I was glued to the tv and radio when Tony Blair announced the other week that he's to stand down on 27th June.
First, I listened to his farewell speech live on the radio (because, being a job-hunter, I had nothing better to do at that time of day, other than job applications!). Then I listened to the pundits' feedback on the radio, and read about Blair's departure online. That evening I watched every flavour of news on offer: BBC, ITV, Channel 4, probably even Sky. Then I watched 2 or 3 tv programmes reflecting on his departure: Question Time and The Big Talk (I think this was the 2nd programme's title) were a couple of them.
I don't really follow politics all that closely, so why the sudden interest? The last time I was so fascinated by goings-on in parliament was around the time of the last election and Live-8. Why was I so gripped then?
Well, he has been the prime minister of my youth. Tony Blair came to power when I was 12. I had just started secondary school. Before this time I knew little of politics, other than that John Major was boss of the country. I've grown up with Tony Blair in charge, so it's going to be strange without him there.
I think that's why I was so struck by Blair's departure (even though everyone knew it was coming). I wanted to reflect on 10 years of Blair, as seemingly did everyone else. Everyone was queuing up to give "their verdict" on Tony Blair as PM, his achievements and his legacy. As far as I'm aware the front page of The Independent (at the top of this post) summed up how a lot of people (possibly the majority?) feel. I thought that this front page was extremely clever - a really ingenius way of pushing the view that Iraq has overshadowed all of Tony Blair's other achievements - but I'm not sure that I totally agree with it.
What's my verdict on Tony Blair then? I think on the whole he was good for the country. Britain could be in a much worse state than it is at the moment. Things like education, health and the economy are difficult nuts to crack, but I think his government has made progress in all of these areas and managed to focus to a fair extent on issues that were previously neglected, such as the environment and global poverty.
Yes, they could have done much better, but they could also have done much worse. On the whole I think they have done a good number of positive things. A lot of people seem very quick to criticise and to call Tony Blair a disaster. It's very easy to criticise though, and impossible to please everyone.
I don't think Iraq overshadows all of this good work, though it does undoubtedly leave a black mark on Tony Blair's copy book. Whilst I think the war there was wrong, I admire Tony Blair for doing what he thought was right. I think there was a lot of spin surrounding the reason that we went into Iraq (where are the weapons of mass destruction? - it was nothing to do with that - it was more to do with regime change), so I wish Tony Blair had been a lot more up-front about that. He did, however, do what he thought was correct, which was a tough thing to do with 1 million people marching the streets of London against the Iraq war.
Some pundits have been suggesting that Tony Blair's legacy can be summed up in 2 words: David Cameron. It wouldn't surprise me at all if in a couple of years time David Cameron was the new PM. I could be wrong, but I struggle to see people getting on with Gordon Brown as well as with Tony Blair. One thing that Tony Blair had was charisma. He really connected with the people and spoke some carefully chosen words at exciting or traumatic times. For me some of the memories of Tony Blair that stick in my head are: his poignant speech after the death of Princess Diana, his involvement in the Olympic bid and his reassuring speech on the day of 7/7. All moments when he really connected with the people of the UK. And I think now his departure speech on 10th May can be added to that collection. As he said, he did what he "thought was right". He had the content (policies) to go with his charisma, and did a lot of good, although he undoubtedly made mistakes. I don't think he made as many as some people claim though. As I said earlier, you can't please everyone.
