Andy Burnham slams Tony Blair for ignoring inequality in his defence of ‘radical centre’
https://observer.co.uk/news/politics/article/andy-burnham-slams-tony-blair-for-ignoring-inequality-in-his-defence-of-radical-centre?UID=&dm_i=7EQK,CJTT,2X28NM,1PHN7,1,0,0,0
Posted by Far_Excitement_1875
12 Comments
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I think Burnham (deliberately or otherwise) completely missed the point the intervention.
the spectre of Blair and his permanent tan slicked hair saville row davos elite vibe loudly calling for more pro-billionaire policies at the expense of worker’s rights and net zero is obviously embarrassing for a party bending over backwards to pretend they are working class grafters
“Radical centre” is an anagram of “Don’t tax rich people”
Equality doesn’t mean taking from those who work hard and strive to make their lives better, and hand it out to to the those who chose not to. it means providing the same opportunities. Everyone then has the same choice. Why reward those who decide not to strive and make their lives better? With the obvious exception of people who genuinely can’t. Those people deserve all the help they can get.
It has been overlooked by the media this week that nowhere in that 5,000 word piece did Blair praise Starmer for not involving the UK in a war in the Middle East started by a stupid US president…
I have absolutely no idea how Blair is still so prominent and also not in jail.
Much as Blair turns my stomach for his warmongering, I agreed with every word he said in the video clip I saw. In it, he talked about a need to consider policy before politics.
I think that’s a very reasonable thing to say in a situation where government has become a gameshow and it’s killing the country. Obviously, Blair himself is one of the worst offenders, but if he’s criticising that state of affairs now, he’s certainly right to do so.
Burnham is doing what politicians do. He’s playing the gameshow. He’s not wrong to talk about economic fairness but it’s ridiculous to criticise Blair simply for not addressing it in one specific interview. There are a million important issues Blair didn’t address. There always will be. Pick one and bash him for it. You’ll always be able to do that, for any interview about anything with anyone. What he said was right and Burnham doesn’t like it because he makes his living playing the game. John Major recently said something similar.
If we carry on with this same kind of idiotic gameshow government, and even if Burnham gets into power and actually bothers enacting some sort of economic fairness agenda, all we’ll get is a situation where everyone’s equally poor and backward.
The gameshow needs to end. Blair was right – in this specific case.
Wages stagnate when there’s an oversupply of potential workers.
Blair and every everyone since had allowed millions to enter this country.
Time to reset the balance, time for mass remigration.
Restore Britain
I agree with Blair, we need to cut back on spiralling welfare and the triple lock otherwise a dwindling middle class will increasingly have to fund it through higher taxes.
The default setting for any government should be full employment, make jobs available and make them pay well.
So I read Tony Blair’s essay and I wasn’t impressed.
His core complaint is a lack of firm policy, which I agree with. Then the majority of the essay is: foreign policy fluff, complaints about the past, and other none policy items.
So right at the bottom we get to his proposed agenda. And to be honest it’s just a series of slogans, not policy: welfare reform, stop boats and do ai are not policy!!!
How do you want to reform welfare tony? Who do you want to take welfare from? Everyone? Just some people? Time limit it? What is your actual policy proposal?
All of which circles back to Burnhams point I think. People like Blair govern by statistics. If the line goes up then all is good, it doesn’t matter what happens to the people.
So yeah… All for more policy driven debate but not really team tony on this one.
I don’t really understand the fightback of blaming the past 40 years. Things were great in the country under labour pre financial crash – it’s the decisions taken after that massive event that have caused problems for inequality.