Posts Tagged “tony blair”
Your essential weekend reader — my personal pick of the week’s must-reads
by Stephen Tall on April 14, 2013
It’s Sunday morning, so here are a dozen of thought-provoking articles to stimulate your thinking juices, culled from all those I’ve linked to this past fortnight. You can follow me on Delicious here. Immigration and the knowledge economy – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg makes the business case for immigration reform in the US, but the lesson [...]
David Cameron’s ‘a little and often’ leadership doesn’t suit him and isn’t Prime Ministerial
by Stephen Tall on October 24, 2012
The Telegraph’s James Kirkup, one of that paper’s few fair-minded political commentators, has written a thought-provoking article, A devil’s advocate defence of David Cameron and No 10. His case for the defence is first, that we (public, media) shouldn’t assume the role of Prime Minister has always to follow the command/control style of Margaret Thatcher [...]
CentreForum’s ‘Liberal Hero of the Week’ #13 – Elizabeth Wilmshurst (and Nick Harvey)
by Stephen Tall on September 7, 2012
Welcome to the 13th in our series — Liberal Hero of the Week — as chosen by Stephen Tall, Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and Research Associate at CentreForum. The aim is to showcase public figures who help promote the four liberal tenets identified in The Orange Book: economic, personal, political and social liberalism. We highlight [...]
CentreForum’s ‘Liberal Hero of the Week’ #13 – Elizabeth Wilmshurst (and Nick Harvey)
by Stephen Tall on September 7, 2012
Welcome to the 13th in our series — Liberal Hero of the Week — as chosen by Stephen Tall, Co-Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice, and Research Associate at CentreForum. The aim is to showcase public figures who help promote the four liberal tenets identified in The Orange Book: economic, personal, political and social liberalism. We highlight [...]
Clegg to embark on summer ‘bring on the hatred’ tour
by Stephen Tall on June 24, 2012
Nick Clegg certainly isn’t one to shy away from voters, even at a time when the Lib Dems, he personally, and the government he’s part of are all suffering from unpopularity. Ever since Nick became leader he’s placed a premium on direct voter contact through his ‘town hall’ meetings. It was a smart strategy which [...]
LDVideo: What are your memories of 15 years ago today, 1st May 1997?
by Stephen Tall on May 1, 2012
It’s exactly 15 years ago today that Tony Blair led New Labour to a landslide general election victory over John Major’s Tories, and Paddy Ashdown saw the Lib Dems secure the largest third party representation in the House of Commons since 1929. Here are three videos to remind you of a quite extraordinary night… The [...]
I agree with Tony. (Or why British PMs shouldn’t actually try and do Hugh Grant’s Love Actually PM speech.)
by Stephen Tall on December 13, 2011
Perhaps it’s because it’s Christmas. Or perhaps it’s because the right-wing press is frothing with excitement at the Prime Minister sticking it to Johnny Foreigner. Either way, the last few days’ events have put me in mind of the speech Hugh Grant delivers as a British prime minister (coincidentally called David) in the film, Love [...]
At his best and his worst: 5 thoughts on Tony Blair’s analysis of the UK riots
by Stephen Tall on August 21, 2011
It’s only been four years since Tony Blair resigned as Prime Minister (somehow it seems longer) — and he’s back today with an opinion piece for The Observer on the underlying causes of the riots, ‘Blaming a moral decline for the riots makes good headlines but bad policy’. Here are 5 thoughts on his article: [...]
Tony Blair’s A Journey: 3 reasons I’m impressed without having read a single page
by Stephen Tall on September 1, 2010
No, I haven’t read Tony Blair’s A Journey yet (though it should be waiting for me at home). I haven’t even had time to read more than a handful of the preview articles, such as The Guardian’s trailer. With that confesion of near-total ignorance of A Journey established, I think there are three points worth [...]
In praise of… Tony Blair
by Stephen Tall on August 18, 2010
I voted for Tony Blair as Labour leader in 1994; I voted for him again to become Labour prime minister in 1997. I soon learned my lesson. As Prime Minister, he failed. Not so much domestically: sure, he disappointed but show me a political leader who doesn’t. But in foreign policy, Mr Blair was an [...]
