A remarkable picture of the way Tony Blair has lost the faith of British voters over his 10 years in power is revealed today by a comprehensive study of public attitudes towards the Prime Minister.
As Blair prepares to leave office, the poll of more than 2,000 adults shows that people believe the country is a more dangerous, less happy, less pleasant place to live. There was a negative response to nearly all of more than 40 questions the public was asked about trust in politics, how they felt about their own lives and whether public services had got better.
Britain delivers damning verdict on Blair’s 10 years | Politics | The Observer.
An unsurprising statement of the obvious? Well, I guess I find it difficult to identify anyone who still thinks Blair is a good egg. There are a couple of bloggers, but apart from that, I can’t think of anyone. The piece mentions improvements in services:
Despite some independent evidence that services have improved and the economy has performed well compared with other industrialised nations, the poll shows how damning the public’s verdict is on Blair and his government.
Why is that? If the economy has been that much more stable – and frankly for me the relative stability in interest rates has, indeed, made my life a little better than during the seesaw years of politically driven interest rate hikes. But that alone is not enough. Nor is the money spent on new hospitals that Labour are so fond of trumpeting.
As I’ve tried to mention when discussing Blair’s regime with his supporters, there is more to life than new hospitals and “better” or “more efficient” services. Whether Britain is really a more dangerous place to live or whether it is more to do with the fear of crime is not the issue; people feel less safe, which is why these results – it is all about perception. Why is that? Oh, it wouldn’t be because Blair and his government have been ramping up the fear factor as a justification for their totalitarian plans? It couldn’t be that at all, could it? They have used the fear of crime – and specifically the fear of terrorism – during the past few years as a means of justifying their smash and grab raid on our civil liberties; to undermine the rule of law and to make us prisoners in our own country. Is it any wonder we now feel that Britain is no longer a pleasant place to live?
The poll, carried out for The Observer for a special supplement on his decade in power, will increase concerns among Labour’s high command that the party is facing electoral defeat in the crucial national elections in Scotland and Wales and the local elections in England next month.
I do hope so. I hope they suffer the same level of defeat that John Major suffered in 1997. In my local elections on May 3rd, the Tories are the second runners by a long margin and most able to defeat the Labour incumbents. That, therefore, is where I shall cast my vote.
‘The big problem we have got on the doorstep in Scotland is the SNP and the Lib Dems, and the Tories going round hammering home the message “This is your last chance to give Tony Blair a kicking”,’ said one senior Brown ally.
Indeed, and I plan to make the most of it. The poll, though, offers a paradoxical view:
It suggests voters remain unimpressed by years of public service reform and convinced, despite his controversial focus on antisocial behaviour, that Blair has been too soft on crime. Forty per cent considered him ‘tired’ and running out of ideas.
However, if, despite a record number of prison inmates, the government continues to cry “wolf” over terrorism and crime and continues to tell us we are all in fear of our lives all of the time – unless we allow them to keep us in a gilded cage “for our own good” then of course, despite Blair’s “summary justice”, people will still feel insecure – an awful lot of people believe the propaganda pumped out from number 10 and don’t stop to measure the hyperbole with what happens in their own lives. The high profile cases become the norm in the public imagination. That is not to undermine the seriousness of those violent crimes that are occurring – but they have always occurred and always will. Their nature might alter over the years, but there will always be violent crime while there are people on this planet.
Loyalists also hit back. ‘I have never heard anybody talk about the years before 1997 as the good old days,’ said Alan Milburn, the former Labour party chairman.
Ah, yes, the “let’s blame Thatcher” tactic. It matters not one jot what happened before 1997 – we are talking about how this government has performed. Given the erosion of our liberty, bloody badly is the reply.