Tony Blair
Title: Prime Minister Anthony Charles Lynton Blair
Full Name: Anthony Charles Lynton Blair
Birthdate: May 6, 1953
Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
Occupation: Head of State
Profile: Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007).
Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair
Number of Quotes: 96
A demand for choice, for quality, for standards, is in fact a progressive demand.
Emphasizing that modern public service reform and consumer choice were not conservative ideas but central to his vision of a modern, centre-left government.
A simple way to take measure of a country is to look at how many want in and how many want out.
And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.
Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom,
not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
Be a doer and not a critic.
But as I always say to people I'm essentially a public service person.
But I am an optimist about Britain; and the difference between an optimist and a pessimist is not that
the optimist believes the world is wonderful and the pessimist believes it's beset by challenges; the difference
is the pessimist believes we will be defeated by them; the optimist thinks the challenges can be overcome.
But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.
From his final speech to the Labour Party Conference in 2006, defending his most controversial decision—the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and
maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.
But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together.
Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order.
By nature, I am a unifier. I am a builder of consensus. I don't believe in sloppy compromise. But I do believe in bringing people together.
Change is the DNA of the Labour Party. We are at our best when we are future-facing.
A reflection on his project to modernize the Labour Party, moving it toward the centre and rebranding it as New Labour.
Choice dependent on wealth; those are the Tory words.
Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is... everyone now accepts that if there
is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will.
Don't ever apologize for being the party of high aspirations and ambitions for people.
Encouraging the Labour Party to aim for government and not be content as a party of perpetual protest.
Education is the best economic policy there is.
Education, education, education.
Arguably his most famous soundbite. This was the top three priorities for his first government, announced at the 1996 Labour Party Conference.
Every so often, I feel I should graduate to classical music, properly. But the truth is, I'm more likely to listen to rock music.
For 18 years—18 long years—my party has been in opposition. It could only say, it could not do. Today we
are charged with the deep responsibility of government. Today, enough of talking—it is time now to do.
From his speech on the steps of 10 Downing Street after winning the 1997 General Election.
Genetic modification has many different areas, for example in medicine, and Britain is at the leading edge of
this new technology. I don't know, but people tell me, it could indeed by the leading science of the 21st century.
All I say to people is: Just keep an open mind and let us proceed according to genuine scientific evidence.
God will be my judge.
On the decision to go to war in Iraq. A deeply personal and defensive statement made
during a 2015 television interview when pressed on the consequences of the Iraq War.
Hand on heart, this is the will of the British people.
Often misquoted. He actually said, I feel the hand of history upon our shoulder
regarding the Good
Friday Agreement. The hand on heart
quote is commonly conflated with his later Iraq statements.
However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice.
Human progress has never been shaped by commentators, complainers or cynics.
I am a pretty straight sort of guy.
I believe Mrs. Thatcher's emphasis on enterprise was right.
I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear.
I cannot think of any circumstances in which a government can go to war without the support of parliament.
I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated.
I happen to think it's the politics that makes you electable, but the reason for that is politicians sometimes talk about electability as if it's
just a matter of conning the public. Actually, it's a matter of persuading the public, and in my experience, usually, the public gets it right.
I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in.
I learnt a lot in government, and I've learnt a lot since leaving government. The kind of journey of being in
government is that you start at your most popular and least capable, and you end at your most capable and least popular.
I may find Saddam Hussein's
regime abhorrent - any normal person would - but the survival of it is in his hands.
I mean, I went to a church school when I was younger and imbibed a certain amount of religion then but it was really in university that I got
interested in religion and politics at the same time. I don't think as if it were one moment of conversion but my spiritual journey really began then.
I only know what I believe.
A response to journalist Jeremy Paxman's repeated questioning on BBC's Newsnight about his core
beliefs, which became symbolic of a style seen as evasive by critics and conviction-led by supporters.
I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice.
I think the journey for a politician goes from wanting to please all the people all the time, to a
political leader that realises in the end his responsibility is to decide. And when he decides, he divides.
I would've loved to have been in a band, but sadly I just wasn't good enough.
If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you're weighing up the pros and
cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life.
In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.
In Downing Street they called me Boss
. Civil servants would always call me Prime Minister
.
In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it's always about the next challenge.
In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in
politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.
In retrospect, the Millennium marked only a moment in time. It was the events of September 11 that marked a
turning point in history, where we confront the dangers of the future and assess the choices facing humankind.
It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose.
Judge me on my record. We've had the fastest growing economy of any major economy...
we've got the lowest inflation... the lowest mortgage rates... the lowest unemployment...
A typical line from his 2005 election campaign, challenging critics to look at his government's economic record rather than the controversy over Iraq.
Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.
A statement on the importance of education, made at the World Bank Conference in 2005.
Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
Leaders lead but in the end it's the people who deliver.
Let it be said that no one died of ignorance. Let it be said that no life was wasted because the world was too slow to act.
On the moral imperative for international intervention, often used in the context of his efforts in Sierra Leone and Kosovo.
Look, I am very competitive.
Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war.
My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a
religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn't especially religious.
My faith foundation works to bring about a greater respect and understanding between different faiths. We basically work
with six popular religions in the world which are the three Abrahamic religions, Hinduism and Buddhism and Sikhism.
My office is on Twitter. I don't tweet myself - at least, not intentionally, but I probably should do.
My project will be complete when the Labour Party learns to love Peter Mandelson.
A wry and famous comment about the controversial but pivotal architect of the New
Labour brand, highlighting the internal party tensions his modernization caused.
My teachers used to call me a failure.
My view is that you still, in order to win from the Labour perspective, have to have a strong alliance with
business as well as the unions. You have got to be very much in the centre ground on things like public sector reform.
New Labour, new danger.
Ironically, this was a Conservative Party attack slogan against Blair. He
and his team co-opted and subverted it, turning New Labour
into a powerful brand of their own.
Once his wife goes to sleep it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her.
Our manifesto is a manifesto of ideas, not of old ideology. It is a manifesto for the future, not a tribute to the past.
Summarizing the core message of the 1997 New Labour election campaign.
Our new world rests on order. The danger is disorder. And in today's world, it can now spread like contagion.
People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in.
Politics is about listening and it's about leading.
Politics is not a game. It is about the future of our country and the future of your families.
A line from his 1997 campaign, aiming to present Labour as a serious, responsible party ready for government.
Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government.
So actually I only got a mobile phone the day after I left being Prime Minister.
So now it is up to you. You take my advice. You don't take it. You take it. The country can
only go in one of two directions. Either forward with new Labour. Or back to the Conservatives.
A classic line from his 1997 election campaign, presenting a simple, binary choice to the electorate.
Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.
The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes.
On the difficult decisions required of a Prime Minister.
The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the
right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.
The great advantage of the Lib Dems is precisely that no-one knows what they stand for.
The public think the politicians don't know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.
The purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself. It is in producing terror. It sets
out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror.
The spread of freedom is the best security for the free.
The threat from Saddam Hussein and
weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real.
The threat today is not that of the 1930s. It's not big powers going to war with each other. The ravages which fundamentalist
political ideology inflicted on the 20th century are memories. The Cold war is over. Europe is at peace, if not always diplomatically.
There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must.
There is no way you're going to have an event like 9/11 and expect things to remain the same. They
killed 3,000 people in New York on that day, and if they could have they would've killed 300,000.
This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism.
Those who wish to cause religious conflict are small in number but often manage to dominate the headline.
Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.
A hugely influential soundbite, coined by Blair
and his advisor Gordon Brown in 1993. It
signaled a break from Labour's traditional soft-left approach to law and order and was key to making the party electable.
Uphold the rule of law. No tolerance of crime. But also no tolerance of the bad housing, the lack of opportunity, the hopelessness that causes it.
Elaborating on his famous tough on crime
mantra.
Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world.
Very well, I lead it.
His immediate and confident response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional question to a new Prime Minister: Have you been asked to form a government?
We are not the people's party. We are the people.
A rhetorical flourish from his 2004 Labour Party Conference speech.
We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this
hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world.
What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party.
Whatever the dangers of the action we take, the dangers of inaction are far, far greater.
When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place.
Yes, I feel I've got something to say. If people want to listen, that's great, and if they don't, that's their choice.
You are the future. Now stop being angry and get a life.
A controversial piece of advice he claimed to give to young people frustrated with politics, which was criticized for being condescending.
You know, one of the things I've learnt since coming out of office is how much
easier it is to give the advice than take the decision. I mean, you know, it's tough.
You know, the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and
indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.
You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife.
Last on Earth
