Dear Tony,I read with interest your interview with Progress yesterday, celebrating 15 years of the organisation.
My mind drifted into reverie…No Labour supporter will forget the joy of May 1997. The dark age of Conservativism was over. As the sun rose over Festival Hall we felt anything was possible.
Of course, in those days you brought your new financial friends to the party. Nice people really. Want to spend? No problem, here’s some money, and don’t worry about how it will be paid back. Why get a 90% mortgage when you can have a 100% mortgage. Have you tried 110%? They were all smiles and pats on the back.
The record investment in Education and Health was fantastic, and thank you for that.
Did you hear about the financial crisis Tony?
It turns out the system that fuelled this spending was run by a bunch of spivs. The financial schemes in reality turned out to be no better than pyramid schemes, and were dodgy investments and smoke and mirrors. Those chaps who handed the easy money out left the scene sharpish, to be replaced by their heavies, the Austerity Brothers. Not nice people at all…you should see what they are doing to the folks of Greece and Ireland. Thugs, 100%.
You cannot be oblivious to the fact the your Labour family did not like your choice of friends. That George bloke in the US…you know the one, he wore cowboy hat and had a missionary zeal to upset the whole world. You changed Tony. You spent too many nights away from home. We’d stay up, wondering where you were, and we’d just get a brief message that you are staying out with George in some foreign country again. Your home life slipped. You choice of friends meant that you ignored your nearest and dearest.Your Labour family suffered too because you and Gordon just wouldn’t get on. You were blood brothers early on, yet while domestically things were falling around your ears at home, all you two did is fight. Together you could have invincible. Where did it go wrong?
When you did hang your boots up, Gordon was then head of the family. Sadly the damage was done, and in 2010 the chickens came home to roost. Yet it seems that you think that if Gordon had been more like you, everything would have been rosy.Sorry Tony, but from 2005 Labour was devoid of ideas, lost touch with the Electorate and had rotten foundations. It’s primary preoccupation was hanging on to power, but without a reason for having the power.
I would like to thank you for all the good stuff – public service investment, sure start, the minimum wage and so on.You need to move on. Gordon has managed it. It is now for a new generation to take Labour forward. Please, no more comments or books. Retire gracefully. I understand you have just purchased a modest house. Enjoy it.
Don’t forget, the best know when to leave the stage, and it’s your turn now.All the best,Garry
http://think-left.org/2011/09/10/an-open-letter-to-tony-blair/
