Sadly missing the opening of the first question, here's practically all of Jeremy Paxman's interview with Tony Blair from Newsnight, 4 June 2001. Followed by a brief update on the Lord Archer trial, discussed by Michael Crick.
Indeed. Blair's knowledge, grasp of detail, intelligence and sharpness was and still is head and shoulders above any other senior British politician. What I'd give to have him as PM as head of another Labour government.
Sure, he grasped the details of not vaccinating his son Leo with MMR until found out while encouraging us all to take it. He also manages to get this censored on all channels lol You are correct, no body who follows could come close....to evil.
That's because Blair was a much better communicator than Theresa May. He didn't win 3 general elections for nothing. He was however more dangerous. Tony Blair had the ability to sell ice to Eskimos back then.
Well he didn't really have a viable opposition. William Hague was pathetic and weak, followed by Ian Duncan Smith who could not survive a full parliament before being booted out by his own MPs and then Michael Howard, a ghost from the Thatcher government. He would of course win in 2001. In 2005, I was surprised he managed to get a very decent 60 or so seat majority, after the mess of Iraq.
John King His 60 seat majority in 2005 was largely down to the FPTP electoral system. Labour only got 36% of the vote. A lot of the anti-Iraq war Labour vote went to the Lib Dems but the Tories (33%) didn’t do any better than they did in 2001. By contrast in 2010 the Tories got 37% of the vote but did not get a majority at all.
He had an even worst Tory party as a rival .The said Tory party changed itself into a more leftist Blair like party to get elected as labour got more radical and showed decay .
I agree on the income inequality thing. I'd prefer income inequality to be much smaller but improving quality of life for the poor is much more important than hunting down the rich who earn so much.
Income tax on high earners under Blair was a complete turnaround compared to previous Labour governments, who used to bleed dry high earners with a 83% income tax rate.
@@johnking5174 I don't think 'bleed them dry' is a suitable term as even an 83% top tax rate leaves high earners plenty wealthy but yes that is very unreasonable and leads to high inflation and encourages the rich to just leave the country. But to my knowledge tory governments also set very high tax rates pre Thatcher.
@@MichaelJones-wh9cy I have always wondered how the big TV stars of seventies England managed to keep their massive salaries, and avoid a lot of the high tax rates, and fund their lavish lifestyles. People like Morecambe and Wise, Two Ronnies etc were high earners, subjected to high income tax, but always seemed to have a lot of money to splash. Have you any idea? I have been researching this, and read on a few "tricks" used, such as "part cash, part cheque" payment of TV salaries.
@@johnking5174 of all the rich people in the 70s who lived such lavish lifestyles, I suppose the ones who were smart found a way to bypass the system and the ones who weren't probably just went bankrupt
In the Blair & Brown Revolution (2021), Edward Michael Balls said that while the gap between middle-income earners and lower-income earners shrank, the gap between the richest and poorest widened. This would lead to problems for James Gordon Brown in the 2010 Elections.
This was Blair at his zenith..He had an annoyingly brilliant level of eloquence, intelligence and a niche ability to rise above the intellect of those quizzing him... He was at the very peak of his conversational tenacity, had an astutely knowledgable vibe that drew you to his rhetoric and one just has to look left and take away Iraq; then by God the man would without a shimmering doubt be one of if not the UK's greatest politician ever to grace No 10.
That is the point of being a good political interviewer. Jeremy had years of experience of MPs not answering his questions and they wander off on something else.
