Tony Blair - a retrospective appraisal

What has been the legacy of Tony Blair’s ten years in Downing Street? First, to get them out of the way, let’s acknowledge his successes. His government managed to keep the economy on an even keel, inflation remained low and there was no great hike in unemployment, as happened under the Tories. Underinvestment in public services was reversed (although the extra money was not always wisely targeted), disproving the notion that public spending crowds out private activity, which continued at a high level. Despite strong pressure, we also stayed out of the Euro, thus retaining control of our economy. Taken together these are considerable successes, more than the Thatcher, Major and previous Labour administrations achieved. Unfortunately the public are usually more inclined to condemn politicians for their failures, than to give them credit for their successes.

So what then are his failures? Regrettably, there are quite a few. To begin with the cultural Marxist permanent revolution that started in the 1960s became considerably more entrenched. The ability of the British people to govern themselves without outside interference was undermined still further, and normal family life continued to be subverted. Education stayed manifestly unreformed, the causes of chronic criminality remained unaddressed, the popular media continued its downward spiral of degradation, and control of our borders was lost completely. Let us examine the background to these failures in more detail.

Many people still seem unaware that they are guinea pigs in a massive Marxist social experiment. This has happened as a consequence of most levers of power coming under the control of a subversive elite who have succeeded in projecting themselves in a positive light by the skilful use of fine sounding buzz words, such as 'progressive', 'tolerant', 'modern', 'forward looking', 'inclusive' etc. This hijacking of the cultural agenda has allowed the subversives to define what is worthy and acceptable, leaving ordinary people confused and powerless to respond. Those who question the Marxist agenda are either ridiculed or denounced as 'reactionary', 'bigots' or are subjected to pejorative leftist newspeak terms such as 'racist' or 'homophobic'. This process has been gradual yet incremental.

It is worth examining how the Blair government has taken forward this Marxist social agenda, now widely known as political correctness. It should be remembered that the main objective is to gradually transfer to the state, rights that were historically exercised by ordinary people either as individuals, families or private businesses. In short, state control by trusted politically sound apparatchiks and their careerist hangers on, is the name of the game. This process has continued for over four decades now, including the supposedly 'right wing' administration of Margaret Thatcher.

The biggest casualty has been the further undermining of parliamentary democracy. This has been subverted on two fronts, by the expansion of the powers of the European Union, and interference by the European Court of Human Rights, as it misleadingly styles itself. Directives and judgements either by, or at the instigation, of these two supra national bodies now severely circumscribe what political parties can promise, let alone deliver, at general elections. The three historic major parties are all committed to maintaining the present system more or less, thus denying the British electorate from exercising true democracy, that is the ability to decide issues for ourselves as a nation.

The next target for subversion is to destroy the cohesion of society. Fifty years ago Britain was noted for its racial homogeneity, low crime, family stability, good manners and community spirit. Since then governments have encouraged huge levels of third world immigration, totally destroyed marriage, removed effective means of discipline from teachers, weakened the authority of parents, introduced creeping politicisation of the police and criminal justice system, and allowed a degraded and trivialised media to develop. None of the legislative, judicial or administrative measures that allowed this to happen were ever included in any election manifesto. As a consequence of these changes, in many parts of Britain, a feckless underclass has developed resulting in crime ridden, socially and culturally fragmented communities, with dysfunctional families, feral youths, drug gangs and fatherless children.

Specifically, under the Blair government well over a million third world migrants entered the country, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods and the lowering of wages for the most financially vulnerable. Marriage was downgraded to the same status as single parenthood, or the nonsensical concept of same sex 'civil partnerships'. Teachers were left with no means of disciplining children other than by the drastic step of exclusion, and politically correct propaganda entered the curriculum at the expense of national traditions. Instead of acting as a deterrent on the beat, police officers spent most of their time completing paperwork, as did teachers in order to meet mostly unnecessary targets or bureaucratic directives. All of these were the direct consequence of the imposition of the 'progressive' agenda promoted by the cultural Marxists in the government, BBC, universities, schools, trade unions, local government, state funded 'charities', and schools.

Predictably, virtually none of this has been rolled back under the premiership of David Cameron.