It is unusual for a governing party under 2 years into government to undertake a public debate about what it believes and what it should be doing. This is what Tony Blair has asked them to do , writing a powerful and interesting essay with some wise words in it. He is right that so far they have drifted leftwards from the stance adopted to win the election, and have u turned on many occasions when public opinion and or unhappy backbenchers tell them something is unpopular and will not work. He makes the point that there is no purpose served by having a leadership contest before the party has decided what it wants to do and how it is going to do it. He could have added that the Starmer winning Manifesto in the last election was careful not to overpromise or to threaten us with radical change. There is no mandate from the election for a socialist experiment in further largescale wealth and income redistribution. There is no mandate for a more thoroughly nationalised and state controlled economy.
Some in Labour disliking Mr Blair can riposte that a leadership election could force the candidates to propose different visions and to grapple during the leadership election itself with what the party thinks it now is and what it wants to do. The problem with that idea is the party should feel bound by the few General election promises it did make that cut through and were part of the decision making process of many voters. Most wanted faster economic growth, and that was the central pledge. Many wanted proper control of borders and liked the sound of Smash the gangs. Most were relieved with the promise not to increase main taxes on people. Many believed they would just make marginal changes to VAT on schools and to income tax on rich foreigners.
Instead Starmer and Reeves embarked on a reckless increase in spending, part financed by aggressive tax rises on enterprise, business, farms, shops, success and jobs. Despite this they are seen by many in Labour as too mean, not expanding the public sector even more quickly and extensively. Any new policy needs to start from the realisation that Starmer and Reeves have pushed the extra spending, taxing and borrowing too far already. The markets are uncomfortable and the voters largely angry and feeling cheated. We have not been living under 40 years of neo liberal market based economics, but under a highly overregulated EU style slow growth economy, nearly bankrupted by Labour’s banking crash and recession 2007-10.
The Labour MPs and Ministers are talking to themselves and a few Green party voters with ideas to spend and borrow and tax more. Far from bringing faster growth and some relief from tight finances this route will bring more disaster on the government. The answer to youth unemployment is not more subsidies but more jobs. More jobs require tax cuts for businesses that might create them, and ending the bans that stop them.Debt interest is already through the roof and Rachel Reeves has to pay much more to borrow than Liz Truss. The markets do not see Rachel Reeves as some tight fisted right winger, but as a left inclining spender who has already pushed the limits of what the UK can afford. If there is to be a new Prime Minister who wants a more left wing Chancellor and approach, he or she will be speeding a bond crisis that could see interest rates much higher and the UK state forced by markets into reducing its appetite for loans.
May 31, 2026
John, When we see Blair as a moderator of the Labour Party excesses it really is time to ask ourselves a few serious questions about where we are.
Blair is the architect of deindustrialised Britain. Blair is the founder of the ever expanding Public Sector position that has come to regard itself as the democracy and not the voters. Blair was the founder of open borders, his principle helpers were Peter Mandelson, Alistair Campbell and of course his eventual successor Gordon Brown.
Is it any wonder the Nation is is chaos and lacking self belief when those characters spent their entire time denouncing all that was and is best about the United Kingdom. Let us remember it was Blair who turbo charged the deconstruction of that United Kingdom by devolution for Wales and Scotland.
It is not a pretty legacy and certainly not one that gives his the ongoing elder statesman position he is granted by the establishment and the BBC in particular.
Labour are on a mission. We are all victims of their flawed ideology and their profound incompetence in government.
We must do all we can to advance the general election. We have to get them out.
May 31, 2026
Indeed and when/if we get a decent right wind government in power they have to undo all the damage done by Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Boris, Sunak and Starmer. They will be very busy indeed.
May 31, 2026
A very good point Rod. What a state we are in when we start to think of Tony Blair as the grown-up in the room. 🙂
May 31, 2026
IanT
Indeed it just shows how far the extensive use of spin (some would say lies) used in the Blair years, and by some later Prime Ministers has continued to erode trust in many politicians and their policies.
Good grief Blair sounded almost like a traditional Conservative in his recent statement, which just shows how far we as a Country and Government have drifted to the left, the Country’s bank balance and tax rates show the real truth of our now dire situation, which will take decades, if ever, to turn around.
The problem we now have is that so many people are on Benefits of one sort or another, that they are unlikely to vote for change.
May 31, 2026
@Rod Evans & @Lifelogic – every Parliament since Blair has had the option and choice to reverse all the harm Blair caused. They refused, by default they approve his directions and mantra
What was the first thing his successors did, my ‘Hobby horse’ Introduce 5 Year terms so they themselves didn’t have to answer question, or seek approval, for reckless behaviour. They, Parliament, instead of being part of the ‘checks and balances’ required in a democratic civilised society they effectively banned them, making Parliament the de-facto Politburo on a par with the Worlds dictatorship and not subject to democratic over-site
May 31, 2026
“Education, education, education” is arguably the most famous mantra in modern British politics. Coined by former Prime Minister Tony Blair at the October 1996 Labour Party Conference.
Now, 30 years later Isn’t about time he promoted ‘Jobs, jobs, jobs’ ?
We have too many youngsters with good degrees and even doctorates stacking shelves or serving coffee.
The rest are of course becoming proficient at computer games in parent’s homes.
May 31, 2026
A few wise words from now Tory Blair – do what it takes to stop illegal immigration and ditch net zero, sort out welfare bills all blindingly obvious but he is still pro EU but does not mention the vast levels of low skilled legal immigration nor the vile two tier justice and policing system we have.
But Blair was the start of all these problems – see David Starkey’s Tony Blair was worse than two world wars video.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/bruges.group/posts/10162927948544936/
Alas Cameron, May, Boris and Sunak just built on the New Labour lunacy of Blair and Brown rather than undoing it.
Blair asks “Does our economy need right now the goal of clean energy or cheap energy?” Nothing dirty about CO2 plant, tree and crop food and the gas of life Tony. I suppose Blair dropped science at 16 like most lawyers. We should drill, frack, mine and invest more in nuclear. The so called renewables/unreliables are fine where they work and are cost effective without subsidies or market rigging. But this is rarely the case.
The other would be PM essays all just say the doom loop anti-growth Labour lunacy should continue but with a different less robotic and less despises face at the top.
May 31, 2026
“Starmer and Reeves embarked on a reckless increase in spending, part financed by aggressive tax rises on enterprise, business, farms, shops, success and jobs.”
Aggressive NI tax rises that Starmer promised not to do and anyway will raise less tax not more (in the medium term) as will the evil VAT on school fees lunacy from the dire and bitter Secretary of State for Education Bridget Phillipson. Rarely have government raised more that 38% of GDP in tax and we are spending (largely wasting or actually doing net harm with more like 45% of GDP.
May 31, 2026
Poor Farage banned from banking and now it seems even banned from Desert Island Disks! Has JR ever been invited or Peter Lilley or Sir Bill Cash?
Reply. No, never invited, and am not allowed to put the case against net zero policies or the case for Brexit on their channels though do so widely elsewhere.
May 31, 2026
This deliberate process of designating some people as ‘non-guests’ is of course an invisible form of cancel culture. Instead of debating views you don’t agree with, you simply don’t give your opponents any opportunity to debate you. This not-so subtle censorship has been with us for a while. I first noticed it when the BBC refused to give Nigel Lawson any air-time for his views about the economic impact of Climate Change policies. I believe the excuse given was that “the science is settled”. Whether the science is settled (or not) the public deserved to hear the thoughts of a former Chancellor on the economic impact of such policies on the UK and that opportunity was denied them.
It was pretty much the same with Brexit and will be when rejoining the EU is being discussed. I don’t expect to see Lord John (or others such as Katherine McBride) on the BBC if this current creeping EU return is accelerated.
May 31, 2026
I see that Bridget Phillipson joined Labour as a member at fifteen and Jacob Rees Moog the Tory Party at 15 too also even younger still with religions. Is this a form of child abuse? Then we have religious segregation in schools. Did not go that well in Northern Ireland even when both religions were Christian, both populations white and both largely spoke the same language?
This Be The Verse
They f*** you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you.
Or do children people actually choose their politics or religions themselves (obviously not in most cases). Or is there some genetic input perhaps? It certainly seems that lack of rational logic drives people to the left. Raw emotion rather than rational logic rules on the left.
Reply I chose my politics at 15 and guess Jacob did the same.
May 31, 2026
How many children of parents of no religion or a non Muslim or non Catholic religion “choose” to start wearing cover all Hijab etc. clothing at twelve or start going to confessions from age 7?
I too choose my politics (and had no religion) by about age 12. Though happily still sang in the local northern CofE church choir. Which rather confirmed my atheism.
I was a small government “freedom of choice”, get the state out of the way person and in my early teen was certainly for voting No to staying in the “Common Market”. My father a bit left wing and my mother a bit to the right.
May 31, 2026
There’s not really much debate in this leadership contest-that-isnt. Streeting and burnham are like peas in a pod. I suppose the best hope for the Country is that neither actually believe the left wing twaddle they come out with, or at least would recognise that trying to implement it would bring about a 1970s style collapse.
May 31, 2026
When I ask AI for Climate Sceptics who have been on Desert Island Disc it comes up with David Bellamy and Nigel Lawson nothing recent. I suppose we can now add on Tony now Tory Blair.
For EU sceptics it only came up with Tony Benn, Boris Johnson (rather on the fence) and William Hague (who actually supported remain).
The BBC bias on Climate Alarmism, love of the anti-democratic EU, woke lunacy, anti-Semitism, immigration levels and big unaccountable government is overwhelming – they always choose the wrong side of almost all arguments.
May 31, 2026
@Lifelogic – so in reality a Parliament, a so-called Political Establishment, not fit for purpose, is unable to read the room. Letting their personal ego override the people and common sense.
Last night on TV, we had ‘Britain’s Got Talent’, the winners of the vote were the sector of UK ‘Society’ , that the UK Parliament and their Boss ‘hate’ with a tyrannical passion. The sector of UK Society that pulls there weight, does their job, makes things happen contributes overwhelmingly to the UK and it People – what part of Parliament even measures ‘up’? Then they suffers from malicious punishment from a wayward Parliament and its Boss. ‘Reading the Room?’, no wonder the UK Parliament is in fear of democracy and elections.
May 31, 2026
I am all for more farmers (singing in choirs or not), more builders, engineers, mining, drilling and fracking people … and productive people in general and far fewer in HR, law, tax planning, red tape producers, compliance, the state sector… who produce so little of real value and often do vast damage.
May 31, 2026
Conflicting views within a political party are often healthy ways in influencing change toward a better path. However, Labour is so full of mess, waste and destruction-causing ways it would be better to dump the entire party and have those who think there was something worth having about Labour to start again from a clean sheet.
Blair interfering just adds to the turmoil. It is like a man who has been tarred and feathered for serious misdemeanours returning to say he can handle the documentation better while his hands are still wet, pitch black and sticky from his last damaging involvement.
May 31, 2026
Tony Blair’s diatribe seemed to me a pretty good diagnosis of the problems, but completely lacking when it came to any constructive proposals for solutions. After all, as a socialist, even a Champagne one, he could hardly suggest that getting a grip on spending, reforming the NHS, and controlling illegal migration might be good ways forward. could he? It might make him seem like a supporter of Mr Farage.
May 31, 2026
The #benice socialist, everyone can have everything equally crowd must be very confused. How can they all be right all of the time?
May 31, 2026
I wonder what Blair actually wants to happen and why he is speaking out. I suppose Streeting is the leadership candidate most aligned with him but Blair must know that if he directly endorses him that will reduce his already slim chances even more. From what he’s saying Blair would be more at home in the wet liberal wing of the Conservative parliamentary party.
May 31, 2026
All I hear when he speaks is the war-monger who took us into the Iraq war on false premises of weapons of mass destruction, the evidence for which never materialised. Look what a mess that turned out to be.
May 31, 2026
Bush took us into the Iraq war. Blair gambled on ‘ are you with us or against’.
May 31, 2026
He should have been more like Harold Wilson, who didn’t follow the US into Vietnam.
If I were him I would have asked to see the US plan, then subject it to scrutiny. If it fails examination, return it and suggest a better one is needed if UK forces are going to be committed.
May 31, 2026
“There is no mandate from the election for a socialist experiment ” – That all changed when the Conservatives lost ‘big time’ and Labour got in with less votes than they received at the previous general election. Why would Labour’s ‘Gang Boss’ not get ahead of himself, with only some 20.5% of the electorate able to support him. So to then make up a unpublished manifesto, create a a new mandate after the event, seemingly so he could implement his ‘Plan’? – It was easy the last lot were so very bad at keeping promises, doing what they said, that they opened the door to a new form of deceit.
The danger of a pretend democracy with 5 year terms instead of the more democratic 2 years before seek validation and approval of direction. That is Dictatorship. The UK Parliament has become a reckless cabal that no longer serves anyone but themselves.
May 31, 2026
We don’t need a public debate from labour to find out what they stand for – It’s all pretty clear what they want to do with our country and it’s far from pretty. I can’t see any candidates for leadership varying greatly or introducing real new ideas.
They don’t seem concerned with putting more money into our pockets, or creating a world beating economy fit for the future. They expect us to be poor and depend on the state for everything. That is all going too well.
More socialist constructs and ideology copied from failed communist states is one of their priorities, along with more big brother state.
Labour worship certain ideas that have become engrained in their thinking, perverse though it is. The EU, the UN, world government, globalism, net-0, unregulated migration. None of these will go no matter who becomes PM.
Much as I dislike Blair, he has made some good points, but will this woolly mammoth of a party still fighting battles from a past era and still trying to right wrongs long forgotten, take any note?
Far better they became extinct in their present form!
May 31, 2026
“He [Blair] makes the point that there is no purpose served by having a leadership contest before the party has decided what it wants to do and how it is going to do it.”
Isn’t the whole point of this leadership contest to distract us from examining the real issues, such as Net Zero and mass immigration, whilst they’re successfully applying the Marxists four Ds – division, disruption, destabilisation and de-industrialisation? Socialism depends upon making and keeping people poor.
May 31, 2026
What the new PM needs to do is simple 180 degree U turns on all their existing policies and stop and deter the the small boats, ditch net zero, reverse all the tax grabs…
May 31, 2026
There is little point in a socialist or communist party publishing a manifesto. They won’t stick to it in office because a) they don’t respect the electorate and 2) many of them don’t care about or a tually dislike democracy. Anyway, we all know what socialist governments will do. The agenda has not changed since the Russian revolution.
May 31, 2026
its far worse than that john.
we have white people murdered and raped in the most horrible ways, and the police and courts are racist in downplaying it because the victims are white. and we have tumbleweed from the political class.
we have multi tier justice and open discrimination against white working classes.
the economic disaster is nothing compared to the civil war being stoked.
this country is in massive trouble.
pensioners starving but plenty of money for illegal immigrants.
all bets are off.
the norms of politics are missing so much.
May 31, 2026
Tony Blair set the course for the destruction of our country with his mass immigration, lies about the Iraq war and socialist policies. Now he and his family are multi-millionaires, he wants to steer the Labour Party away from their communist policies. I wouldn’t listen to a word this man says; he’s a snake. He just wants to build his data centres and bring in digital ID; he can’t do this with Net Zero. Don’t be sucked in by what you call his call wise words.
It was never a “Starmer winning Manifesto”, it was a get the Conservatives Out vote. The two main parties over the last 36 years have damaged us irreparably. They should hang their heads in shame rather than award themselves honours.
May 31, 2026
C: ‘ They should hang their heads in shame ‘ caught my attention after just having read Liam Halligan’s very good piece in the Sunday Telegraph today 31/5 where he mentions the 200 page Treasury document issued before the Referendum where he calls out the assertion that it would spark ” an immediate and profound economic shock” As Liam says …. “This was pure propaganda” and ” Everyone involved in the production of that Orwellian Treasury document should be thoroughly ashamed. And yet, the massed ranks of Whitehall Remainers have learned nothing ” ….. Indeed.
May 31, 2026
That a great headline because I was only thinking back to school days when I would have been expected someone to debate ” Whether recent government improvements are real or imagined hyped up on spin”.
May 31, 2026
I see Jeremy Hunt has been saying the Conservatives will not return illegal immigrants to their home nation, and will not go into Coalition with Farage if he tries to do the same. Ask me why the Conservatives are completely unelectable.
Reply Jeremy Hunt is nit in the Shadow Cabinet. Chris Philp, Shadow Home Sec, has set out a strong policy to tackle illegal migration with deportations.
May 31, 2026
from the party which imported thousands of Afghan immigrants, and took measures to try and keep it secret from the British people this is simply not believable
May 31, 2026
Agreed. Until I see Hunt, Cameron, May, Heseltine, Hague, Johnson etc. resigning from the Conservative Party for disagreeing with current policies I will not believe there would be any change should they win another election. And quite honestly their policies of Net Zero, mass immigration despite many promises to the electorate, attempting to scupper Brexit and hiding the importation of Afghan migrants from the public means they do not deserve a return to power anytime soon if ever.
Reply None of the people you mention are in the leadership/Shadow Cabinet and only Jeremy Hunt is an MP!
May 31, 2026
You are of course correct, Lord John. But with respect my point still stands. Until these people and many like them feel the Conservative Party no longer represents their views I will not believe the Conservative Party has fundamentally changed. We have seen defections to the Right but no defections to the Left where many belong.
Reply Boris removed the anti Brexit ones from the party. Jenrick was part of the anti Brexit left originally.
June 1, 2026
Cameron was brought back as a foreign secretary while in the lords, so they are all a danger.
May 31, 2026
This is all very well, but I recall that when, very early in his reign, King Tony was asked in the Commons by a Labour backbencher to describe his political values, Blair could not answer with more than a banal, waffled generalisation. Whatever he has learnt since then is surely no more than an empirical theory of what happened while he was pretending to govern.
May 31, 2026
for the greater part of eighty years I have lived with Conservative,Labour and Liberal parties as major
playersNo matter which local would-be candidate there was a general ethos that the country came first.
Now all we get is a bunch of quacks squabbling at the food trough.It saddens me that our generous host
is fixed on hanging his hat on the Conservative peg(or is it coronet in the Lords?)
May 31, 2026
223 ‘illegal immigrants’ invaded the UK yesterday 30th May 2026 …..
May 31, 2026
And the UK taxpayer is being made to pay the costs of this invasion.
June 1, 2026
GC – Plenty obviously missed the boat on the 31st – only 13 arrivals in 1 boat
Making May’s overall total – May 01 to May 31 inclusive : 2726 arrivals in 42 boats. ( Official figures )
Estimate near £ 400.000 needed to cover the cost of each one accommodated in an hotel for one single night, going by the usual p p p n hotel figure often quoted by TV commentators.
May 31, 2026
When will politicians understand that it is simply about immigration and has been for the last decade.The. People look how the increase in population has affected them and how the Brits are being undermined ,how all the systems are failing due to lack of English speaking people and many misunderstandings which are rebounded on us if they tell something completely wrongly.
We keep trying to find a politician who will give us our countries back.
It’s not about manifestos.
June 1, 2026
Unless someone comes up with Thatcher Mark 2 we will see the 1970s all over again with mortgage rates as high as 17% (we had them at that rate for a while and 15% for a long time) and inflation from the 1960s in the 20%s. Thatcher came along at the right time but who will save us this time in the 2030s, or let us die a sad death into obscurity?