It's taken seven years for a British inquiry to render its verdict on Tony Blair, and his role in the Iraq War.But at last the verdict is in.It couldn't be more devastating.Read more »
Continue readingTag: Tony Blair
Cowichan Conversations: American Voters Swing Over To Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders
Canadian voters tossed out the entrenched PM Steve Harper and chose change by shunning the conservative candidates from the Conservative Party and the NDP. We were inundated with messaging that Justin Trudeau was just not Read more…
Continue readingWritings of J. Todd Ring: Thoughts on the NDP
I’d like to have confidence in the NDP, but they have become a neoliberal party, in full submission to the corporate powers and the neoliberal corporate agenda, despite the fanfare and the piece-meal token gestures. Mulcair certainly is no Tommy Douglas, nor is he a Tony Benn. I hope I
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Is an anti-Orange Wave rising in Quebec?
Abacus has a poll out on September 27 that has very bad news for Mulcair’s NDP. The NDP support in Quebec, its heartland, has plunged over the past week, dropping like a stone, while the other parties are ticking upwards: And this anti-Orange Wave has dragged the NDP down nationally
Continue readingCuriosityCat: Is an anti-Orange Wave rising in Quebec?
As the 1980s gave way to the 1990s and the defeats kept coming, I became ever more convinced that there were crucial bits of a governing coalition missing for Labour. Where was our business support? Where were our links into the self-employed? Above all, where were the aspirant people, the ones doing well but who wanted to do better; the ones at the bottom who had dreams of the top? … Where were those people in our ranks? Nowhere, I concluded…But it seemed that the party and the voters were in two different places, and so the party had to shift against its will. My own feeling, however, was: the voters are right and we should change not because we have to, but because we want to. It may sound a subtle difference, but it is fundamental.
Clause IV was hallowed text repeated on every occasion by those on the left who wanted no truck with compromise or the fact that modern thinking had left its words intellectually redundant and politically calamitous. Among other things, it called for “the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” … At a certain level, it meant a lot and the meaning was bad. Changing it was not a superficial thing; it implied a significant, deep and lasting change in the way the party thought, worked and would govern.
I always remember him saying, “Don’t forget: communication is fifty per cent of the battle in the information age. Say it once, say it twice and keep on saying it, and when you’ve finished, you’ll know you’ve still not said it enough.”
The pathfinder was already switched on: growth was the key; investment, not tax cuts; redistribute, but carefully and not touching income tax; keep the middle class onside, but where growth and redistribution allowed, focus on the poorest; then, in time, you could balance tax cuts and spending.
Alberta Politics: The election of Jeremy Corbyn to lead Labour is proof that, sometimes, hope triumphs over fear mongering
PHOTOS: Jeremy Corbyn on Sept. 5, campaigning in Margate. (Photo by Chris Beckett.) Below: A young Mr. Corbyn, always true to his principles; the catastrophic Margaret Thatcher; 1970s Labour prime minister Harold Wilson; NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair. If you’re one of those who imagines Alberta has embarked on a “dangerous
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Netanyahu Promises Israeli Voters – There’ll Be No Palestinian State On My Watch.
With Israelis heading to the polls, Benjamin Netanyahu is running scared. He’s seen Likud’s numbers and all the polls show he’s in trouble. He’s in deep enough that he’s pulling out all the stops and scrambling for the hardliner vote.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau said Monday that if he were to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Tony Blair and his "Bloody Crusades"
Tony Blair’s former deputy prime minister, John Prescott, thinks he can explain the radicalization of Britain’s Muslim youth – his former boss Tony Blair’s “bloody crusade” to topple Saddam Hussein. The outspoken former deputy PM, who was recently appointed as an unpaid adviser with special responsibility for climate change by
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Quotes Cupboard: The German Juggernaut in search of a Hedgehog
About Jose Maria Aznar, Prime Minister of Spain, at the Amsterdam Treaty negotiation in May 1997: But not with Aznar. They waited until everyone had settled into their roles at the negotiations, including me, and then offered him a compromise, not a bad one but not a good one. He
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Bruce Livesey discusses Tony Blair’s role in corporatizing social democracy. And Stephen Elliott-Buckley writes that there’s little reason to listen to the policy prescriptions of a financial elite class which is conspicuously ensuring that its future bears no resemblance to that of
Continue readingdrive-by planet: RT’s Breaking the Set: George Galloway on ‘Killing of Tony Blair’, Yemen drone attack and the death of Abbas Khan
In this RT interview British Respect Party MP, George Galloway, talks about his upcoming documentary film The Killing of Tony Blair. He also gives his views on the harassment of The Guardian by British authorities and the strange death of Dr Abbas Khan in a Syria prison. British citizen Khan
Continue readingCuriosityCat: The Battle for the Soul of Canada’s NDP
Tony Blair wrested control of the British Labour Party away from the hardliners who had successfully run that party into the ditch in election after election, by concentrating on a small core of voters, and offering policies that were outmoded, anti-capitalistic and unappetizing to most British voters. Thomas Mulcair faces
Continue readingCuriosityCat: From My Blog Cupboard: Tony Blair & Prince Charles
About Prince Charles: Shortly after their first meeting, I bumped into Prince Charles. “I had a meeting with Mr. [John] Prescott recently,” he said. “Ah,” I said, “how did it go?” “Fine, fine,” Prince Charles replied with a somewhat distracted air, “except …” “Yes?” I said encouragingly, knowing some Johnism
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Muddled Mind of Lord Prescott
Back when he was Tony Blair’s deputy prime minister he was for it but now Lord/Baron John Prescott says the Anglo-American war on Iraq “can’t be justified.” Prescott says he supported the conquest of Iraq back in 2003 because he’d been told that George w. Bush would sort out the
Continue readingLeDaro: Archbishop Desmond Tutu : George Bush And Tony Blair Have Committed War Crimes
In a recent interview, Archbishop Desmond Tutu – a leading figure in the fight against apartheid in South Africa and a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – stated that Tony Blair and George W. Bush should be charged with war crimes and tried at the Hague….
Continue readingAlberta Diary: Yikes! U.S. program with remarkable knack for spotting future foreign leaders picks … Danielle Smith
Wildrose Party Leader Danielle Smith prepares to set off on her 19-day American tour. Future America-friendly leaders may not be exactly as illustrated. Below: Ms. Smith for real. With tout le monde political Alberta focusing on the province’s final farewell to Peter Lougheed, founder of the 41-year Conservative dynasty who
Continue readingLeDaro: Orly Weinerman: Gaddafi’s girlfriend
It is a strange love story. Orly Weinerman is an Israeli model and soap opera actress and in love with Saif Gaddafi who is Muammar Gaddafi’s son and is in Libyan custody. He is under trial in Libya and possible punishment could be death sentence. She is appealing former British
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