Chris Brooke (virtualstoa) on Twitter
Blair says on p.79 that the basis of socialism is the "community", on p.90 that the purpose of the Labour Party was "about the individual".
Reading Tony Blair's analysis about why Labour lost the election, I was reminded of a piece of post-election analysis done by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research:They asked, amongst other things, the following question: "I'd like to rate your feelings toward some people and organisations, with one hundred meaning a VERY WARM, FAVOURABLE feeling; zero meaning a VERY COLD, UNFAVOURABLE feeling; and fifty meaning not particularly warm or cold. You can use any number from zero to one hundred, the higher the number the more favourable your feelings are toward that person or organisation. If you have no opinion or never heard of that person or organisation, please say so."
<snip>
So more people who voted in the 2010 election had negative views of Tony Blair than of Gordon Brown, either Miliband brother, Ed Balls, the European Union, the Labour Party, immigration, Israel or Palestine.
A man today published a new book about what he did when he was really important.
Blair blames Brown for electoral defeat Tony Blair claims Gordon Brown lost the last election because he abandoned New Labour and lost the "crucial" support of business, in memoirs that give an implicit endorsement of David Miliband as the party's future leader. Mr Blair says he foretold that Mr Brown's premiership would end in "disaster" if he abandoned the party's centrist principles, and the book is a searing account of his fraught relationship with his "maddening" former chancellor. (...) Mr Blair says the loss of business support at the election was "crucial" in the defeat, citing the rise in national insurance and the 50p top rate of tax as bad mistakes. He says VAT should have been increased.
Tony Blair claims Gordon Brown lost the last election because he abandoned New Labour and lost the "crucial" support of business, in memoirs that give an implicit endorsement of David Miliband as the party's future leader.
Mr Blair says he foretold that Mr Brown's premiership would end in "disaster" if he abandoned the party's centrist principles, and the book is a searing account of his fraught relationship with his "maddening" former chancellor.
(...)
Mr Blair says the loss of business support at the election was "crucial" in the defeat, citing the rise in national insurance and the 50p top rate of tax as bad mistakes. He says VAT should have been increased.
And wait, the kicker:
"The danger for Labour now is that we drift off, or even more decisively off, to the left."
Blair, p. 116: "I wanted to preserve, in terms of competitive tax rates, the essential Thatcher/Howe/Lawson legacy."
Corrected keep to the Fen Causeway
No time to read the full Blair memoirs? Never fear, we've crunched it into five handy paragraphs for you:
I'm not quite sure why it's normal, but it is.
Stores mark down a "must have" to get bodies through the door and hope to sell 'em other things while they are there.
TOP TIP: Brighten up your day by moving at least one of Tony Blair's books to the Crime section in your local book shop.
Blair reflects on Thatcherism, p. 317: "Competition drove up standards, high taxes were a disincentive. Anything else ignored human nature."
Chirac praises food at a pub in Sedgefield as "superb", p. 304, "but with a little too much smirking from his entourage for my liking".
The same old Right Wing ignorant bullcrap.
