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Tone's alright. Bless him.

I think Mr Blair did his best. God Bless him

After Tony Blairs statement,

there was no need for the comment from Ben Robinson about him - blunt but unforgivble

Mary

Seaforth - Liverpool

Goodbye and good riddance.Bring on the next nightmare,the great big clunking fist.
I think I'll emigrate.

Fantastic prime minister, fantastic speech. He will be sorely missed.

He'll be back...

There is something incredibly self-indulgent about this Farewell Performance Tour. A need for cheering crowds and tearful females, presumably to make him feel better about himself?

Maybe this is intended to make Gordon Brown look even more dour and unattractive than usual or maybe that just an unintended consequence.

All those of us who have retired realise that what helps our (ex-)colleagues most is that we get on with it and GO, once we have decided to do so.

Well done for not wrecking the economy like every other Labour PM. Shame about Iraq. The rest was all hot air and spin.

I think he did his best, it may not have always been right but if Gordon Brown takes over, there'll be tax on the air we breathe !

Good luck Tony

"It's not the time for soundbites. but I feel that the hand of history on our shoulders"

I think thats appropriate for today!

Blair will be remembered probably in retrospect with more endearment than the country felt when he was in government.

I am not British, but I do think that this country was very much lucky to have him as the prime minister.

I find your constant cynical, disrespectful sniping about everything Tony Blair does quite offensive. I suppose I should not really be surprised since the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ has hated him ever since the Andrew Gilligan affair. Iraq colours everything the media 'reports', or should it be makes up? On Iraq, do you think we would have done anything different regardless of who was Prime Minister at the time?

You also personalise everything. But remember, it's not Tony Blair who has achieved so much over the last 10 years - it's the Labour government he has led so admirably. It's his leadership we should be celebrating.

Tony Blair has been in government the whole of my adult life. Even though I was amongst the first wave who paid tuition fees for the first time, I can see the improvements that have been introduced as a direct result. The same can be said for many of the stealth taxes that were introduced, but the fact of the matter is, that if you want good public services, you have to pay for them.

I now work for the NHS, and I can say, that the majority of us have benefitted from Tony Blair & the Labour government.

Tony Blair has made many tough decisions over the last 10 years, and Britain, on the whole is a better, more prosperous nation for it.

Only by supporting Public services, the Armed Forces, Unity with Europe & distancing from America, will Great Britain become even greater.

nick and bloggers
all the comments about tony flying to his trimdon based...he had to as the trains are down due to derailment...what does that say....

also stop picking on pfi...it was invented by the tories not new labour!! without it we wouldnt have new schools or hospitals...ask the kids or the patients what they think..and there are lots of people in the construction industry who have benefitted too.

not sad to see him leave. it was time. you live or die by the sword and iraq has proven this. but cameron...hes a spin doctor of much greater proportions...god help us...he wont stop us fighting wars but he may ruin or economy...hmmm

This man had a whole team of spinmakers to cover up his catastrophic mistakes. Missed opportunities with Green issues, NHS and education.
Worst of all he has not yet faced the legal ramifications of his illegal war.
Goog riddance.

Good riddence to bad rubbish.

He may have 'done his best', but it certainly was not good enough.

Incidentally, who paid for this flight? Was it on the taxpayer again? What urgent government business was taking place in Sedgefield?

And, if Blair wants to be respected, he'd better start earning our respect. But it's too late now, far too late.

Out goes a liar and in comes a coward. I really don't think Blair chose the right profession. He should have been an actor or a musician. He has allowed Brown a free hand and not had the guts to challenge him or keep him in line. Brown, in turn, has kept quiet on major issues which he knew were unpopular.
Now the great British public are going to keep Blair in the manner to which he has become accustomed for the rest of his life.

Good riddance - having said that, better the devil you know!!!!

"I for one am still interested in what he has to say and while I havent neccesarily agreed with everything he has done I've always felt he did what he thought was right. Clearly in his speech today he backed up my viewpoint."

Hitler did what he thought was right too.

He will certainly live on a much higher pension than what he is giving me after my lifetime of contributions. Does he feel at all guilty about that?

So Mr Blair intends to bow out with a world tour.

The boy certainly likes his freebies.

Wonder which table he plans to park his feet under next?

P.S. And good luck to you Mr B.

So Mr Blair intends to bow out with a world tour.

The boy certainly likes his freebies.

Wonder which table he plans to park his feet under next?

P.S. And good luck to you Mr B.

Who ever follows him the political world will be a much duller place especially the Commons which is one of the most depressing examples of drab uniformity there has been for years.

It is entirely appropriate that the Northern Ireland settlement should be given such a high ranking among Tony Blair's achievements. It is just the sort of 'solution' you would expect from this master of illusion. In reality, the coming together of Paisley and McGuinness must be the most grotesque and unsavoury accord since Ribbentrop sat down with Molotov in 1939. Blair has always been a master of the stage managed occasion from his first entrance into Downing Street in 1997 on a tide of optimism and goodwill to the announcement of his departure today to a much more mixed reception. In the real world of events and unintended consequences, he has blundered through with the bluster and equivocation one has come to expect from someone who had never had any practical experience in running anything let alone a country.

So the 'King of Spin' is almost ready to depart, so what, he has does nothing positive for me.

I resent Mr Blair for destroying my pension, taking the country into a war for the wrong reasons, allowing the politcal correct culture to infest all areas of our country, destroying the Union and making it almost impossible to make any comment on immigration without being classed as a rascist.

So goodbye Mr Blair, off you go to your well rewarded retirement, but don't think that the public will allow your spin to distort the truth about your tenure.

I saw the best bits of Tony's speech at the Labour Club on the telly, and I have to say struck I was at how sincerely the emotion-stricken, touching and heart-felt words were read from the autocue. And I hope TB had a carbon trade-off after flying up there for a speech he could have given via video conference.

All said and done, we shouldn't be too harsh. But it's hard not to think how ironic it is that Tony basically misled us all into thinking he could deliver everything he promised. But that's ok, at least he tried! It turns out that we've lost as much in mispaid tax credits than was lost on Black Wednesday under Norman Lamont and Gordon's raised more taxes than John Major did - and a whole party political broadcast was spent calling Major a liar on the back of it. It's all very well directing intensive vitriol at your opponents, but when you can't deliver yourself it comes across as a bit rich, quite frankly.

Announced today - the costs of ID cards are up.

Is it a good day to bury bad news?

well i do hope he offset his carbon emmissions!

Tony Blair certainly lived up to his namesake - Eric Arthur Blair AKA George Orwell. Just took a decade or two longer than anticipated.

The cold war for Britishness is all but lost.

308 Parlimentary seats that once ran a vast Empire, but now serve as State Nanny to the extreme in an attempt to justify sustaining the number.

Blair's formal announcement overshadowed the fact that on the very same day we had another rise of interest rates. This is the reality of Labour's economic policy in a country that has lived on the crest of a wave of speculation in the housing markets leading to a gigantic private debt now being translated into bankruptcies, insolvencies and job losses. Properity... what prosperity? And who is going to be the next Prime Minister? Well, none other than the man that engineered this pseudo prosperity massaging the figures, hiding real inflation, and huge public debt. Now, while they are trying to 'balance the books', we have public services in jeopardy with tens of thousands of job losses and more 'economies to be made' by cutting down the services offered.

Well I decided to open the champagne tonight after all. No matter that it is a decade past its sell-by date - it tastes as sweet as the ambrosia of the gods.

If "Maggie" Blair changes his mind before the 27th then it will be by a declaration of martial law - and there won't be time to drink champagne when dying for the principles of British democratic liberty.

Blair on the Environment:

A private Jet from London to North East - then back again 2 or 3 hours later.

Could have used Train, Bus - or even a scheduled flight... but no.

Yet another missed opportunity.

Blair's legacy?

A divided, and subdivided country -'communities' but no community.

People looking only after number one.

Fractured and dis-integrated.

Quality of life reduced.

The future for Britain?

Summed up by the great Actor himself:
'Am I bovvered?'

Well, now he's out off the way who's going to distract attention away from the prospect of Boris and 'Dave'? Let's examine the competition. Now is the time.

So now this odious man departs with an odious speech. Now we will learn what the unreconstructed face of Scottish socialism looks like.

It was typical of the man to sign off in this over-emotional, hey, I'm really a nice guy, sort of way. I had difficulty hanging onto my lunch.

He won three elections on the back of the votes of the malignant, the envious and the gullible. Hopefully the gullible will have learned when it comes time to vote next time.

Goodbye, Tony. I, for one, won't miss you. Neither will the people of Iraq.

Give it a rest, Robinson. Enough of the Circus hype from you lot at the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳. Life does go on after Blair/Brown.
Now what other news have you got - real news, that is?

I don't wish to 'personalise' anything but Roger Davies misses the point somewhat - we may not have been involved in an illeagal invasion of Iraq had we had a different prime minister.Therefore it is difficult not to associate that with Blair-the way he was seemingly blinded by the bright lights of the world stage without thinking through the consequences.
I do not understand this sentimentalisation (or should that be sensationalism!) of one man, just the one who led the country, retiring to allow another man who was pre ordained, and will no doubt have his 'clunking fist' kept an eye on.

So it appears I am not the only one to be utterly disgusted at the flagrant waste and hypocrisy of Mr Blair in choosing to FLY up to County Durham from his morning Cabinet meeting at Number 10, make one short speech and fly straight back to Downing Street!

So why hasn't the media criticised him for it??

This is the PM that has made great strides in committing the UK to our Kyoto targets and reductions in emissions, yet he chooses not to take the train up, or even have a chauffeur drive him, but take the most pointlessly polluting means possible - a domestic flight.

And for what reason, so he could be sentimental with his constituency chums! There is no reason why that speech could not have been made in any public hall in London and all his Westminster cronies bussed in. Or if he really wanted to do it in Trimdon why didn't he schedule it for today, Friday, when most MPs spend the day in their constituencies anyway??

What shocked me was the revolting display of sycophancy displayed by the press towards Blair. You really should be ashamed of yourselves, you were pretty much to a man (or woman) pathetic.

Quoting from your piece Nick "he could have simply sent a letter to the chair of Labour's National Executive asking them to choose a new leader." I don't know why you and the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ have to use the noun 'chair' for the word 'chairman' be that person male or female. So far as I am concerned a chair is a piece of furniture that you sit on. It really is pathetic to carry on in this pc way.

I am completely FED UP with your cynicism and nit-picking.

What about doing a proper job,. instead of mere wordsmithery?

You have NO RIGHT to undermine the hard work of a sincere and dedicated public servant just so that you can make a fat living, like the rest of your "journalist" colleagues who spread disillusionment, scorn and the full weight of cynical disregard.

Your whole approach has brought and will continue to bring the entire ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳
into serious disrepute.

Some achievement YOU have had, Nick.

James E Siddelley, STOCKPORT