The Blair era is almost over...

So today Tony Blair annouced his intention to stand down as the leader of the Labour Party and as Prime Minister. He will visit the Queen on the 27th of June to offer his resignation as Prime Minister at which point Gordon Brown will almost certainly take over. Blair's speech was nothing new. Though he has not been forced out of office. He made that decision for himself when he said he would not be fighting another election. That was probably his biggest blunder in Office aside from Iraq. The moment he said he had no intention of fighting for another term in Office, his authority began to drain away from him. The irony is that he could have fought for a forth term in Office, had he not got along with Bush and invaded Iraq. That will be part of his legacy, but perhaps not the main part of it. He has changed British politics in terms of giving personality to politics. It was part of Blair's charm that won Labour 3 elections on the trot. Now is not really the time to pick apart Blair's legacy. I'm looking forward to the post Blair era, which should be interesting in how it unfolds. I don't believe that the Tories will have any drastically different policy's than Labour. It has been said of Blair that he has carried on what Thatcher started, with David Cameron waiting in the wings to follow on from Blair. I think it's far too early to say how the next election will go. People are fed up with Labour, but more importantly fed up with Tony Blair himself. My stance is that i will vote on the issues come the general election. If i vote Labour or the Liberal Democrats i don't know, i shall probably decide when i have the ballot paper in front of me. I'm willing to give Brown a chance, the signs are he is going to clear out the cabinet and have younger Labour MP's to combat the Tories. David Milliband is one Labour MP to keep an eye on. But to sum up the Blair era ? It started off with so much promise and hope, and ended in apathy and discontent. BBC news article Nick Robinson on Tony Blair The ups and downs of the Blair era. CNN article Fox News article

British Politics - an interesting few months lay ahead

Come this May it will have been 10 years since Tony Blair took the Labour Party to a landslide victory over the tired Conserative party that had been in power for nearly 20 years. I could detail how Blair went about winning that election, but i won't. Suffice to say Blair changed the very soul of the labour party to win elections. New Labour is a pale shadow of Old Labour. Now the next few months are going to be very interesting indeed. On the one hand elections are coming in May. The conventional wisdom is that Blair will annouce that he is standing down as the leader of the Labour party after those Elections have taken place. That is just the first part of the process that will lead to Mr Blair leaving Number 10. It appears that Gordon Brown has already begun plotting his leadership election campaign. According to an article on the guardians website, Brown has the support of 217 Labour MP's, 93 are undecided, and 35 have refused to back him. Interestingly enough David Miliband the Environment sectary has been put down as undecided, even though he has said he would support Brown's leadership challenge. Many of Blair's supporters are pinning their hopes on Miliband running against Brown (anyone but Brown they shout). Now in my own opinion Miliband would be better off sitting this one out. As i think he is the future of the Labour party. My feeling is that the next general election will end up being a hung parliament. Which means that no single party has enough seats to form a majority Government in the house of commons. If a hung Parliament does indeed occur then i believe Labour and the Liberal Democrats will most likely form a Government to keep the Tories out. The next interesting development is the fact that the Police have handed in their file on the cash for honours scanadal (it is illegal for Parties to take donations from doners on the provision that the donater would recieve a peerage in the house of lords). This file has to be reviewed by several different lawyers before the CPS decides if it is viable to press ahead with a prosecution, the process could take weeks or months. Those in the frame are some of Blair's closet aides. This may well dog Blair in his last weeks and months in Office. I doubt this would lead him to resigning as Prime Minister because he is obsessed with his legacy and perhaps doing as much damage to the labour party as he can. One final bloody nose for Brown. So he will cling on to his post for as long as possible. Unlike the Tory party the Labour party do not stab leaders in the back, because it's often a messy and drawn out affair that can play badly with the public. Labour MP's are terrified of losing their seats at the next election. Which brings me to David Cameron or as i like to think of him Blair Version 2.0 Cameron and his team have extensively studied the Blair way to winning and keeping power. Cameron has so far only given very sketchy details about Conserative Policys. Instead going for the headlines i.e. hug a hoodie e.t.c I have a distinct feeling that Tory policy will be dressed up to appeal to us the humble voters. And if they do win power, they will pretend to follow those policys, only to subtly change them. I will never vote for the Conserative party, because i frankly dislike them. I joke that i won't vote for them because Thatcher took away my free milk at school. But the real reasons are that i do not share the Conserative outlook. It harks back to a British nation that died with Thatcher when she fell from grace. So the next few months are going to be quite interesting. Party politics will rear it's ugly head and the usual antics will happen in the house of commons. Tony Blair will face increasing pressure to stand down from the Brown camp if the CPS decide to go ahead with a criminal trial over the cash for honours. The elections will go badly for Labour, as a reaction to Blair's arrogance towards his handling of Iraq and other issues. The SNP will most likely clean up in the Scottish elections, starting the path towards a vote on the issue of Scotland becoming an independent nation once more. So if things go well for Blair he will be out of office by July. With Brown almost certainly becoming the Prime Minister. If things go badly for Blair ? He'll leave office in disgrace and not in the blaze of glory that he wishes to leave Number 10 in. Blair's legacy ? Spin instead of substance with only a few good deeds to his name. It's been an interesting 10 years, watching the Blair/Brown relationship develop into outright hatred on either side. Tories being so shell shocked they became incapable of mounting any credible challenge to Tony Blair. The Liberal Democrats slowly building on election wins at local and national levels. And the build up of apathy towards politicians which have lead to some very low turn outs at local and general elections. The next few months will have many twists and turns before the post Blair era begins. Blair will not go quietly though. Most outgoing Prime Ministers have a pop at the detractors and then spend the rest of their lives attacking the Party that has dumped them. Thatcher has only lived this long out of spite towards the Tory party. She is a shadow that Cameron if he likes it or not, will have to excise from the British publics collective memory, if he has a chance in hell of getting a majority at the next election. Brown's leadership scheme. Cash for Honours information.