remaining hereditary peers. Never again in Britain will someone have the right to make laws which affect the lives of ordinary families solely because their ancestor was a duke, an earl or a viscount. 

[whirlygigspin]

8. Blair says, not a poodle--more a Weasel

Blair looked positively the goof through this jabberwonky--

"The new school, its new attitude was summed up by one young stewdent who towld me she ad been badgerin 'er mum all week to buy an alarm-clock!, as she was scared of sleepin' in case she missed a singow lesson. What bettah symbo' of the opportunities we are giving our chillren."

Weasel wabble but he won't resign.

[thebigidea]

18. snurk

great campaign slogan: "Weasel wobble but he won't resign."

he's such a swarmy, desperate weasel these days.

I love watching him be pestered at PM's Questions...

[AP]

9. On Iraq:

Government's tough.  Fulfilling but tough.  Opposition was easy. 

All our MPs had to do was to go back to their constituencies and blame it on the Government. 
Some of them still do.

May 1997 was a unique moment.  An abundance of expectation surrounded our arrival.  A sense of hope beyond ordinary imagining.  The people felt it.  We felt it.  Instead of reining in the expectation, we gave it free rein.  It was natural, but born of inexperience.

We thought change was a matter of will.

Have the right programme, spend the right money and the job is done.

But experience has taught us:  the job is never done.

If we expected bouquets every day, we should have stayed in Opposition.  We shouldn't want thanks.  It's a privilege to do the job, however tough.

And in Government, you expect things to happen but the things that happen are not the things you expect, at least not on 1 May 1997.

Iraq has divided the international community.  It has divided the party, the country, families, friends.

I know many people are disappointed, hurt, angry.

I know many profoundly believe the action we took was wrong .

I do not at all disrespect anyone who disagrees with me.

I ask just one thing: attack my decision but at least understand why I took it and why I would take the same decision again. 

Imagine you are PM.  And you receive this intelligence.  And not just about Iraq.  But about the whole murky trade in WMD. 

And one thing we know.  Not from intelligence.  But from historical fact.  That Saddam's regime has not just developed but used such weapons gassing thousands of his own people.  And has lied about it consistently, concealing it for years even under the noses of the UN Inspectors.

And I see the terrorism and the trade in WMD growing. 

And I look at Saddam's country and I see its people in torment ground underfoot by his and his sons' brutality and wickedness.

So what do I do?  Say "I've got the intelligence but I've a hunch its wrong?"  Leave Saddam in place but now with the world's democracies humiliated and him emboldened?
You see, I believe the security threat of the 21st century is not countries waging conventional war.  I believe that in today's interdependent world the threat is chaos.  It is fanaticism defeating reason. 

Suppose the terrorists repeated September 11th or worse.  Suppose they got hold of a chemical or biological or nuclear dirty bomb; and if they could, they would.  What then?

And if it is the threat of the 21st century, Britain should be in there helping confront it, not because we are America's poodle, but because dealing with it will make Britain safer.

There was no easy choice.
 
So whatever we each of us thought, let us agree on this. 

We who started the war must finish the peace.

Those British soldiers who died are heroes.

We didn't regret the fall of Milosovic, the removal of the Taliban or the liberation of Sierra Leone and whatever the disagreement  Iraq is a better country without Saddam.

And why do I stay fighting to keep in there with America on the one hand and Europe on the other?

Because I know terrorism can't be defeated unless America and Europe work together.  And it's not so much American unilateralism I fear

it's isolation
it's walking away
when we need America there engaged.
Fighting to get world trade opened up
Fighting to give hope to Africa
Changing its position for the future of the world, on climate change.  And staying with it in the Middle East, telling Israel and the Palestinians: don't let the extremists decide the fate of the peace process, when the only hope is two states living side by side in peace.

And it's not Britain being swallowed up in some European federal nightmare as if Britain wasn't strong enough to hold its own, that I fear.

It's Britain leaving the centre of Europe retreating to its margin at the very moment when the fate of Europe is being decided, 10 new nations and Britain's leadership has never been more essential.  That's why apart from all the good economic reasons it is madness for Britain to give up the option of joining the Euro. 

And I know both on terrorism and on Europe my views cause offence.  But I can no more concede to parts of the left on the one than I can genuflect to the right over the other.

Because I believe both positions are vital in delivering justice in a modern world.

The original Conference title read "Fairness For All".  We changed it to "A Future Fair For All".

[AP]

10. Here's the brilliant insight part:

People ask me if I am surprised that things have got so tough. I say I am surprised it has taken so long.

Why?

I've been trying to say this to you for the best part of 10 years but never quite found the words.

But now I've hit the rough patch, its time to try again. 

Up to now there has been a ritual to Labour Governments, Euphoria on victory.  Hard slog in Government.  Tough times.  Party accuses leadership of betrayal.  Leadership accuses Party of ingratitude.  Disillusion.  Defeat.  Long period of Tory Government before next outbreak of euphoria.  We've been far better at defeating ourselves than the Tories have ever been.

Apart from 1974-79, which was fragile from the first, each Labour Government has been a spasmodic interval punctuating otherwise unbroken Conservative rule.  For too many of our 100 years we have been a well-intentioned pressure group. 

We fight injustice.

We argue our causes.

But our psychology has been that of people who know, deep down, someone else is the governing party and we are the ones championing the grievance.

So, after a time, after we have righted the most obvious wrongs of the Conservatives, we fold up.  We return to our comfort zone. 

Then came New Labour.

From the outset, our opponents hated and feared us.  They believe the Tories have a divine right to rule Britain and we are usurpers.  They look at their own Party and feel contempt.  And they hate us even more because they think we're responsible.  And in a sense we are.  By occupying the centre ground, by modernising, by reaching out beyond our activists, we helped turn the Tories into a replica of what we used to be.  A narrow base.  Obsessed about the wrong things.  Old fashioned.  In retreat.

When the Tories lose an election now anywhere in the country, they say it's not their natural territory. 

Like Scotland is not natural Tory territory.

Like Wales is not natural Tory territory.

Like the North of England is not natural Tory territory.

Like the big cities are not natural Tory territory.

Like Harwich, Hastings and Hove aren't natural Tory territory.

If I was a Conservative I would be wondering where on earth is our natural territory. 

We always knew the Tories didn't have a heart.  Their problem now is they haven't got a heartland.

No wonder they keep trying to reinvent themselves.  From cuddly Conservatives to compassionate Conservatives to caring Conservatives.  When are they going to realise it's not the first word that's the problem, it's the second.

But one thing they have succeeded in.  As they always do.  Right from the beginning of New Labour they set up the eternal false choice of progressive politics.  That in Government we either revert to the past;  or we stand for nothing.

That we are either incompetent or compromised.

That if policy is modernised, belief is betrayed.

And it plays to our own fears.

Yes, New Labour a clever piece of marketing, good at winning elections, but hollow where the heart should be.

New Labour for me was never a departure from belief.

It is my belief.


The just society in which each person is a full and equal citizen of our land, irrespective of birth, class, wealth, race or sex.

Where through solidarity we build a society in which collective strength compensates for individual weakness. 

Where privilege cannot just be handed down from generation to generation but success has to be earned on merit.

Where self respect and respect for others is the hallmark of our communities and where the fight against poverty and oppression is Britain's mission in the wider world.

These are my values and yours.  They are the key.  But the door they must unlock is the door to the future.

Because values not put to work in the real world are mere words, lying idle, there to console us but not to change lives for the better.

[dfong63]

14. "blah, blah, blah" - the bottom line is: Blair lied, and people died.

[AP]

11. I also like this part

When almost 10 years ago we ditched the old Clause IV, we didn't do it just to ditch nationalisation. 

The new Clause IV was a fundamental restatement of ideology.

"by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone…. a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few."

From now on, we said: we stand for certain values.

The values are unchangeable.
But the policies are open to change.
We made the ends sacrosanct.
We put the means up for discussion so that each time could find the right expression for values that are for all time.

In the first phase of our transformation, we took the millstones off our neck.  We became a Party of economic competence, strong on defence, concerned on law and order.  And we won power.  And then in our first term we recovered the credibility to govern. We laid foundations. 

But now, is where we show whether we have the mettle not just to be a longer or even a better Labour Government than those that went before us, but whether we usher in a political era where progressive politics is to the 21st century what conservative politics was to the 20th.  I do not just want an historic third term.  Our aim must be an historic realignment of the political forces shaping our country and the wider world.

[AP]

12. Some stats on the minimum wage

A hundred years ago we campaigned for a minimum wage.  Tomorrow our minimum wage, the one we introduced in the teeth of Tory opposition is going up again - to £4.50.  That means that since its introduction this Labour government has increased the earnings of the lowest pay workers, by over £1,500 a year.  Whilst the Tories said it would cost millions of jobs, we can say today that Britain's historic minimum wage is here to stay and it comes with the best record on jobs for 30 years.

[AP]

13. Tory strategy...

And, I stick at it, because I know what's there if we stumble.  Not the Government of some hallucination, where no tough decisions have to be taken, the money grows on trees, the Ministers all hold hands and sing Kum-bay-ah, also known as the Lib Dems - what's round the corner is the old Tory days.

It's not that long ago that we've all forgotten, is it? 

the 3m unemployed
the two recessions
the negative equity
the double figure inflation
the 15% interest rates
the cuts in schools and hospitals
the privatising of the railways.

And when we get to the next election, believe me.  We won't be fighting for votes with the hard left.  We'll be fighting the hard right.  The Tories. 

And they'll fight us on immigration, on Europe and above all on tax.  And they'll say:  you put the money in and nothing happened.

That's why they run down the NHS.

Because they know if we can change our state schools and our NHS for the better, then they're back where they've never been in 100 years 'til now, a Party of opposition and not even a good one at that.

When do Tories succeed?  They succeed when people believe politics can't change lives.  But we know it can because we see in the faces of the New Dealer and the pupils and the patients and the poorest of our world that politics can make a diff

[Jen72]

15. Can I just add that

the Health Service still struggles with staff, waiting times and funding but it saved my life in July this year.
I was two days away from kidney failure and have a liver and bile duct infection. I need two types of IV antibiotics, constant drip feed, a scan and a procedure under sedation.
I cried with relief when I got into Casualty and was given painkillers quickly and although I had a long wait for a bed, I was safe. Once on a ward I was treated very will. I did not have to worry about paying for my treatment, my taxes pay for it.
They problem is still with waiting lists, I am an a list and considered urgent so I have also felt the frustration. On the other hand because I am offically sick I do not need to pay for my prescriptions and I have state sick pay until it and recovered.

The services provided by the Unemployment office have also improved.
They do give help to single mothers, over 50's, offer further education and teach skills. None of this was avalible in the John Major years at my local job centre.

[AP]

16. did you like the speech?

[frank frankly]

17. I hope Blair runs to the left, reforms the remaining monarchy,raises wages

and then gets bounced out of office and thrown in jail.

thanks for the running transcripts