Just putting here in case anyone is interested - I remember we had brief discussions on this sort of stuff before.
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Normal service resumed
I particularly liked this bitā¦
The venue agreed to reduce the bill to Ā£1,400, but on condition of immediate payment ā which meant civil servants had to use an emergency process to pay up straight away.
In other words they had to pay for the function like the fucking rest of us. And for that they got more than 50% off?!
I want to try that next time I eat out. Iāll eat, drink, ask for the bill and then offer them half now or they can have the full amount sometime in the future.
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Itās interesting though, itās one of those things that smell fishy but might not have been that odd, especially if itās true that no other comparable location was available and cheaper.
That said, the specific message that she requested it does not look good.
Iām sure they could have got into Maccy Dās with no notice at all.
Tell us how you get on. Could be fun at the MacDonalds drive thro along with a black eye from the white van man behind you.
Maybe Truss promised them an NHS PPE contract if they reduced the bill?
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And also the filthy margins the restaurant is making to give more than 50% off and probably still make a decent profit on that.
Maybe. Perhaps they were sold a promise of several visits?
Clearly this is small beer but I think itās still worth highlighting the attitude that seems run through the current UK government. One of being free to do what they like with the public purse.
Tony Blair telling Geoff Hoon to burn the memo that suggested the Iraq war may be illegal is telling about labour , the fact that Starmer thinks Blair is worthy of being made a sir shows they have learnt nothing and that Starmer just like Blair is a prick
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Iāve debated this in my mind to be honest.
Blair won 3 terms in office. Thatās no fluke so he was doing something right in the eyes of the public at that time. I also believe heās turned down other āawardsā such as a peerage etc.
I agree that Iraq was a massive massive mistake (putting it bluntly and politely) and that should be taken into account here.
For me this is really about whether being PM automatically qualifies you for a peerage down the line. I hope not but there seems to be some precedent. A precedent that on the face of it seems to fall into being part of that elite group
Too kind. It was a war crime.
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Yeah I couldnāt find those words to be honest.
Ego over judgement at the very least.
It should count against this I feel. I care not for knighthoods and the like but this one makes me uncomfortable given what happened and what it may mean going forward.
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For me he was the best PM the UK has had for decades.
On the international stage besides Iraq there was Kosovo, Sierra leone and Good Friday agreement. All major achievements. Doubled international aid budget and wrote off debt to the poorest countries.
Normal every day people saw real benefits. From min wage introduction, increased rights for holidays, free nursery places, child tax credits, healthy start. NHS properly funded and working.
Education, NHS, Poverty, employment, social care were all generally positive.
Iraq war was a shit stain, on an otherwise very good period for Britain.
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One from The Queen though. Makes it a bit harder to critique along political lines.
I think heās guilty of war crimes but various independent enquiries, with much greater scrutiny, have not found him to be so and heās never been prosecuted at The Hague soā¦ 
Slippery bastard.
All valid points.
GFA was the culmination of a long process though. The late great Mo Mowlam deserves the majority of the credit there on the Labour side.
Of course, the huge increased spending from the public purse did lead to improved public services and NHS (alongside PFI which helped privatise more of the NHS than the Conservatives have ever doneā¦ahem), but it also contributed to the great financial crash of 2008.
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He was. Itās why the Iraq episode was so frustrating.
However he are a few other shit things that happened under Blair. Just for the sake of balance, and all that.
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introduced tuition fees, which have been a barrier to higher education for many from a low income.
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began the process of school academisation, which has put childrenās education in the hands of the private sector - sometimes with disasterous results.
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a vested in the NHS, but the PFI initiative essentially paid for it on the never never.
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His style of government was autocratic, centrist and controlling. His government became known for spin, and the media management of policy and announcements, caused an erosion of trust in politicians. Thatās ultimately led us to the shitshow we have now, and you can, I think, trace a direct line from Blair to moments like Brexit and the Public response to Covid. Anywhere you have people assuming bad faith in politics I think was helped by the style of Government Blair ushered in.
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Thanks all. All of the above pretty much captures the good and bad of it all.
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The thing is i am middle aged, and all I have seen in the UK is Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May and now Johnson.
I donāt think Blair is perfect in any way, but what did the others actually achieve ? I dislike thatcher (and her politics) but I can make a good argument for her. The others I honestly struggle.
Whilst I agree with many of the negatives, one of the things I do disagree on is pinning the erosion of trust on Blair. To me the Tory corruption today mirrors that during the John Major era. The major difference is Johnson is an opportunist/populist. Today having someone with morals like John Major would be a godsend.
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Only because the rest have been so utterly awful. Gordon Brown could have been the one, but Murdoch and co killed him for calling a bigoted woman bigoted
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