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Dennis MacShane On Barack Obama… November 11, 2008

Posted by bensix in Uncategorized.
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“I shut my eyes when I listen to this guy and it could be Tony. He is doing the same thing that we did in 1997.”

NOOOO!

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1. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill - November 12, 2008

Enough with the Obama bashing already!

Blair and Obama are not on the same planet, Blair served for too long but did manage to do some good things during his time.

EASY NOW!

2. bensix - November 12, 2008

*Slaps self, plunges head into ice cold water etc.*

You’re quite right. One should be constructive without resorting to Phillipsesque hysterics.

On reflection, though, I’m not sure that Blair ever did anything particularly good. He did leave, admittedly (in the end).

Ben

3. Daniel Hoffmann-Gill - November 13, 2008

I just have a real problem with drawing connections between Blair and Obama.

And as for Blair’s acheivements, he took a country mutiliated by Conservative rule and made it soemthing hopeful and better and more positive.

Of course he stayed too long and developed a personality cult around himself, of course he destroyed much of his good work with siding with Bush and the terrible war in Iraq but he still managed to to oversee peace in Northern Ireland, devolution, minimum wage, low unemployment, interest rates and inflation, 3 victories, giving London its power back and shifting Labour from a joke into a political force to actually beat the Tory hold on Britain.

4. James - November 15, 2008

Dennis MacShane is a Blairite buffoon. Having worked in his office for a week this much was well established, I saw him pestering journalists with his opinionated nonsense many a time and every time I see him quoted somewhere I remember the sight of him repeating himself down the phone.

Barack Obama actually argued left wing points, instead of arguing right wing points sewn awkwardly to left wing platitudes. Blair didn’t repeal the laws that Tories brought in against ravers, hunt sabs and the rest of their foes while Barack is keen on closing down Guantanamo. Just about says it all, really.

5. bensix - November 17, 2008

Yeah, and closing Guantanamo will be great, but it’s still a drop in the oft-invoked ocean. Any substantial change would have to involve the cutting back of the American imperial power, and – based on Obama’s odd ideas about expanding the military – I can’t see that happening.

MacShane, meanwhile, bears a staggering resemblance to Kermit the Frog…

Ben