Blair the chameleon?

IH

Now they tell us.

David Ossitt

"That man's a bloody chameleon. He doesn't stand for anything,"

How astute of Howard to spot the turncoat.

Drakes Drum

So, if Cameron believes himself to be the "Heir" to Blair. That tells you all you need to know about Cameron. He, too, is a chameleon.

Empty vessel, thin lipped smile. He has conned the conservative party. But can he con the British people?

The most intruiging comment I have seen to day, is on" Conservative Hom" and the news of the latest council by- elections. It is devastating news for the tories.

I think, if Brown is replaced by the Labour party. It will be game over for Cameron.

Laughing Larry

Trickster is more apt:-)

wonderfulforhisage

'That man's a bloody chameleon. He doesn't stand for anything,' Howard declared.

No wonder Dave calls himself the Heir to Blair.

View from the Solent

You needed telling?

John Bracewell

No surprise there then.
Also, the most destructive PM in recent times. He destroyed the UK Parliament & the Union, took the country to war twice whilst underfunding the Forces and has sold us slyly to the EU against most people's wishes. And he grinned (as bad as Gurning Gordon) throughout doing so.

Jono

When the ostensibly very clever Headmaster of one of Britain's dearest publc schools grinningly declared (to me - I worked for him, somehow) his loyal support for Blair on election night in '97, I knew we were f...

I went to a grammar school.

Hysteria

and you can add Obama to the list - oh - perhaps not - he does have principles but just hides them well

Jez

You don't say.

Verity

Drake's Drum - I agree with you. There is no appetite for slippery David Cameron who has yet to give a straight answer on anything, even critical subjects like the future of our country as the independent nation we have fought to be for a thousand years. Obfuscation. Evasions.

If Labour changes Leaders to someone with voter appeal - Alan Johnson, as I have said before - it's all over for Dave. Just as long as it's not Harriet Hormone or one of her ghastly sisters under the skin, Labour will manage to stagger to victory with a new Leader. Then, a few months later, a new Conservative Leader can administer the coup de grāce and we can all get on with our lives.

paracelsus

New Labour aptly summed up. It's just a shame nobody had the courage to stand up earlier and condemn these charlatans.

Blair is a liar, hypocrite and fraud. With Brown as his accomplice, he has managed to ruin this nation, its finances, and its sense of national pride. He should be vilified for generations to come.

Nicholas

I always thought Blair was phoney - long before 1997 - and I'm proud to record I never once voted for the bastard or his New Labour con.

PSJ

"That man's a bloody chameleon. He doesn't stand for anything,"

That's rubbish. Tony Blair stood for Tony Blair and that is all you need to know to understand him. Everybody else, including colleagues, the entire Labour Party and Labour voters could be jettisoned once they had served their purposes with about as much thought as one would give to throwing away a piece of orange peel.

Even the nation that elected him, Great Britain, was ultimately discarded in his insane fixation with getting a good reputation in Europe. We will be paying for the disastrous failure of the 2005 EU negotiations for generations.

Impeachment is far too good for him.

RobC

Cameron never said he was the heir to Blair - Try getting your facts right instead of your prejudices.

mitch

Some of us worked this out the first time we saw him.

Hawkeye

It always seemed plain to me that what Blair wanted was power. Nothing else. To me he never seemed to give a darn about Labour, socialism or any of the usual preoccupations of The Comrades.

I always suspected that when the end came he would just walk away and leave Labour like he had never been a member - which is exactly what he did.

Labour was a vessel for Blair and it propelled him to international stardom and made him a "name". He can live comfortably off his premiership for the rest of his life.

As for Cameron, I suspect that he will be very, very different from Blair. My suspicion is that once he is past the hurdle of the election, he will turn out to be more decisive than he is now. At this point he must let Brown continue the destruction of Labour. Hopefully Labour will implode before the country does.

Caroline

'What are you going to do with the Thatcher legacy?' Blair paused, he sat up straight, extended his arms and broke into a huge grin. 'I'm going to take the lot, he chortled. Blair laughed."

I don't get this at all, what did he mean? Can someone explain it. Why did that infuriate Howard so much?

Togo

Hysteria: Obama has principles?

Is that what the focus group told him? He is the most shallow boring man I've come across...

Hysteria

Verity - I agree - if Labour install a sensible caretaker with gravitas, they might just scrape in. I give then a 30-40% chance of a narrow victory.

Pat

Sweet Caroline:-
It meant that he would use all the improvements instituted under Thatcher and use them for his own benefit.
He clearly saw them as beneficial, or he would have dumped them , not taken them.
And I don't recall any speeches of thanks.
Personally I got the message in '94 (if memory serves) when he got clause 4 removed from the Labour constitution- not on the grounds that it was wrong, but because it got in the way of re-election.

Verity

Hawkeye: "As for Cameron, I suspect that he will be very, very different from Blair. My suspicion is that once he is past the hurdle of the election he will turn out to be more decisive than he is now."

How easily some are allies in their own gulling!

Actually, Hawkeye, Cameron's very decisive now. He has decided not to give the electorate any firm, or even iffy, promises on anything. He has decided to go the "jam tomorrow" route under the guise - mixed metaphor coming up - of "keeping his powder dry".

In other words, he has tried to gull the electorate, but doesn't have the carny barker talent of his idol. He has said, several times, with a deep sigh, that if the Irish vote Yes to Lisbon, there will be nothing he can do for Britain. Getting out of this vile construct is clearly out of the question as long as he holds his ambition to get his seat at the top table in Brussels.)

Blair was, by almost any definition, a talented con man, because he did manage to fool millions of people. Cameron, no.

Rob C - Cameron's exact quote, at a public dinner, was dug by someone on this site two or three days ago. You may want to trawl through the comments to avoid future embarassment. He's on record.

hysteria

Togo - "He is the most shallow boring man I've come across..."

is this from first hand experience ? in which case I bow to your superior knowledge.

For me I must rely on what I read and see - and what I see is a man steeped in left wing radical ideology, surounding himself with fellow travellers.

I am not a conspiracy theorist (I generally subscribe to the cock-up theory of life) but I really thing BO is a dangerous man for the US and leading the west into a dangerous period.

Paul B

As view from the Solent said
"You neded telling"
Blair and Brown took the lot and pissed it up by the wall in biggest binge drinking session known.

Alan Douglas

My understanding is that DC was comparing himself to Brown when (if?) he said he was the true heir to Blair.

Does anyone seriously think Brown is an heir to anything ?

Alan Douglas

PS Hmmm, heir to hot air perhaps ?

Stephen

But Blair did achieve the first responsibility of any politician: He won elections. Principles without power are pointless.

Nicholas

hysteria I agree. BO is going to be the USA's Blair, the man who opens the door for the horde of minority interest, single-issue lefto-fascist nutters to take control of the public narrative as has happened here.

The Cold War is over. The commies lost in the East but 20 years later they have won in the West.

Fergus Pickering

Hysteria, who is that sensible chap with gravitas? And what exactly is gravitas and why hasn't Broon got it. God knows, he's boring enough. Can women have gravitas or is it a man thing?

strapworld

But, is David Cameron the answer? I fear not.

dorothy wilson

"if Labour install a sensible caretaker with gravitas, they might just scrape in".

And just who in the current Labour shower is "sensible" and has "gravitas"?

echo34

how many times have labour taken tory policy and stolen it for their own verity?

I am hoping that cameron is deliberately not making any loud noises until he's in government purely on the basis that labour steal their ideas straight away.

it does show how similar and middle of the road both parties have come that they can do and have done this before.

THX1138

Talk about dog bites man story Right wing Oz PM slags off pommy Labour PM- Whatever next, had we just won the Ashes?

Speccie desperately trying to keep it's CH base happy into the weekend.

Guys what about a few posts that challenge the prejudices of Coffee Houser's rather than playing up to them all the time.

Roger Daley

The Mal (sic) on Sunday runs a story that Blair's kids all have Irish passports. Thats a pretty big chameleon act.

terence patrick hewett

I think Cameron will surprise you all with his ruthlessness. I think he's read C. Northcote Parkinson.

drakes drum

dorothy wilson.

Alan Johnson is a very decent man. He has come up the hard way and is highly respected throughout the Commons.

He was elected Channel 4 News Parliamentarian of the Year a couple of years ago!

If he was to lead the Labour Party. Cameron will lose.

A true working class, council estate lad versus a toff, eton educated with a silver spoon still in his mouth.

No contest.

Verity

Roger Daley - I read that too, and thought, "How odd ..."

Why do they have Irish passports? What is planned for Britain that our passports would become valueless???

Hawkeye

Verity - your views about Cameron have always been very negative whereas I view him in a more positive light. Maybe we can agree to disagree?

As for getting out of the EU, if there was a "Destroy the EU" button on my keyboard - and it would wipe out the Commission, the EP, the Council of Ministers, the Eurocracy, etc - I would be pressing the said button repeatedly without a second's thought!

King Prawn

What were the major Thatcherite changes:-

1. Curbing the power of Unions. Well didn't Harold Wilson try to bring in similar legislation to Thatcher in the 1960s but was stopped by 'Gentleman' Jim Callaghan;

2. Allowing tenants to buy council houses. Again, another policy that a lot of Labour members wanted the Callaghan government to introduce.

3. Market instead of semi-planned economy leading to privatisation of public owned companies. This was Blair's Clause 4 moment when he got the Labour Party to modernise.

The original ideal of New Labour was to find a third way solution to most problems. Brown is New Labour. Blair moved away from New Labour principles and instead looked at what would actually work.

Hysteria

and talking of Obama's real views - this morning brings the resignation of the Green Jobs Czar - Van Jones.

The edifice is beginning to crack. As I posted earlier - BO is very a much man of principle - just not one that he chooses to share with the American People.

Alan Douglas

Drakes Drum, is that rhyming slang ? From your hot air utterances it certainly points in that downward direction.

Alan Douglas

Bell

Drake's drum and verity may be right re our Dave, but put him next to that duplicitous, amoral liar Brown and guess who gets my vote.

TGF UKIP

Well THX 1138, as Blair's No.1 Coffee House fan and New Labour's quintessential N London proponent congratulations on a tactic worthy of your hero.

Slag off the hacks, slag off the Coffee Housers, anything but face up to the accuracy of Howard's summary of Blair (and The Heir.)

dorothy wilson

Drakes Drum: Alan Johnson is the guy who caved into the public sector unions, thus landing the taxpayer with £1 trillion in future liabilities for their gold-plated pensions.

If he becomes leader of the Labour Party and PM we will be back to the Wilson/Callaghan era with the unions' tail wagging the government dog. And another trip by the Chancellor to the IMF with his begging bowl will really be upon us.

And stop being so snobbish about a true working class, council estate lad against an Eton toff. I come from a working class family - my Dad worked on a farm. I really do not see why that should give me a chip on my shoulder in the face of either a former Marxist trade unionist [Johnson] or a toff from Eton [ie DC]. For goodness, move into the 21st century.

Dirty Euro

Well it was not phoney as he did take the "Thatcher legacy". That is the problem.

sean

Verity, I think the Irish connection is this: Blair's mother was born in Ireland and grandchildren of Irish born are entitled to Irish passports (if they desire - I think there was talk of changing this recently, so not sure if this is still the case.)
Some people use both - mainly because their work involves a lot of foreign travel, sometimes to countries in conflict with each other. So, they end up using one of the passports to say, Israel, and the other to Arab countries. Helps at passport control.

James J

Or O’Blair as we probably need to call him after the revelation that his children have Irish passports. Explains a few things.

Percy

I guess when the O'Blair children travel abroad UK taxpayers can be spared the burden of paying for their protection.

THX1138

TGF UKIP- Touche ..However all great politicians are chameleon's that's why they win elections because they articulate what it is we think we want to hear.

Isn't having that innate understanding or being ahead of the public mood and shaping policies to reflect it something all successful politicians have?

Mrs T had it so did TB, Brown and Major most definitely do not and I think the jury is still out on Dave.

Mrs T is always thought of as a conviction politician but she could hold back those convictions to suit the politics of the day as summed up in this great quote from an unnamed colleague.

“the trouble with Margaret is that when she speaks without thinking she says what she thinks”

But she did think what she was saying especially on Europe because she knew the citizens of the UK and many of her cabinet colleagues would never have gone along with the anti European views I'm sure she really held, political pragmatism won the day and she rushed through the Single European Act with a ruthless guillotine.

Informed Giant

Good old John - supporting Cameron in the easiest way possible -undermining new labour's cheshire cat.

Verity

Sean, I wonder how often the Blair children travel to Arab countries, and Israel.

Anyway, the next time the O'Blairs and the O'Bamas are in Ireland at the same time, they can have a right old hooly.

PS Does anyone else think that Blair's been overdoing the Botox?

sean

Exactly, Verity. And personally, I think it is disgraceful that the children of a (former) British PM choose to use Irish passports over British ones.
If they have trouble travelling abroad with British ones, the fault for it lies rather close to their own home.

TGF UKIP

THX 1138, we do agree on one point - the jury is indeed still out on the Heir, just that we differ on how we want them to find him.

As far as Mrs T being wrong on the British Peoples' euroscepticism - well let's have that referendum shall we. Isn't it your side that always finds reason to dodge one?

THX1138

TGF- In 1975 67% of the electorate including one Mrs Thatcher voted to stay in the EU.