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AlCzervik Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:38 PM
Original message
How long will Blair last now?
I'm going to guess that the british people will think this attack today was retaliation for the war in Iraq, a war they did not want to get into. Will this be the end of him or will his poll numbers go up?
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fertilizeonarbusto Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:40 PM
Response to Original message
1. He'll go down
Like Aznar in Spain. Remember, Britain, like Spain and unlike us, doesn't have a lapdog press.
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SouthernDem2004 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:44 PM
Response to Original message
2. I see the opposite happening.
His poll numbers will strengthen. He will become more popular and people will support sending more troops to Iraq. The British do not like to be pushed around.


Spain was a different story. Their government changed because of lies about who did the bombing.
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Oggy Donating Member (652 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:46 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Unfortunately I think you are right.
Although he was plainly acting in his press conferences.
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dogday Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 04:01 PM
Response to Reply #5
10. I saw that too
I thought he is not as good as shrub....
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Oggy Donating Member (652 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 04:05 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. or as stupid......
Maybe...
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kenny blankenship Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 06:04 PM
Response to Reply #2
12. They don't put up too much fuss
Edited on Thu Jul-07-05 06:24 PM by kenny blankenship
"The British do not like to be pushed around."

Why do you say that? They haven't seemed to mind it very much for the last 4 years. Blair has subordinated the interests and wishes of the British people to Bush's insane war for no better reason than to ingratiate himself (and New Labour) with the Regime Changers in D.C. and the Wall Streeters. For all of Blair's meretricious exertions on his behalf, George Bush has spat into his face, and into Britain's face, over global warming and a host of other issues. The British people didn't want to go to war in Iraq, but Tony Blair went anyway because Bush needed him so badly. We know he knew the stated reasons behind the war were lies. We know he knew it was illegal. We know he knew it would certainly come to a bad end. He did it ANYWAY to impress certain people in America. Now the British are dying for it in their own capital city and Iraq is on its way to becoming a synonym for "humanitarian disaster" and "military quagmire". All for Tony's ambitions.

You didn't need a crystal ball to see the danger of terrorist retaliation in Europe for the rape of Iraq. You didn't need a crystal ball to suspect Blair's true motivations were infintely less noble than his flimsy war rationales. BUT (thanks to the DSM leaker) NOW WE KNOW. WE KNOW. We have certainty about both of these things. The war will NOT stay in Iraq. The war rationales were completely false, and Blair always knew this or at least was advised that this was so. He was advised the invasion would lead to "coup after coup" in Baghdad as regimes we propped up collapsed on our inevitable departure. He was advised that the war would probably be ruled illegal in an international court. The British people have faced all these likelihoods and have stayed REMARKABLY PASSIVE. And now they have no excuse for not knowing. Blair's party has suffered a bit in the meantime, but well you can see for yourself, the poodle is still in No. 10 and he's still humping away at Bush's leg like his life depends on it (and it just might). They complain about it, the British that is, BUT WHAT DO THEY REALLY DO? No...they haven't seemed to mind it very much for the last 4 years. Not very much. I'd be very pissed off if I saw my leader spreading his legs and by extension , mine too, for the American penis. But the Brits seem to take it pretty well.

Seems to me if they want their SOVEREIGNTY back not to mention their self respect, the very first thing they have to do is to reverse and punish Tony Blair's betrayal of their country.
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rurallib Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:44 PM
Response to Original message
3. I think the Laborites caucus at the end of September
to elect their leader. That could be it.
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DinahMoeHum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:45 PM
Response to Original message
4. "Yankee Poodle Tony" has already been walking on eggs since
the last parliamentary elections - his party lost over a hundred seats, I believe. Not even getting the Olympics for 2012 will make much difference.

I believe it's just a matter of time now when Parliament takes a vote of "no confidence" and hounds his sorry arse out.

Then again, I can dream, right?

:evilfrown:
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Dangerman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:47 PM
Response to Original message
6. I hope he goes to hell in a hand basket!!!
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kenny blankenship Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
7. If they can focus on WHY Blair took them into the war against their will
Edited on Thu Jul-07-05 03:58 PM by kenny blankenship
in the first place, the reason that is revealed in the Downing Street documents which have recently made the news, then it should be a resoundingly quick end for Blair.

The DSM makes it clear that Blair's motive had nothing to do with WMDs or making the world safer or liberating the people of Iraq or any of the other bullshit they've made up. Blair wanted to position New Labour as a reliable partner for the open aggression the Bush Administration meant to pursue. That's it. It was all about the partisan comparative advantage. He wanted to show the PTB in America, as much or more than to show PTB in Britain, that his Labour party was just as suitable for them as the Conservatives could be. So, even with a large Parliamentary majority in his pocket given to him by a trusting people, Tony Blair gambled with the lives of his citizens on a war that his intelligence advisors and lawyers told him was very unwise, possibly unwinnable and probably illegal. The lives of Iraqis of course, he held at nothing.

It should be crystalline clear for all Britons today that there is a terrible price coming due for Blair's criminal disregard for their lives and safety and for the lives of Iraq's people. The British must reclaim their country from Blair in order to reclaim their sovereignty and their consciences from an out of control American "partner".
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yvr girl Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:57 PM
Response to Original message
8. He still has a majority government
He won't lose a non-confidence vote. If anything, his party will hold a leadership review, but I don't see that happening either.
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tjdee Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Jul-07-05 03:59 PM
Response to Original message
9. His numbers will go up, I think.
Edited on Thu Jul-07-05 04:07 PM by tjdee
There is more to British life than Iraq, for starters.
Also, Blair actually *talks* to the British people. He answers "Prime Minister's Questions" in Parliament, where conservatives get up and show their ass, and he responds. I think a while back he did some kind of Q&A on Brit television with regular people.

And, unlike Bush, Blair can speak English and speak it well. His speech this morning reminded me of his words after September 11th, which comforted me far more than Bush's "we'll...uh...catch the folks that did this" or whatever he drooled out that day.

Blair is the sort of leader I can see rising to a cause--and even if his response and handling of it is mediocre, I think his numbers will rise slightly.



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