TONY BLAIR QUOTES IV

British Prime Minister (1953- )

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You know, nowadays, if you step out at all into any area of public controversy, you're going to get a bucket of something unpleasant poured over you, so you just get used to that.

TONY BLAIR

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Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that. The end.

TONY BLAIR

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I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.

TONY BLAIR

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Broadsheets today face the same pressures as tabloids, broadcasters increasingly the same pressure as broadsheets. The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged, something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. And the consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light. Second, attacking motive is far more potent than attacking judgment. It is not enough for someone to make an error, it has to be venal, conspiratorial.

TONY BLAIR

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When we invade Afghanistan or Iraq, our responsibility does not end with military victory. Finishing the fighting is not finishing the job.

TONY BLAIR

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Technology is changing the way we live and we work and we think. It's going to transform the world, and yet I think there is an alarming sort of disconnect between the world of public policy-making, and the world of technology.

TONY BLAIR

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I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it.

TONY BLAIR

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I think we are dealing with what is essentially the inevitable political challenges of globalization. In other words, as the world transforms, moves closer together, jobs are displaced, and the world of work completely changes the way we live, the way we think. As that revolution goes on around us, it is going to pose political challenges of which immigration is one very obvious one, which are going to be extremely difficult to deal with. But it's like free trade. You know, in the end, if we go protectionist, we'll make a mistake.

TONY BLAIR

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I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves.

TONY BLAIR

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We must redefine what radical means. We're living through a technology revolution which is the 21st-century equivalent of the 19th-century Industrial Revolution. It will change everything and therefore everything should change including radical reorientation of government. This is the context in which we tackle inequality, promote social justice and redistribute power.

TONY BLAIR

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I think the same feelings that gave rise to Brexit gave rise to the election of Donald Trump. In my view, the important thing for those of us from the progressive side of politics is not just to go in head-on opposition to all that, but to try and work out why it happened, and how we meet the anxieties of people without getting into the politics of fear.

TONY BLAIR

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You know, one thing I've learned about peace processes: They're always frustrating, they're often agonizing, and occasionally they seem hopeless. But for all that, having a peace process is better than not having one.

TONY BLAIR

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Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.

TONY BLAIR

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Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do.

TONY BLAIR

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She was the people's princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.

TONY BLAIR

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Okay, so one thing I've learned over a long period time in politics is not to get mixed up in someone else's politics. I've got enough problems back here at home, so we'll leave all these questions around Ukraine and impeachment to American politics.

TONY BLAIR

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Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.

TONY BLAIR

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For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.

TONY BLAIR

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We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.

TONY BLAIR

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The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth. So it has been an honour to serve it. I give my thanks to you, the British people, for the times that I have succeeded, and my apologies to you for the times I have fallen short. But good luck.

TONY BLAIR

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