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Tony Blair: Labour Party
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This article explains what Tony Blair and his government believed in, and the society they sought in Britain (and in other countries). It ... says why they are wrong. The responsibility for that is not limited to Tony Blair himself, or to the members of his government. They implemented their ideology, and they should ultimately face some form of tribunal for that. Active members of the Labour party should also face judicial process: without them, Blair would have won no elections. But the primary moral guilt rests with 'the British people' themselves.
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Tony Blair became Leader of the Labour Party in 1994, initiating reforms widely credited with spearheading the party's return to power after 18 years in opposition. In office as Prime Minster of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 he transformed Britain's public services through investment and reform. Tony Blair has always been a strong advocate of a values-based, activist and multilateralist foreign policy, including spearheading climate-change initiatives and overseas debt-relief programs. He is currently serving as the Middle East Quartet Representative.
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Tony Blair was elected as the Leader of the Labour Party in July 1994 after the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. In 1995, he persuaded the party to amend its constitution; the annual Conference voted to replace the controversial Clause IV (see box), which had been drafted by Sidney Webb and had been party policy since 1918. The redrafting marked a radical break with traditional policies, and marked the emergence of what Blair called "New Labour". The commitment to nationalisation, even though it was widely regarded as rhetoric without practical intent, was widely seen as a major factor in the electoral unpopularity of the Labour Party. The Conservative Party had won four successive general elections (in 1979, 1983 and 1987 under Margaret Thatcher and in 1992 under John Major), and Labour was seen by some as unelectable as long as it retained close links with the Trade Union movement and espoused the rhetoric of pre-war socialism.
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Despite his political success... there have been grumblings that the Blair's vision of a "new Labour" party has failed to produce the results promised in his campaigns. The economy is in a slump, the National Health system and schools continue to decline, unemployment is on the rise, and the troubles in Ireland continually threaten to boil over. When George W. Bush was first elected to office, relations between the President and all European heads of state were cool, and Blair was no exception, especially as he had enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Bush's predecessor, Bill Clinton. Nevertheless, Blair has responded to Bush's call to wage war against terrorism with the same alacrity and shared sense of purpose that had defined relations between the two English-speaking nations since the early 20th century. British troops are already moving into place in potential hot spots around the world. Besides military assistance, Britain is able to provide diplomatic connections with nations, such as Iran, with which the U.S. does not have formal relations.
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After the stock market crash of October 1987, Blair raised his profile further when he castigated City traders as "incompetent" and "morally dubious", and criticised poor service for small investors at the London Stock Exchange. In 1988 Blair entered the Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy and the following year he became Shadow Employment Secretary. In this post he realised that the Labour Party's support for the emerging European "Social Charter" policies on employment law meant dropping the party's traditional support for closed shop arrangements, whereby employers required all their employees to be members of a trade union. He announced this change in December 1989, outraging the left wing of the Labour Party. As a young and telegenic Shadow Cabinet member, Blair was given prominence by the party's Director of Communications, Peter Mandelson. He gave his first major platform speech at the 1990 Labour Party conference.
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Blair's style involved heavy reliance on "spin" — that is, influencing the media to produce a favourable reaction, especially as practiced by aides Peter Mandelson and Press Secretary Alistair Campbell. They were key to the Public Relations campaigns, which began as "charm offensives" to woo the media to sympathy with New Labour aspirations. Labour had long struggled with media antagonism; most national newspapers in the UK traditionally favoured the Conservatives, often outspokenly. [81]Remarkably, in the 1997 general election, many traditional Conservative papers such as the Sun backed Labour, as Blair forged a particularly close friendship with owner Rupert Murdoch. The Daily Mail still backed the Conservatives although its owner, Lord Rothermere personally had switched to supporting Labour; of the national newspapers, only Conrad Black's Daily Telegraph unreservedly supported the Conservative cause.[17]
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