Tony Blair

Where is the political leadership in this time of crisis in the UK? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 22nd 2020 The news this weekend was dominated by controversy over Boris Johnson’s absentee leadership in the midst of the early stages of the coronavirus before his recent illness. Johnson missed five Cobra meetings, had a mini-holiday and delayed for 38 crucial days the UK giving the virus the importance and priority it deserved. Exemplary investigative journalism from the ‘Sunday Times’ has revealed a government asleep at the wheel, the diversionary cost of Brexit over recent years, and the cumulative effect of

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Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Blair and Keir Starmer and when was Britain’s Golden Age? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, April 8th 2020 Every society has a golden age – often mythical, but with some relationship to events and reality. In Britain, this is often continually referenced as World War Two, ‘the Blitz spirit’ and Dunkirk – all much in evidence in recent weeks in the face of coronavirus. Other stories are available but get less coverage and mileage. One is that of ‘the swinging sixties’ and the Beatles; another is the idea (floated by the New Economics Foundation) that 1976 was the

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Tony Blair and the Road from Baghdad to Boris Johnson’s Brexit Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, October 26th 2019 Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson and others from the New Labour era have of late been on our airwaves talking endlessly of the evils of Brexit and the need for a second referendum on Europe. But seldom if ever do they publicly reflect on their own disastrous role in fanning the flames which led to the current Brexit debacle. Blair and Campbell advocated and led the case for the Iraq war - an illegal war based on a campaign of disinformation,

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Gordon Brown: The Ghost in the Machine Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, November 14th 2017 Gordon Brown, like him or loath him, was a titan of a figure in British politics for close on two decades. Along now comes Brown’s attempt at putting his case and a call for understanding and redemption in his autobiography - ‘My Life, Our Times’. It comes with much baggage for all who will read and encounter it, including from the author himself who goes through the pretense that he had to be reluctantly dragged into writing it, explaining himself: ‘For me, being conspicuously demonstrative is

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Prisoners of the Past: Tony Blair, Trump and Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, February 22nd 2017 The past is a powerful force and that is even more true in the strange times we are living in. Take the waves of reaction and revulsion emerging last week after Tony Blair came back from the cold to announce his new initiative on Brexit. Blair’s intervention took place at the start of the 20^th anniversary of the first New Labour landslide, but also bizarrely after the Commons voted to trigger Article 50, and six days before two critical by-elections for

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After Cameron, Boris and Corbyn: What will Tomorrow’s Leaders Look Like? Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 14th 2016 Leadership in the modern world is cited as the answer to nearly every issue, problem or area of life – from business, to turning round failing organisations, to the success of football clubs. In the last month, political leadership has been all over the news. There has been David Cameron’s rather hasty resignation; the coronation of Theresa May as Prime Minister; and Boris Johnson’s positioning for power, withdrawal from the Tory leadership contest, and then subsequent appointment as Foreign Secretary in May’s

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The anger about the Iraq Disaster isn’t just about Iraq and Blair Gerry Hassan Scottish Review, July 7th 2016 It is hard to envisage now but once upon a time Tony Blair was an eager to please, likeable, pragmatic politician. In 1997 he caught the mood of the times and led Labour to an election victory of historic proportions, and inflicted the worst ever defeat on the Conservatives, which they took more than a decade to recover from. At that year’s Labour conference Alastair Campbell, Blair’s Head of Communications, leaked a private poll which revealed that Blair had a 93%

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Let Us face the Future: Labour, Jeremy Corbyn and the Power of the Past Gerry Hassan Open Democracy, August 21st 2015 This is the most exciting and cataclysmic Labour leadership contest in a generation. The nearest comparison must be the Benn insurgency for the Deputy Leadership of the party in 1981, where he narrowly lost to Denis Healey. This marked the peak of the left’s influence in Labour - until now. What is occurring in the Labour contest, with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn and the diminishing of Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, is little more than

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‘You’re Fired’: Jeremy Corbyn and what Voters Want to Say to the Political Classes Gerry Hassan Sunday Mail, July 26th 2015 This week Tony Blair compared Scottish nationalism to ‘cavemen’ and told supporters of Jeremy Corbyn who wanted to vote with their heart to ‘get a transplant.’ You always know something is up when the political insults start flying. Labour have no idea what has happened in Scotland, and to compound matters for the party establishment, this week saw the rise of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership challenge. The trigger was a poll which put Corbyn not just ahead of the other

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The world after Saddam, Blair and the Iraq invasion Gerry Hassan The Scotsman, February 16th 2013 February 15^th 2003 was a moment in global history: a rare articulation of political connectedness and consciousness. From London to Glasgow to Ullapool to New York, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Tokyo, people took to the streets to protest about the Blair-Bush march to war with Saddam Hussein’s brutal Iraqi dictatorship. Bush and Blair were determined on war; Bush to complete the job his father didn’t in the first Gulf War; Blair as a true believer in liberal intervention and enlightened imperialism investing his political

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