ok ok hear me out yeah? forget the tony blair aged 10 of his premiership. - look at the tony blair age 0.
when he came on the scene - how sick were brits of the conservatives? even though it was john major that was in charge alot of the crap he carried was from the thatcher era. reports of corruption and were just coming out of the first gulf war.
the conservative's election campaign lacked direction whereas labour were easily targetting the weak points and in their young energetic leader they found a great focal point.
Tony blair had made a rapid rise within the party, a qualified barrister.
Blair trounced Major in the election. it was a new day. britain woke up the next day with great hope. their charismatic new leader would lead britain back to the promised land.
the youthfulness, the appeal to the centre, the whole new start new change, the bringing britain back to the front of the international scene, the man who promised to do right, a father to a young family but here's the one thing that makes me think obama is a page out of the blairite book of politics.
spreading the wealth.
whilst tony never used the phrase to such prominence he executed to brilliant effect. such brilliance that the conservatives didnt even realise it was happening till it had happened. like the republicans they were keen on people making it for themselves, but blair wrong-footed their poorly led party and did everything to great usage.
the introduction of the national minimum wage, passed in 1999, was set at £3.50 ph for adults and by the time he left his tenure it was £5.50, around 1.5/2 million people benefitted from this.
One of the first things Blair did was to give the bank of england independance to set the rate of interest. something obama will have to look at closely, but back then helped the british economy a great deal.
He knew he had to sit down and talk to IRA to end the troubles, something obama will have to and has said he will do with Iran and other groups within Iraq.
he put in legislation to aid gay and lesbian rights, which i'm sure obama will do especially in california with constitution 8.
Blairs finest hour internationally was without a doubt during the Kosovo war and the role he and Great britain played. the prominence and his international diplomacy to encourage NATO and others to intervene saved many lives no doubt. sadly this international praise he received gave him the taste for international intervention that played greatly in the 2nd half of his premiership to such bad effect.
obama should look somewhat towards Blair and see how he did things and realise which way the lie of the land is.
Blair was exceptional at surrounding himself with the right people. Peter Mandelson, Alaister Darling amongst others was the thing he needed so that his own back was watched at all times. one only has to look at the way he advised the royal family during the death of diana, just exactly how media savvy he and his team was. the respect the media gave him was highlighted by the fact no paper reported an alleged family problem in 2004.
his legacy would have been something of greatness had it not been for the iraq war which like bush will dog him for years to come. just his mere presence in singapore gave london the olympics in 2012, his internation reputation doing its work.
obama. learn the lessons and avoid the pitfalls.
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