Here's what I don't get about the whole Blair hatred thing from the left

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Originally Posted by Burney

Of course it wasn't the only issue, but the fact that people were clearly prepared to overlook the small matter of Blair having dragged the country into what they believe was an illegal and unnecessary war for which our military was clearly unprepared and which caused the deaths of thousands simply because they felt the economy was doing well rather gives the lie to their outrage and apparent hatred of him, doesn't it?

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I would imagine a lot of people are so ingrained in a political party (or belief?) that election after election they will just tick the same box.

You can disagree with or hate Blair but still be a Labour supporter, you are after all really voting for a local MP.

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Originally Posted by SWv2

I would imagine a lot of people are so ingrained in a political party (or belief?) that election after election they will just tick the same box.

You can disagree with or hate Blair but still be a Labour supporter, you are after all really voting for a local MP.

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That's true, but it's only getting people who voted for him off on a technicality, isn't it? Everyone will have been aware that, by ticking the box next to their Labour candidate, they were in effect putting someone they considered a war criminal back into Number 10. I find that fact hard to reconcile with their apparent implacable contempt for said war criminal. :shrug:

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Originally Posted by Burney

That's true, but it's only getting people who voted for him off on a technicality, isn't it? Everyone will have been aware that, by ticking the box next to their Labour candidate, they were in effect putting someone they considered a war criminal back into Number 10. I find that fact hard to reconcile with their apparent implacable contempt for said war criminal. :shrug:

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Your unique ability for utterly facile argument is well demonstrated here.

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Originally Posted by Burney

No, but the numbers make it clear that a sizeable number of people who opposed the war must have voted for Blair after the fact. After all, even if just the two million people who marched against it didn't vote for him you'd have seen a sizeable swing away from Labour, so extrapolating that across the country, you are forced to assume that many millions of people who opposed the war and are happily mouthing off about the Chilcott Report nonetheless voted for Blair in 2005.

As for the argument that there were no alternative parties, that's simply not true as the LibDems opposed the war. It is equally the case that simply withholding one's vote altogether was an option that was available to absolutely everyone.

The fact is that many of those wringing their hands and wagging their fingers after the Chilcott Report simply didn't care as much about Blair's Iraq war as much as they like to pretend, which makes their faux outrage pretty hard to stomach.

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Fair point about the Lib Dems in that election. They did say "Iraq War: Never again" in their manifesto and their share of the vote went up 4% from 2001 and got 10 more seats. New Labour's share went down 5.5%. Tories vote was about the same. So it looks like significant numbers did move away from Blair to the Lib Dems (and Greens).

I think a more relevant criticism is not of members of the public who may have voted Labour despite opposing the war, (and as you will agree, people vote on a package of policies) but of the political class who went with it at the time, and are now hiding behing the cartoonish image of Blair the Monster. It's not as if he invoked the Royal Prerogative like in 99. He won a vote in the commons, despite the case being so obviously bull****. Are all the MPs who backed him going to get a public thrashing too?

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Originally Posted by Dr Headgear - Wannabe viking

Your unique ability for utterly facile argument is well demonstrated here.

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Merely pointing out the left's apparently limitless capacity for self-serving humbug, hypocrisy and sanctimony as ever, doc. :thumbup:

edit: never mind

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Originally Posted by Burney

Merely pointing out the left's apparently limitless capacity for self-serving humbug, hypocrisy and sanctimony as ever, doc. :thumbup:

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So when May wins the Tory leadership as a Remainer that won't be hypocrisy by Tory members at all?

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Originally Posted by Ash

Fair point about the Lib Dems in that election. They did say "Iraq War: Never again" in their manifesto and their share of the vote went up 4% from 2001 and got 10 more seats. New Labour's share went down 5.5%. Tories vote was about the same. So it looks like significant numbers did move away from Blair to the Lib Dems (and Greens).

I think a more relevant criticism is not of members of the public who may have voted Labour despite opposing the war, (and as you will agree, people vote on a package of policies) but of the political class who went with it at the time, and are now hiding behing the cartoonish image of Blair the Monster. It's not as if he invoked the Royal Prerogative like in 99. He won a vote in the commons, despite the case being so obviously bull****. Are all the MPs who backed him going to get a public thrashing too?

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Of course not. He was the figurehead and the leader, so he takes the thrashing. The rest can say they were following orders.

I'm not disputing that some people did move away from Labour, I'm pointing out that many more didn't and wondering how they can reconcile that fact (of putting Blair back in office) with their moral conscience. Of course people vote on a package of policies, but it seems reasonable to me to expect that someone who feels as strongly about this issue as many of those now lining up to kick Blair profess to would then refuse to vote him back in. Now I have no issue with people voting for their interests, the economy or any number of other issues, but I do take the view that once you do so in favour of someone like Blair, you are essentially placing those things over and above your moral objections to the war he started and do ever so slightly lose the moral high ground when it comes to criticising him later.

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Originally Posted by SWv2

I would imagine a lot of people are so ingrained in a political party (or belief?) that election after election they will just tick the same box.

You can disagree with or hate Blair but still be a Labour supporter, you are after all really voting for a local MP.

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Michael Howard was the Tory leader at the time and he was ****ing useless...

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Originally Posted by Pokster

Michael Howard was the Tory leader at the time and he was ****ing useless...

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He wasn't, actually. He got the Tory party back into some semblance of order after the Hague/Duncan Smith omnishambles years. He was never really meant to win an election, though, I'll grant you.