Let's see if this vacuous comment gets past the moderator!

What is it with the British centre-left, seemingly determined to destroy their (few) heroes ??? Blair won 3 general elections & I certainly remember the 'Blair years' as a reasonably happy & financially secure time ('cool Britania'....no longer!)
He definitely lost it on Iraq, in my view, not on a moral stand point, but having missed that GW Bush was a political ape & waiting for a 2nd UN resolution (which would have in time come) would have been a far better option, + there was no exit strategy WHAT SO EVER. One costly mistake, but Labour I fear will be a long time waiting for a worthy replacement

Utter nonsense Mehdi, and some surprising observations from somebody so on the ball.

Like him or loathe him, Blair was an extraordinary politician. He brought Labour to power and kept us there for over a decade by completely dominating the political scene. Low-turnout, imo, was a recognition of that. The idea that TB somehow had a negative impact upon the party in an electoral way is bizarre.

Why do Blairites continue to haunt the Labour Party when there are two other big parties that reflect their own political views..?The Blairites share with the tory-led coalition a love of big business,dismissal of the virtues of the public sector and it's workers,disregard for policies which aid social mobility within society,promotion of faux green but oh so caring measures,a belief in the right of those working in the financial sector to enrich themselves and impoverish others,low tax economy,genuflecting before anti-democratic press and media oligarchs and of course a love of sound bites,spin and false compassion.

swantra nandawar, Brown was massively unpopular within 4 months of being leader, if blair lef tin 2004 and Brown took over ,its possible borwn would have lost the 2005 election

Jon well done better than the reporter of this article.

Blair/Brown failed to distinguish between two business communities: one produces real wealth the other money. Supporting firms and entrepreneurs in the real economy will be essential to LP recovery and so will be controlling the financial sector. Blair’s advice is half good.

The media keep off the agenda the fact that high street banks create 97% of money in circulation. They do that when they lend to us. That money-as-debt vanishes when we repay it but, meanwhile, we pay interest on it. The 3% of official money (coins and notes) goes into circulation free of interest and 100% could be created that way.

No one creates new money to pay that interest, so it can only be paid by creating more money-as-debt, putting the real economy under continual pressure to grow, when stability and better distribution of wealth would be better.

The banks also choose to whom they lend the money they create. No wonder they lend to their partners to ‘invest’ in the global financial casino where they win until they need the real economy to pick up the tab. A stable money system would not serve the banks as well as property-, dotcom- and etc-bubbles and ever-growing burdens of debt on us all.

It is time to end the privilege of legalised forgery that the banks enjoy (aka ‘fractional reserve banking) and return to the state a fundamental power it should never have given away in exchange for an ever-growing national debt.

We shall not see this issue on the agenda if we rely on media that are beholden to the financial sector. You can find information by searching for various pressure groups and think tanks: Christian Council for Monetary Justice, American Monetary

I'm not gonna defend Irawq, But as you said it got rid of Saddma, it may never be seen a sucsess, but it'll will be seen as justicifed in getting rid of saddam

2.Whn Blair took over even with Black wednesday, John Smith was 1% ahead in the polls he got 13% more than, yes his third victory he got the sa,me percentage of votes as Cameron did this time, But there was very little between the 92 manifesto and teh 97 one, and labour got less than 10million votes in the 87 one same as what blair got in 2005 so yes Blair did lose laobur nearly 4million votes ,but he increased it by 4million in the first place, Labour were ahead in the polls for the first 9 years of Blair's leeadership, (apart form a couple of days during the fuel protest) his last year was marked by Prezza's affair the cash for peerages enquiry and the 900 foreign prsioners not beign deported ,yet he was only a couple of points behind in the polls even then,Blair nenver criticised Browns time in office (something Brown did) whatever yuo think of Blair it wasn't lalobur winning in 97, that would have happened without him it was Blair that won it, and he has ideas that Ed miliband should listen too,unless labour want to buy into the 1983 Tony benn idea that labour lost then and in 2010 as the manifesto's weren't left wing enough.