Tony Blair: A Brief Look Back
By Shannon Geis
At the beginning of September, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Tony Blair, announced his intention to retire from office within the year. This immediately caused a spark of speculation all over Great Britain about when he would retire and who would succeed him.
Although Blair’s announcement was extremely vague, its arrival has been expected for a while. Blair is the longest-serving Prime Minister from the Labour Party as well as, at the age of 53, the youngest person to attain this office since 1812. However, in 2005, Blair won his third consecutive term. Although Blair kept his place in office, the Labour party lost much of its majority. This caused many members to ask for Blair’s resignation sooner rather than later. Dissent quickly disappeared when Blair accepted the presidency of the European Union in the summer of 2005.
Soon, opposition was on the rise again. In May 2006, the general election lost the Prime Minister even more seats in councils; it was the period of Blair’s lowest approval ratings, just 26%. The low ratings were due at least in part to his large support for President George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Blair’s strong support for the Iraq War turned into long struggle against accusations of dishonesty. In order to gain support for the invasion of Iraq, Blair used documents that could not be proven to ensure that there were weapons of mass destruction within Iraq. When these documents were found to be false, Blair had to take the blame for sending one-third of the total strength of the British Army into the Middle East.
Tony Blair was also widely criticized for his seemingly authoritarian rule. Blair consistently refused work in conjunction with his cabinet members and House of Commons, making policy strictly on his own.
In light of these and other reasons for discontent, on September 5th , 66 of the Labour members of parliament (MPs), including 17 normally loyal MPs, signed a letter asking for Tony Blair to resign.
Despite the criticisms there have been the good points to Tony Blair’s policies that have kept him in office for the past nine and a half years. Under Blair, the British economy soared. Education was also a major focus of Blair’s. He emplaced many reforms for schools in England; however, he didn’t apply himself to reforming many other areas of concern in the UK.
To the delight of environmental groups, climate change was also a big priority on Blair’s agenda. Yet, according to the BBC, most of the carbon pollution reduction promised was done at the local level, not the national level.
When it came to health care, Tony Blair prided himself in the amount of money that was provided to the National Health Services (NHS) during his reign. What he didn’t mention was the large deficit that the NHS ran up.
Overall the efficiency of policy seems to have been fairly even. With Blair, the British seemed to be winning just as much as they were losing. As with any government policy, one can’t expect to win everything.
What does future policy look like for the UK? If Gordon Brown takes over as is expected, not much. As harsh as the feud is between Blair and Brown, their ideologies are extremely similar. Britain can’t expect any major changes in the future if Gordon Brown takes head.
Although Tony Blair announced his resignation twice (he also made a statement at the Labour Party convention at the end of September), he has to continue working. It will be interesting to see how much he can get accomplished with the short time he has left in office, especially with the Labour Party leaning in a new direction and pushing for a new leader as soon as possible, at least before the May 2007 elections.
Sources
Assinder, Nick. “Blair’s farewell performance.” BBC News. Published: Sept. 12, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5338362.stm
“Davis, Evan, Mike Baker, Sarah Mukherjee, Jane Dreaper, Jon Silverman. “Blair vs. Brown: What will change?” BBC News. Published: Sept. 8, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/5326626.stm
“I will quit within a year – Blair.” BBC News. Published: Sept. 7, 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/uk_news/politics/5322094.stm
“Tony Blair.” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair. Accessed: Oct. 3, 2006.
