Liar Blair
Tony Blair's speech is a travesty of self-deception, dishonesty and lies. His government has presided over the most disgraceful period of British foreign relations for a century. The abandonment of an ethical foreign policy is a disgrace and the sycophants who surround Blair should hang their heads in shame. As Palestine burns, and Rio II is exposed as a big business expo-charade, Blair has the cheek to stand up and talk about being bold. Being bold would involve standing up to Bush, abolishing the Royal Family, redistributing wealth and preventing further abuse to the environment. If he had ever once really stood up to vested interest, he could make his case for "being bold".
Mike Small
1 October 2002

PFI
Mr Blair has made the obvious argument for PFI - that it gets schools and hospitals built. In a speech filled with vaguely sensible principles, this seems at first to fit perfectly until you realise he hasn't said anything about how PFI would work. Surely even Mr Blair could not argue that to question what big buisnesses want in return for funding schools and hospitals is unnecessarily pessimistic? Everyone wants better public services, but the realistic ones among us know that big business is not to be trusted with responsibilites beyond making a profit for their shareholders.
Rosie Best
1 October 2002

Foundation Hospitals
Private-public partnership does not work. It doesn't work in the USA and it didn't work in Australia. They will make the health service unequal; the poorly performing hospitals will become poorer and will inevitably be in poor areas servicing poor, sick people. Poor people are more likely to get sick so they need the best health care. Why is it that all over the world, right wing values make us worse off and yet "New" Labour keeps flirting dangerously with their philosophies. If Tony learnt anything from Paul Keating, when he visited him a few years ago, it is that we should work towards a civil society. The world misses Barbara Castle who never politely applauded people like who Blair is fast becoming. I fear for our health service and the health of UK people.
Jo Patterson
1 October 2002

More Hot Air
Yet more 'powerful' words from a man whose position and direction changes as often as his underwear. I'm sorry to sound cynical, but we've heard this bold radical crap too many times before from him. It's just a case of yet more promises that will never come to fruition. He either doesn't understand what his exploits have done, and are doing to the people of this country, or he just doesn't care. The arrogance of both him and his government in general is just mind blowing. He scraped back into power, and yet if anything, he has got even more full of his own importance; running round saving the world, while all the while, taking the country into a union and currency it doesn't want, and nearer to the brink of a war that the country has made it plain it doesn't agree with. Can he not see that all Bush and co want is oil and more influence in the Middle East to get the oil? It's sad really - they had a real chance to do some good when they first got into power, yet I find that myself and those around me are worse off and more unhappy than ever before, and it looks like it can only get worse.
Andy Lawler
1 October 2002

A Mere Accessory
I strongly support his call for an international approach to the world's many problems, and the need to work through the UN. However, he should realise that this is not going to be achieved by working as an accessory to a power whose attitude for the last forty years has been self-serving.

The US deliberately sabotaged the UN for decades by witholding its contributions. It paid up and changed tack on September 12 without a blush, because it suddenly looked as if the UN could be useful - not to the world, but to the USA. They have stayed out of dozens of international initiatives because it did not appear that there would be anything in it for them. Any notion of helping the world community has been ignored - Kyoto being a case in point.

My Blair is right to work with the US but needs a far longer spoon than he is using at present. Britain will get nothing at all in exchange. Small things like the Steel Tariffs show that the US is an absolutely selfish and irresponsible power. Would that this were not so.
Guy Bellairs 1 October 2002

Praise At Last
It was a very good speech. If only more of the public and the media understood Blair and were not so cynical of him.
Andrew S
1 October 2002

He's No Puppet
It's too easy to criticize American foreign policy. Blair has taken the higher ground. Instead of wallowing in complaints about the US, he has taken on the harder challenge: understand the cause of American foreign policy and try to encourage constructive change.He is not just a puppet of the US. He shows courage under fire by authentically engaging with the complexities at hand. This(the foreign affairs scene) is not a simple game of squash. Even I,'the dumb American' know that. He is wise to go beyond the dialectics of pro/anti-Americanism. His speech promtes vision and promise. I can see coalitions in the near future resolving many global issues.
Friar Augustine Michael Kim
2 October 2002

Oh Yes He Is!
I believe Blair is a total idiot and nothing but a puppet for the illegitimate administration taking up space in the White House. He has the courage of a lemming, the morality of a snake and the fortitude of a hail stone. At best, he is a waste of flesh, and at worst, a bane to decent human beings everywhere. the earth would be better served if he were eliminated along with the Nazi thugs currently calling themselves Republicans.
Michael Handy
2 October 2002

Lovely Blair
Mr Blair is a perfect chap. No one should dare to criticize him.
Cem Tashkafa
2 October 2002

Running Scared
It struck me as odd that a Prime Minister with a majority of about 140, and only one year into his second term, should give such a defensive speech to his own party on his government's fundemental policies. There was something reminiscient of John Major's 'back me or sack me' showdown with the Tories in the mid 1990's. This was not a clarion call to rally his party but an anguished plea for their forebearance while he systematically betrays the Labour Party's raison d'etre.
Paul Hughes

Hypocritical Values
Tony Blair said: "our values aren’t western values: they’re human values". Hegemony, imperialism and continuous lust for power are definitely Western values. Every single war fought by this government (or any other for that matter) has atrocious motives. The war against Afghanistan was supposedly fought to capture Osama bin Laden and Al’Qaeda high ranking officials. What has been the outcome of the war? Thousands of Afghani civilians murdered, the creation of Afghani refugees and a post-war Afghanistan that lies deep in social and economic chaos.

Who created the millions of refugees Blair speaks about in his wonderfully acted speeches? Whose quest for bloody wars made Afghanis, Kosovans and Iraqis flee their countries if it wasn't the axis of the superpowers? The dynamic duo, Blair and Bush, are desperate to fight endless wars; either because it wants to manipulate regions rich in oil, or to extend its hegemony and divide and rule. As for the "human values" rhetoric; killing unarmed Afghanis by throwing cluster bombs and daisy cutters on them, while, providing vast military support to Israel ( effectively prolonging the Palestinian suffering and torment) are far from humane. Blair’s meaning of "human" is somewhat distorted; hardly surprising tht the word values sounds fake coming out of his mouth. What peace is this that will have been born out of massive annihilations, both human and material? Blair’s peace, as "the only chance of peace is readiness for war".
Elvira Sklavenitis
4 October 2002

Words Words Words
When Mr Blair, together with his charming master, the falsely elected President of the United States, begin an even more extensive bombing of the Iraqi people than that occurring at present, he will no doubt present such a hideous crime against peace as the epitomé of boldness in the Service of Good, as well as an integral part of the war on child poverty in Britain. Don't believe him ! Mr Hussein may be an evil man, but given the means at his disposal, Mr Blair (not to mention Mr Bush) is a far more dangerous one. Let us hope that the world finds a way to restrain these two, before they lead us over the precipice of the abyss.
Henri Day
7 October 2002