To all from UK: Blair good or bad

I have a question for those in the group from the UK. First some background:
In our media Blair is portrayed for the most part as a brave man standing up to zealots in his own country to stand beside our president in the great war on terror. (Okay I watch Foxnews most of the time).

We see protest in England before the war in Iraq and it seemed large and organized.

My question: Does the average person in England feel Blair is a great leader or a puppet of the US?
I ask this question because I sometimes feel we do not get a good impression after our media scrubs things.

At the beginning, Blair appeared to be a breath of fresh air after years of Tory sleaze. But soon enough it was proved that a country run by Blair and his yes-men was even worse than one run by the ineffectual John Major.

In my opinion, Tony Blair is a traitor (having given away British sovereign power to Brussels) and a liability to the country. The sooner he is voted out the better. Dare I say, I doubt very much that we can get anyone worse.

And he's a too !

I think in the UK Tony Blair is seen as someone who is incapable of answering a simple question and instead uses spin and vague answers in response to nearly every question asked of him.
At first,like Pisky says,he appeared to be a breath of fresh air but he has since shown to be no better or worse than any other of the power hungry people in either of the major political parties.

With regards to standing beside the USA in the war against terror,in my humble opinion,i think we should.I think most people agree to a type of war against terror,the question most people i think ask in the UK is 'Are we going about it the right way?' After all,armed conflict isn't the only way to turn the screw on terrorists.Then again,how much effect does sanctions and trade embargoes have against these countries who harbour terrorists?

Just my thoughts on your questions Nativeokie,sorry for not being able to asnswer them better but i'm not that interested in politics and the retards that we vote for heh.

[Edited on 22-2-2004 by Supernova]

I agree, I watch Fox news from the UK and i hate the way hes portrade as a much loved person.

I have a question for you, in the US can you get a show called Deadringers, by the BBC, it will show you what we think of him and Bush!

Well, I suppose I liked him when he first came to power. He had, IMO, the right policies etc. but I don't that time has been very good to him or his party. He is looking like a very diluted character.
Anyways, I'm LibDem all the way.

*damn I shouldn't of said that

i voted blair in the last election, but i did it out of blind hope that his second term would be better than his first. its been worse. on a domestic level blair has lost support from his own party (and me) due to his almost tyrannical style of leadership (his political idol is thatcher) and his disregard for elementary liberal policies.

regarding the war on terror, he is,and will always be, an unwavering supporter of US action overseas. the iraq war was not the first example of this support; he wholeheartedly backed the military campaigns of clinton. its not entirely true that he supports US foreign policy because of american military/financial dominance however (although this is obviously a factor), he believes passionately in what he is doing.

he'll win the next election, but only because of the lack of competent opposition. he has lost the support of the british people, those antiwar and even the pro-war people because of bad intelligence, the hutton report and spin.

on a similar note, do you americans believe the 'special relationship' actually exists?

To answer a couple of the questions.
I am not aware of a show called Deadringers but I also do not have BBC America (won't pay for digital cable).

As for the special relationship, it does seem that if we decided to invade Canada because we need more room for Winter resorts Blair would go right along with us on that.

I guess that is what started my question in the first place, I know how I would feel it if appeared our president supported another leader, regardless and our protest about it brought little. It just felt like maybe soemone was blowing a little smoke up our collective butts.

Thanks for all that have replied.

your right, and the same disillusionment is happening here. whats the point of voting in a uk general election if foreign - and to some extent economic - policy is decided by the whitehouse?

but thats contemporary politics for you.

organisations such as the IMF, NATO and also the emergence of america as the only true superpower have made sovereignty impossible. unless you are america, of course.

Originally posted by Pisky
At the beginning, Blair appeared to be a breath of fresh air after years of Tory sleaze. But soon enough it was proved that a country run by Blair and his yes-men was even worse than one run by the ineffectual John Major.

In my opinion, Tony Blair is a traitor (having given away British sovereign power to Brussels) and a liability to the country. The sooner he is voted out the better. Dare I say, I doubt very much that we can get anyone worse.

I agree with every word in this post.

Blair has a 'Grand Plan' to destroy British national identity and, ultimately, to destroy Britain as an independent, democratic country.

The first part of this is to break-up the UK into pointless semi-autonomous regions - this has already happened in Scotland and Wales and the foundations are being laid for English regions, too.

Gradually, more power will be devolved from Westminster to these regions.

At the same time, the really important stuff is gradually being handed to Europe (with many decisions taken by unelected, unaccountable and corrupt officials). European Law already overrides British Law in many areas, and if Blair and his accolytes have his way, Europe will be handed our powers on tax, defence, immigration, etc.

The eventual result of this will be that power is vested in Europe at the top-level and in semi-automonous Uk regions reporting direct to Brussells. At this point, there will be effectively no national British government and therefore no country and little democracy.

There will still be elections, of course, but they won't mean anything because so many decisions in Europe are taken by officials and not by accountable politicians.

Blair wants this because rule by Europe will mean that we are for ever ruled by a left-of-centre regime. This is because the electoral systems of most European countries differ from the UK's and all most all of Europe (apart from Italy) is traditionally ruled by weak coalitions of left-of-centre/far left political parties.

Europe is hugely undemocratic and there are already plans to make it an offence to make 'UnEuropean' comments.

At the same time, political correctness is now out of control in all European and, to a certain extent, British institutions and our civil liberties are being eroded by backdoor measures introduced as part of the so-called war on terror.

The US should be very worried about the way Britain is going under Blair - your last real European ally will soon be an undemocratic offshoot of an intolerant socialist Europe-wide regime.

If I had to choose between becoming the 51st state of the US or becoming part of Europe I'd choose the former any day (it's not so silly, after all, London is nearer to Washington than Hawaii!).

I hope and pray that Michael Howard and The Conservative Party will win the next election so that some of the damage done by Blair and his elitist, intolerant, cynical government will be reversed.