Nevertheless, I have to say his book Tony Blair A Journey an Autobiography is very well written.
Tony Blair, during his tenure as leader of the Labour Party, moved it from its working class base to become a neoliberal party which cast a lot of influence over the British people and changed the country. New-Labour was remade as a party of the middle-class. As is the case in most social democratic parties, the politicians have only governed to assure power and wealth for themselves. As a mentor and a transformer of society, Thatcher had an enormous impact on him.
What will history make of Tony Blair, and the crimes in the Middle East? Some may question the accusation that he was involved in Middle East war crimes. Some will not concur that the actions of Tony Blair and other Western entities were responsible for the outcome of terrible turmoil, but when Saddam ruled Iraqi there was no Al-Qaeda. That has changed, for sure.
Labour is not the party it once was. It is no longer the party of the workers. In the book, he covers the situation at the time he joined the party, and he discusses how he wanted it to became a party of the middle class and the progressive left. Most people who were working aspired to move up and vote Tory, but had no means to do so. Who knows where society was heading at that time?
Before Iraq, Tony Blair was very popular with the people. This changed when he sided with George Bush and U.S. objectives in the so-called “war on terror.” A superb achievement on his part was the signing of the Good Friday Agreement to bring peace to Northern Ireland. The Blair government gave the Bank of England independence to set interest rates. Blair’s agenda was to transform the United Kingdom into a modern neoliberal progressive state and, further, to spread neoliberal democracy all over the world.
People were losing their liberties under Blair’s government and would never get them back. He tried to bring in identity cards, meaning in the eyes of some people, he was an authoritarian narcissist who was remaking Britain into a police state with the diminution of economic and social rights and who was taking the country to war for the sake of oil. How will Blair be remembered? Will he seen as having changed Britain for the better, or the worse?
His book is an excellent read and worth the time regardless of what you feel about his actions in respect of the Middle East and in respect of his selling out British sovereignty to Brussels and signing every treaty with the United Nations, not to forget the continued borrowing of massive amounts of money which future generations will have to repay.
