Q) Guess who wants a second crack at being Prime Minister?

So he strawberry floats up the country and now that we're finally getting his mess cleaned up he wants to come back and strawberry float it up all over again?

Lagamorph wrote:So he strawberry floats up the country and now that we're finally getting his mess cleaned up he wants to come back and strawberry float it up all over again?

What's been cleaned up? As far as I can see, we're in a bigger mess than ever.

The URL link is just asking for people to click on it.

'Tony Blair admits "I like crack"'

So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

He's no different from the pricks that are running the Country now.......

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:So he strawberry floats up the country and now that we're finally getting his mess cleaned up he wants to come back and strawberry float it up all over again?

What's been cleaned up? As far as I can see, we're in a bigger mess than ever.

Spending is being brought back under control after Labour's "Throw money at it until it goes away" policy of dealing with problems. The deficit is actually being tackled whilst Labour were just happy to spend and borrow their way out of recession ( )
All of the U-Turns we've had are are a fantastic thing as it indicates that, for once, the government is actually listening to the people. For the first time in 15 years I actually feel like I'm living in a democracy.

Blair and Brown can both just strawberry float right off after the mess they plunged not just us but a good portion of the rest of the world into, along with Bush.

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

It's not really an exaggeration to say he's one of the major contributing factors to the problems the world faces today.

Ghost_Recon wrote:He's no different from the pricks that are running the Country now.......

"Garbage in, garbage out."

Lagamorph wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:So he strawberry floats up the country and now that we're finally getting his mess cleaned up he wants to come back and strawberry float it up all over again?

What's been cleaned up? As far as I can see, we're in a bigger mess than ever.

Spending is being brought back under control after Labour's "Throw money at it until it goes away" policy of dealing with problems. The deficit is actually being tackled whilst Labour were just happy to spend and borrow their way out of recession ( )

Ah yes, the Tory policy of "take money from the poorest and most vulnerable whilst maintaining our own ridiculous levels of pay and benefits" is really benefitting the people of this country.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:So he strawberry floats up the country and now that we're finally getting his mess cleaned up he wants to come back and strawberry float it up all over again?

What's been cleaned up? As far as I can see, we're in a bigger mess than ever.

Spending is being brought back under control after Labour's "Throw money at it until it goes away" policy of dealing with problems. The deficit is actually being tackled whilst Labour were just happy to spend and borrow their way out of recession ( )

Ah yes, the Tory policy of "take money from the poorest and most vulnerable whilst maintaining our own ridiculous levels of pay and benefits" is really benefitting the people of this country.

Whilst Labours policy of "buy votes with benefit money" was totally sustainable.

Is this deficit the one that's getting worse following the cuts due to an economy scared back into recession? So less public jobs, less money but still the deficit grows.

I don't think either approach was exactly perfect.

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

I still maintain that the Iraq war cannot be judged over the 10 years of troubles in Iraq. It is something that can only truly be judged decades from now if Iraq is still in a state of flux. Lessons have to be learnt from the lack of planning invloved. I don't think removing Saddam was a bad thing as such, considering he was playing poker with the lives of his people. Of course their are other dictators left that should be removed under the same criteria but after Iraq I think people have learnt that direct intervention isn't the best strategy.

As for Blair returning to office, I don't want to see it happen. I feel if he had stayed he would have won the last election, but since he left office and hasn't had to maintain his political image I think he has actually done far too much damage to his own personal credibility (far more than Iraq ever did ironically).

captain red dog wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

Then maybe we need to look at actually having democracy. Tony Blair lied deliberately to the public about the reasons for the war and nothing will ever be done about it. That sickens me.

Besides, the legitimacy of the war is very complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy ... on_of_Iraq

Nothing will be done because the guilty parties are all part of the same system.

Fatal Exception wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

Then maybe we need to look at actually having democracy. Tony Blair lied deliberately to the public about the reasons for the war and nothing will ever be done about it. That sickens me.

Besides, the legitimacy of the war is very complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy ... on_of_Iraq

Nothing will be done because the guilty parties are all part of the same system.

He didn't lie. All the inquiries showed the intelligence was wrong. There wasn't anybody who didn't think Saddam didn't have WMDs before the war. Most of the UN conceded WMDs were likely but it was on the action to take that they didn't agree. Saddam deliberately took measures to make it look like he did have them.

The intelligence agencies got it wrong, it wasn't a lie.

EDIT: I don't want it to sound like I am defending Blair's Government here. There were massive failings in the lead up to and during the initial invasions which the inquiries did find and lessons need to be learnt from. I just genuinely don't think there was a deliberate attempt to dupe the public. I just think they got the intelligence completely wrong.

captain red dog wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

Then maybe we need to look at actually having democracy. Tony Blair lied deliberately to the public about the reasons for the war and nothing will ever be done about it. That sickens me.

Besides, the legitimacy of the war is very complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy ... on_of_Iraq

Nothing will be done because the guilty parties are all part of the same system.

He didn't lie. All the inquiries showed the intelligence was wrong. There wasn't anybody who didn't think Saddam didn't have WMDs before the war. Most of the UN conceded WMDs were likely but it was on the action to take that they didn't agree. Saddam deliberately took measures to make it look like he did have them.

The intelligence got it wrong, it wasn't a lie.

The way it was put to us as absolutely 100% confirmed true was a lie however.

Lagamorph wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

Then maybe we need to look at actually having democracy. Tony Blair lied deliberately to the public about the reasons for the war and nothing will ever be done about it. That sickens me.

Besides, the legitimacy of the war is very complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy ... on_of_Iraq

Nothing will be done because the guilty parties are all part of the same system.

He didn't lie. All the inquiries showed the intelligence was wrong. There wasn't anybody who didn't think Saddam didn't have WMDs before the war. Most of the UN conceded WMDs were likely but it was on the action to take that they didn't agree. Saddam deliberately took measures to make it look like he did have them.

The intelligence got it wrong, it wasn't a lie.

The way it was put to us as absolutely 100% confirmed true was a lie however.

Yep I suppose you could say that yes, but then on the other hand you could say that they genuinely thought the intelligence was correct (which was another part of the problem, they had convinced themselves at all levels).

captain red dog wrote:

Lagamorph wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Fatal Exception wrote:

captain red dog wrote:

Somebody Else's Problem wrote:

1cmanny1 wrote:So why don't you like this guy? What did he do, was he that bad?

There was that whole unnecessary, illegal war thing.

It wasn't actually, technically, illegal though was it? No charges have ever been brought and nobody will ever be able to bring charges. Massively unpopular and terribly planned yes, but it wasn't illegal.

Then maybe we need to look at actually having democracy. Tony Blair lied deliberately to the public about the reasons for the war and nothing will ever be done about it. That sickens me.

Besides, the legitimacy of the war is very complicated:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimacy ... on_of_Iraq

Nothing will be done because the guilty parties are all part of the same system.

He didn't lie. All the inquiries showed the intelligence was wrong. There wasn't anybody who didn't think Saddam didn't have WMDs before the war. Most of the UN conceded WMDs were likely but it was on the action to take that they didn't agree. Saddam deliberately took measures to make it look like he did have them.

The intelligence got it wrong, it wasn't a lie.

The way it was put to us as absolutely 100% confirmed true was a lie however.

Yep I suppose you could say that yes, but then on the other hand you could say that they genuinely thought the intelligence was correct (which was another part of the problem, they had convinced themselves at all levels).

So "We thought they might have had WMD's" is a perfectly legal justification for war is it?

It's epsecially rich coming from leaders of the two countries that actually invented WMD's in the first place

Lagamorph wrote:So "We thought they might have had WMD's" is a perfectly legal justification for war is it?

It's epsecially rich coming from leaders of the two countries that actually invented WMD's in the first place

Well I suppose the way I look at it is that if the US and British Governments genuinely thought a regime like Saddam's had WMDs, I would expect them to act. If it then turned out it was completely wrong I'd expect a backlash like we got. I just don't think claims that they lied to us to go to war are accurate, or that the evidence since seems to suggest that.

Stemming from what happened, I don't think an Iraq situation will ever happen again because intelligence agencies and western Governments have seen the consequences of those mistakes.

Question, why is it that any country which currently has WMD's and has had them for years is seen as having a god given right to have them, but if any country which doesn't have them so much as expresses an interest in developing them then they are instantly branded as evil and planning to use them to wipe out the world?

Lagamorph wrote:Question, why is it that any country which currently has WMD's and has had them for years is seen as having a god given right to have them, but if any country which doesn't have them so much as expresses an interest in developing them then they are instantly branded as evil and planning to use them to wipe out the world?

It's because the global balance of power right now is very much in favor of the west, particularly the US and its satellite states (the UK, Israel etc), and anything which threatens that is a threat to the American global hegemony and is therefore evil by default.