“Going is the most difficult thing to do in politics. Too many people stay for too long. I would rather stop when people said, ‘Why is he going?’ than when they said, ‘Why isn’t he going?’ Or, even worse, ‘When is he going?’”Tony Blair’s promise of a surprise departure turned out to be yet one more expectation he disappointed. His last 12 months in government has been torture to watch, and doubtless excruciating to witness. A Labour leader who helped re-build his party has, almost single-handed and quite contentedly, let it go to wrack and ruin because of a misplaced sense of his own indispensability.(Tony Blair quoted in The Ashdown Diaries, V.II (1997-99), p.385)
A politician with any honour would have resigned four years ago, when it became clear that he had committed his nation to the most disastrous foreign policy in living memory. He took this nation to war on a false prospectus, and with contemptible sophistry. That he has clung on to power regardless is to his shame, and that of his party.
A man blessed with extraordinary powers, he has achieved lamentably little of his potential, and has tossed away a generational opportunity to transform this country’s public policy and political institutions. Such waste is scandalous. It is also to be pitied. He has a long retirement ahead to reflect on the barrenness of his legacy.
1 comment:
I agree with the sense of wasted years - I can still remember the morning after the 1997 election and, although as a Lib Dem was upset that we hadn't done better, was amazed at the victory and hopeful of change. With such a majority, such hope behind him, anything could have been possible. But here we are, the rich richer, the poor having their tax credits clawed back, civil liberties in peril, not a member of the Euro, not a member of Schengen, still semi-detached from Europe. Such a pity and such a waste. Gordon must just be a stopgap before the next Conservative government ... (shudder) ... he's been in opposition too long, I think. As I live in Brussels I can only sit back from a distance and watch, but I have bad feelings about the next year or two with Brown in charge ...
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