Remembering Tony Blair, PM....

Today Prime Minister Tony Blair announced his resignation and revealed his final day in office will be 27th June.
What will his legacy be?

Well, there is the Northern Ireland peace process, begun by his predecessor, John Major. Anyone who can get the Reverend Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness working together deserves credit.

There is also his commitment to Africa, winter fuel allowance, the independence of the Bank of England in monetary policy (thus making them responsibile for setting interest rates), devolution in Scotland and Wales, the introduction of a minimum wage and making the (New) Labour party so acceptable to the British electorate, that the opposition Tory party eventually decided to follow the motto "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," and picked David Cameron as their leader. And Blair's staunch support of the United States after 9/11 should be praised (although I think he also deserves criticism for his apparent servile attitude to Dubya).

But there is also the continuing poor state of the National Health Service, despite money spent on improving it. There is widespread apathy about all politicians, thanks to an over-reliance on spin, statistics and soundbites, not to mention the issue of sleaze that haunts Blair and the Labour party - from Bernie Ecclestone's £1 million donation in 1997 to today's "cash for honours" police enquiries. We have tuition fees for students, leaving many facing debt. Then there's increased taxation and the fear that Britain is "sleep-walking into a surveillance society," with the possibilty of identity cards, an expanded DNA database and the huge rise in the use of CCTV cameras.
And let's not forget the government's removal of tax credits from share dividends in 1997, netting an additional £5bn per year for the government's coffers which would otherwise have remained in pension funds (but Gordon Brown will be held more accountable for that).

But above all, history will remember Tony Blair for IRAQ. Grounds for invading Iraq in 2003 were based on dubious intelligence that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). No such weapons were found, but evidence of weapons programmes were uncovered.
While "Operation Iraqi Freedom" did remove Saddam from power and defeated the Iraqi army in only three weeks, the planning for postwar Iraq by the victorious "coalition of the willing" was inadequate and Iraq is paying for that inadequacy today. Some say the UK also paid with 7/7.
Whether Tony Blair was right or wrong to side with Dubya on the invasion of Iraq is a question best left to posterity.
Blair will stand down on 27 June