Over its long and varied history Britain has suffered, from time to time, some terrible leaders, both Kings and Prime Ministers. Some have been ruthless tyrants, some just plain useless and some underhanded and treacherous. Tony Blair who was the Prime minister of the UK from 1997 to 2007, can be described as cunning and sneaky, thanks to him being Knighted, much to the displeasure of many, he should now be known as 'Sir Duplicitous'!
He came to power when Prime Minister John Major's Government collapsed under the weight of its own uselessness. Sadly, John Major can also be added to the hall of shame as yet another of the nations terrible leaders, as far as I was concerned he was the Prime Minister who destroyed the Conservative Party, he even lost my vote and I was someone, up until then, who had voted Tory religiously from the day I reached voting age.
Blair stormed into number 10 Downing Street on a wave of misplaced optimism with one of the largest mandates given to his newly elected Government. Like most fanatical followers of the EU, it appeared he did not really know what it was he supported as one of his election promises was to remove the VAT on domestic gas and electricity, which the Major administration had inflicted upon the nation. So, no sooner than he had become Prime Minister, with a massive mandate from the British people, he had to go cap in hand to the EU and plead with people who had not been elected by, or held no allegiance to the British electorate, to ask permission to honour an election promise. Knowing that Blair was in thrall of the EU and he would be their patsy for as long as he was in office, the EU magnanimously allowed Blair to reduce the VAT on domestic fuel, although not remove it entirely.
As soon as Tony Blair passed through the portals of No 10 Downing street he set about preparations to integrate the UK into the EU. Knowing that by ceding sovereign powers to the EU he could be accused of treason, the first thing he did was to quietly and sneakily remove many of the treason laws which had been part of British law, in some cases, for many centuries. In 1998 Crime and Disorder Act the removal of our treason laws were hidden away under a section on racism. This did not come to light until 2004 when using the work prepared by Anne Palmer, I attended the Walsall Magistrate Court and presented several cases of treason against our PM. District Judge, Michael Morris, reeled off all the acts of treason that had been rescinded in the 1998 Act and news soon got out and when, in the following weeks after Lord Tebbit asked what acts of treason are on the statute books in the House of Lords, Baroness Scotland Scotland quoted all the repealed acts and later had to apologise for her error - not even she knew what her own leader had been up to. Of course, the Blair government was soon to be known for being adept at 'burying bad news'.
Blair was elected in May 1997 and by June he went to the Amsterdam summit and signed away more of our sovereignty. He was also the PM who introduced student tuition fees, he wanted but failed to inflict I.D. cards on the British people and one of his legacies, which is creating a ridiculous situation today, was the breaking up of the UK by holding referendums in Scotland and Wales for a Scottish Government and Welsh assembly. He even had the gall to state, after the Welsh voted for their assembly by no more than a 0.6% majority, he stated: "A majority is a majority". Years later when the nation voted to leave the EU by a larger margin, he hypocritically declared the vote was too close and should be done again. Thanks to him today all four parts of the nation live divided lives with different laws in each, especially rules on handling Covid.
The madness of this means a motorist can pop into a pub for a swift one in England, drive within the legal alcohol limit but as soon as that person crosses over the border into Scotland, if stopped, could face losing their license for something that would not be a crime south of the border. This is madness. Scottish students have had their tuition fees removed whereas English students leave university massively in debt. There are no hospital car parking fees in Scotland and Wales but the long-suffering English not only have to pay quite high parking charges when having to visit hospitals, either for treatment or visiting yet it is English taxpayers who are funding the privileges the Scots and Welsh enjoy.
Over the ten years of his time in office the Blair regime changed Britain, sadly for the worse and not the better. To comply with the EU's imposed borrowing and spending limits he went for PFI big time meaning the cost of new hospitals and schools tripled as everything was leased, not owned. He sold off massive stocks of UK gold at a rock bottom price due to flooding the market, the proceeds were then used to help prop up a failing euro.
However, the thing that most people remember of Blair is the fact that he took the UK into an illegal conflict which millions marched against and saw the great loss of life and life changing injuries for not only many of our brave young men, but also for many Iraqis.
There is only one good thing to have come out of the ten destructive Blair years, this was the National Arboretum at Alrewas in Staffordshire which is well worth a visit where you can see the far too many names of the young men killed in the illegal war in Iraq.
Sadly, Anne Palmer passed away on Wednesday 12th January 2022.