Looks like Tony Blair doesn't think much of Bernie Sanders either

[T_i_B]

From an article by Tony Blair bashing Jeremy Corbyn, frontrunner in the Labour leadership contest.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/29/tony-blair-labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn

There is a new phenomenon in politics or perhaps the revival of an old one. But whatever it is, it is powerful. Someone said to me the other day re Corbyn mania: “You just don’t get it.” I confess they’re right. I don’t get it, but I’m trying hard.

The Corbyn thing is part of a trend. So Donald Trump leads the field of Republican candidates with thousands at his meetings, despite remarks about women and Mexicans that you might think would be a disqualification in a nation where half the voters are women and Latinos, the fastest growing group of voters.

Bernie Sanders is wowing the Democrats on a platform that wouldn’t carry more than a handful of states. The SNP win a landslide in Scotland after the collapse of the oil price means that the course they advised the Scottish people to take last year would have landed the country in the economic trauma unit.

There is a politics of parallel reality going on, in which reason is an irritation, evidence a distraction, emotional impact is king and the only thing that counts is feeling good about it all.

[LuvNewcastle]

1. They try to throw Bernie

in with Trump and the rest of the circus out there. If you genuinely want a change and you're voting for a candidate who will actually do what he says, you're living in an alternate reality and you shouldn't be taken seriously. Of course Tony Blair, the closet Tory, would say some shit like that. He's Britain's Bill Clinton. Blair is wealthy now, and he's happy with the way things are.

[T_i_B]

3. The way things are with the UK Labour party is pretty dreadful

And much of this in my opinion, is due to the dogmatic adherence of the Labour party to Blairite "triangulation" strategy. It's left Labour dominated by career politicians people can't warm to, and without anything positive to say about itself.

Hence people are looking to Corbyn over the 3 Blairite candidates, because Labour needs to change.

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Talking about triangulation reminds me

of the Clintons. That's just how they roll. One of Bill Clinton's teachers at Georgetown told him that we should keep the parties the same, because that way, when the people get mad at one party and move to the other, nothing will change. I can't think of the teacher's name now, but he had a profound influence on Bill. I wonder if these leaders we have are all told the same things about how to rule, whether they're at Georgetown or Oxford. It's really something to me that Blair and Clinton are so similar. There must be some common influence. The teacher's name was Carroll Quigley -- I just remembered.

[TubbersUK]

16. Agreed

The Blairites and their insidious Third Way project have alienated so many Labour supporters - even moderate and pragmatic ones like me.

[T_i_B]

20. I feel the same way really

Even though Corbyn has many policies that I don't like from rail renationalisation to his views on Ukraine, I can see clearly why he's proving more attractive to people then the likes of Liz Kendall, who only seem interested in grabbing power for themselves without offering much in return.

[roguevalley]

34. fuck tony blair. war criminal, incredible cowardly freak.

[djean111]

2. Tony Blair is a thoroughly corrupt piece of excrement.

Not being liked by Tony Blair is a badge of honor. Being liked by Tony Blair is decidedly not.

[hobbit709]

4. I bet the feeling is mutual. I know I don't think much of Bush's poodle.

[malaise]

5. Tony BLIAR is a war criminal who should be

in a cell with Bush, the war criminal of a Dick and others

Who the fuck gives a damn about his thoughts on anything?

[Enthusiast]

17. +1 an entire shit load.

[n2doc]

19. Abso-freakin-lutely! n/t

[Johonny]

27. +1

[randys1]

29. And yet he will be heard like Cheney anytime he wants...You? Me? no chance

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

6. Sanders is attracting all the right enemies. Good on him. nt

[SoapBox]

18. Yup!

The rich and powerful, entrenched crowd is getting nervous that someone might rock their compfy boat.

[Chan790]

7. Of course he does.

Blair, along with the Clintons, their allies and supporters, belongs to a cadre of reactionary center-rightists incubated in a post-Reagan and post-Thatcher world to believe that capitulation to conservative, corporatist policy agendas while mouthing moderate platitudes makes them progressive. It does not. They're not really Labour or Democrats...they're just displaced slightly-less-Republican/Conservative Republicans/Conservatives.

People like Blair and the Clintons will never understand the Corbyns and Sanders or their ascendancy because they do not have the insight to realize that they are actually the enemy of progressive ideals fighting to hold back actual champions of actual progressive policies motivated by actual progressive values backing-up those platitudes the reactionary center-rightists have been mouthing for 30-something years.

They all belong in the dustbin of history. Unfortunately, they also lack the insight to realize that they need to stay in that dustbin and stop thinking they have relevancy in increasingly-progressive societies that have moved on from their worldview. (See: Why the Clintons won't do us all a favor and go the f**k away forever.)

Failing that, they are going to need to be crushed out and expelled, driven back into the moderate-Conservative/Republican abyss that spawned them; have their non-relevance shoved in their faces and be shown the door. Fake progressives are no longer welcome...there may have been a time when they were needed to shield the center-left and left from the RW values assault of the 1980s and 1990s...but if there ever existed a time for the likes of the Clintons and Blairs, it's certainly past not present.

The present is the clash of civilizations between these reactionary-to-Thatcher/Reagan center-rightists and progressives...but there is little doubt that the future belongs to those aligned with Corbyn and Sanders. Even a victory of the Blair-aligned Labourists or Hillary Clinton is but a short reprieve in the march of history to bury them and all they stand for. It's a last spasm before the death-knell.

[T_i_B]

8. I wouldn't be surprised if the Blairites do split from Labour

Failing that, they are going to need to be crushed out and expelled, driven back into the moderate-Conservative/Republican abyss that spawned them; have their non-relevance shoved in their faces and be shown the door. Fake progressives are no longer welcome...there may have been a time when they were needed to shield the center-left and left from the RW values assault of the 1980s and 1990s...but if there ever existed a time for the likes of the Clintons and Blairs, it's certainly past not present.

The Labour party is in open civil war right now and if we're honest, not likely to get into power for a while. If the Blairites lose control of Labour there is a definite possibility of another split, as happened in the early 80's when some on Labour's right wing broke away to form the SDP.

[hifiguy]

30. Great post.

Truth and nothing but.

[Oilwellian]

38. Totally agree

[bemildred]

10. Cognitive disconnect very evident there.

He sounds petulant and disoriented and yet convinced he is right.

[cherokeeprogressive]

11. I didn't realize so many people have a deep and abiding respect for Tony Blair's opinion.

Thanks for pointing that out.

[T_i_B]

12. Plenty of senior people in Labour still do

Even if that view of Blair isn't shared with quite so much enthusiasm by others.

[Javaman]

13. he poodle barks. nt

[jtuck004]

14. That's like a sign that one is doing the right things.

[deutsey]

15. +1

[LeftishBrit]

21. Tony Blair doesn't seem to think much of anyone but himself and Bush

[malaise]

23. and Murdoch's wife??

:eivlgrin:

[Hiraeth]

22. For some -odd- reason, I have a hard time caring what Mr. Blair thinks about

pretty.much.anything.

[jwirr]

24. IMO what the poodle thinks really means nothing to me.

He was wrong when he was bushie's lapdog and he is wrong now.

[frylock]

25. This is a ringing endorsement AFAIC

[onecaliberal]

26. I care what any of these war criminals think, why?!?

[hifiguy]

28. The Chimp's pet poodle yips, yaps,

and drags his ass across the rug.

And nobody cared.

[KamaAina]

31. Really? The UK version of Hillary doesn't think much of Bernie?

I'm shocked. Shocked!

[T_i_B]

42. The UK version of Hillary?

Are you sure it's not Hillary Clinton's husband you're thinking of?

[HughBeaumont]

32. Corporate America paid B-Liar very well to play ball with Bewsh's evil plan.

It paid off handsomely.

Doesn't make him any less of a war criminal than the Failure Fuhrer.

[suffragette]

33. Speaking of parallel reality -great job as Middle East Peace Envoy, Tony.

So much "reason" and "evidence" on display from your tenure at that.

[malaise]

35. Did you see this??

New emails released from Hillary Clinton’s private account show that Cherie Blair lobbied the US secretary of state on behalf of the crown prince of Qatar, writing: “As you know I have good links to the Qataris.”

In a 2010 email marked confidential, Blair sought to arrange a meeting between Clinton and Qatar’s young crown prince, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani.

Blair has previously denied she acted as a lobbyist for the crown prince’s mother. In a letter to the Guardian in July, she described the claim as “sensationalist and inaccurate”. It emerged that Blair had brokered a “woman to woman” meeting between Clinton and Sheikha Mozah, the crown prince’s mother.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/01/hillary-clinton-emails-cherie-blair-lobbied-qatari-royal-family

[suffragette]

36. Wow - I had not seen this. Maybe we should just call them "The Clique"

They have their own global club, don't they?

[malaise]

37. The political class

was in today's Guardian.

[Oilwellian]

40. The face of a war criminal

[lonestarnot]

41. Poodles will be poodles.

[Scuba]

43. An anti-endorsement from Tony Blair is music to my ears.