Our Glorious Leader

[chewyman]

Actually Blair and Gordon Brown are both left wing candidates. The British are a bit odd in their support for the war in Iraq. The Labour (left wing) party is pro-war and the Tories (right wing) are opposed. This is just further proof, if any is needed, that you can't be left wing and a moral human being

[flashleg8]

Actually Blair and Gordon Brown are both left wing candidates. The British are a bit odd in their support for the war in Iraq. The Labour (left wing) party is pro-war and the Tories (right wing) are opposed. This is just further proof, if any is needed, that you can't be left wing and a moral human being

Sorry that’s wrong. The Tories supported the war in Iraq and still do. Though Labour was traditionally left wing, many of New Labours policies are more centre right than centre left.

[DAZMCFC]

i would just like to say, if the tories was in power they to would of went to iraq without a doubt. a lot of people have slagged of thatcher, but leave ben out of this, so what he nearly took pedro mendes`s head off, but he paid his penalty and moved on from city to charlton.

on a serious note, maggie was not all that bad of a pm. her veiws were a bit skewhiff at times, but her stand against immigration was bob-on. she did not listen to the americans when we went to war with the argies. she knew her own mind and did what she wanted most of the time.

to blair, robinj mentioned Northern Ireland (forget iraq, he was bullied into that by the yanks), this must be the best bit of his "legacy". as been said before all of those years of violence, no one in their right mind would of beleived 5 years ago that the Rev Ian Paisley, Martin Mcguinness and Jerry Adams would be shaking hands and been 1st minister and the like. no pm in the last 100 years has even got close to peace in N.I. so that alone he should be remebered as a good PM.

[alex_white101]

i think he did well for himself, and led the country well. but his times up now. the uk needs to move on and find someone else to blame for everything

[Titanic]

on a serious note, maggie was not all that bad of a pm. her veiws were a bit skewhiff at times, but her stand against immigration was bob-on. she did not listen to the americans when we went to war with the argies. she knew her own mind and did what she wanted most of the time.

Listen to America? America didn say anything. All they did is sort out the peace proposal afterwards. They never publicy said to Britain not to retake the Falklands. Also, I'm pretty sure any PM would have gone into the Falklands War, its not hing that special with Thatcher.

On immigration, its a matter of opinion. I am personally against her stance on it, and for Labours stance on immigration. Also, we've got Thatcher to blame for all of the Euro-scepticism in the UK at the moment. She created it, and put is into our society, othewise we might actually have more Europhiles.

"she knew her own mind and did what she wanted most of the time." This is exactly the reason why she was a bad PM. We have PM's, not preseidents. We have a cabinet and an executive, and she tried to craete a presidential system out of it. She practically forced through the Poll Tax by herself, which thankfully resulted in her getting booted out by her own party.

[Guiscard]

this is just a question im curious about. i dont follow british politics but if all you guys all think blair think is a really good PM, exept for Iraq, then how come he and his party have no shot at being re-elected? and im not sure about this but is he like resigning? although it think its different in Britain like you can hold elections whenever you need to? im not sure about this i just think i hear that somewhere.

People get bored of governments, and there is a whole lot of media-driven dissatisfaction which comes with any lengthy government. You have to remember that at least two thirds of the press are owned by a few very right-wing moguls with their own agendas. Many of them supported Labour in 1997, but now they don't.

If you ask your every-day guy what he thinks of the NHS he'll say 'well it's in a horrible state, people die from MRSA, waiting lists are huge...' Then ask him of his personal experience. He'l say 'oh... well I've had a couple of operations last year. Yes I didn't have to wait more than a couple of months... the service was great, it was clean... I didn't die!' People believe what the paper tells them when, in reality, things like the NHS and education are in a better state than ever!

I believe they do have a shot at re-election, and the Tories certainly have an uphill battle to win enough seats (especially in the North), but the problem is people have had ten years of Labour and feel it's time fora change. The question is whether that change is from Tony Blair to Gordon Brown or a more drastic change to David Cameron. I think there's a lot still to be seen in reagrds to how the nation feel about Labour, and we'll only start seeing that next year when Brown's had a shot at power.

And as for resigning, you don't elect the PM directly. You elect a local MP in your area, and the party with a majority of MPs forms a government and the party leader, chosen from within the party by the party itself, becomes the PM. The Labour Party will soon elect a new leader, most probably Brown, and because they have the majority in Parliament he will become PM.