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Stonehedge
@WillMelling
Blair, like Bill Clinton and Obama was an exceptional politician. He had, and still has, great charisma and confidence and articulacy. It's not difficult to see why they were popular. The other thing they all have in common is that they were never any threat at all to corporate power, corrupt City practices, or to the greed of billionaires. That was the transaction Blair made with Murdoch; you can have your Sure Start centres and you can redistribute some money but don't even think about coming after people like me.
New Labour said, possibly sincerely, that inequality didn't matter, that as long as the poor did better then it didn't matter if the super rich got super-richer. And they were wrong about that. Inequality destroys and divides societies.
So it is fair enough to credit Blair (and Brown, but he never gets a look in) with many, many improvements to ordinary peoples' lives but not to ignore the systemic changes they chose (or were not allowed) to make.
I am quite sure a lot of people will have some doubts about Blair's version of the history of the Labour party too, not to mention the peculiar idea that 19th century Liberalism has a part to play in the modern Labour party. You can only look to the 70s if it's the 1870s.
He also mentions the Transatlantic alliance, which is ironic since it was his belief in its importance above all else that led to his duplicitous support for Bush's Iraq war and the ruining of his own reputation. It makes me wonder how far he would have debased himself had he had to deal with Trump.