September 27, 2006

Somewhere in Britain

You may say I am a nostalgic guy, but, after reading Tony Blair’s final conference speech, I cannot help thinking that, as Guardian columnist Martin Kettle puts it,

[h]e may be the past, and it may, as he said, be time to go (body language experts said this was the only insincerely delivered line in the whole text). But this was Blair at his absolute best, vindicating his long reign as Labour's leader. It was so good that it made you ask yourself whether this party isn't out of its mind to be getting rid of him.
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What this party owes to that man is beyond calculation. Labour has been in power for 10 years because of many things - Tory failure, the New Labour internal revolution, a strong economy and many more. But it needs to be said quite simply that without Blair none of it would have happened. It needed a new kind of Labour leader who could speak to the whole nation to make it all come together and to make it sing. And Blair did it - yes, with help and, sure, with colleagues - but in the end this was his doing and only Iraq wrecked it.

Anyway, since I am not a Labour member, nor am I a British citizen—though I consider myself a friend of Britain—it is not up to me to express statements such as the following:

Gordie's oh-so-pedestrian speech is blown out of the water by Cherie saying what everyone knew anyway, followed by a simply superb speech by Our Gorious Leader. What a load of hypocritical tossers (pardon my language but it's what they are) those Labour members are. They've spent the past decade bitching about Blair, and now that he's off into the sunset they cheer him to the rafters.

But how about if it is Stephen Pollard who speaks?

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2 comments:

  1. couldn't stop watching it, the whole 56mins: i was stunned, the audience was stunned, and gordon was too.

    p.s. im sure you can still find it on the bbc news website if you have the time to watch it...

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  2. I had no time. I'll try this evening. Cheers.

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