"In my last interview on the Today programme I would tell John Humphrys
what I really thought of him, remove the barriers at the entrance to Downing
Street and sign up as Phillip Schofield's understudy."
If you were PM and had two weeks to go, what would you do?
Admit I messed up completely over the Iraq War, apologise to all the people who have had to put up with tax increases over the past ten years, admit I have messed up the NHS, admit crime is more out of control than ever before et al and say sorry!
ReplyDeleteTell Parliament that Geoff Hoon did David Kelly over in the woods
ReplyDeleteRenationalise the railways
Over-rule the policy whereby kids get free travel on London buses.
Find out what countries do not have extradiction treaties with Britain (or the EU), put my British property on the market and book a flight.
ReplyDeleteCall an election.
ReplyDeleteResign - but not before sending Blair to the Hague for trial.
ReplyDeleteAdmit that the whole New Labour project has been a farago kept afloat on a welling spring of detritus as spun by Campbell (who should have been paid by Labour, not HMPG) BUT that the one thing in which I totally believed was Iraq (not the dodgy dossier of Campell, purely designed to get the matter past the PLP)and it seems weird that the one honest thing I did should be my legacy.....
ReplyDeleteI'm just surprised there are no deleted postings as yet.
ReplyDeleteword verification: rtonny.
Take annual leave
ReplyDeleteSack Gordon Brown and announce my intention to carry on
ReplyDeleteHide my head in shame, if I were Blair.
ReplyDeleteVictor
There's only one Phillip Schofield!
ReplyDeletePostscript to earlier post: The Blair years 1997-2007 can be summed up in four words 'Cool Britannia, Lord Levy?'
ReplyDelete2nd postscript: Why do you folks think it is clever, useful or effective to use coarse language in public? It reminds me of 16 year olds with 50cc mopeds with the exhausts stripped off, they think it makes them look and sound like powerful machines but everyone else knows they are merely pratts.
I'd sell Wales on Ebay.
ReplyDeletelearn a real trade and then apologise for ...well everything realy cept taxing your car online.
ReplyDeleteI would agree to meet the families of all the servicemen and women killed and injured in My Wars. I would then fall to my knees and beg their forgiveness for the lies I have told, the lack of equipment I have provided and the fact that I am not worthy to walk in their shadows.
ReplyDeleteI would also phone Mrs Kelly and tell her the truth of how her husband was bullied to death in my name.
I would walk barefoot across the United Kingdom in a coarse woolen sack, flagellating myself with a hard whip. I would then follow in the footsteps of the penitent Emperor Henry IV and stand out in the cold all day long, barefoot in the snow (it's summer so I'd need to stand in a bucket and have my aides fill it with ice) seeking forgiveness for going to war in Iraq, for vandalising the constitution, for sowing the seeds for the dismantling of the union via devolution, for surrendering British sovereignty to Europe, for abandoning so many of our ancient legal rights and freedoms, for rendering Parliament meaningless and ineffectual, for smearing those opposed to government policy etc. etc.
ReplyDeleteOn live television I would then prostrate myself before The Queen and kiss her foot, begging her forgiveness on behalf of her people. I would hope that The Queen would be as foriving of me as Pope Gregory VII was of Henry IV.
That would be a start....
Reflections of a Young Fogey: http://www.bloggingyoungfogey.blogspot.com
Shred, Shred, Shred!
ReplyDeleteRepeal the Hunting Act.
ReplyDeleteAs a 'Big Tent' politician Blair never really had an appetite for this kind of illiberal legislation that would unnecessarily piss off a chunk of middle England.
Apologise wholeheartedly to the British people for my lies over Iraq, make a clean breast of it and accept my ten-year stretch. The alternative is to be damned to hell for all eternity.
ReplyDeleteIain,
ReplyDeleteThere's a hell of a difference between what he 'should' do and what he 'would' do. 'Hell' probably being the operative word.
If I was this particular PM, I would set up a webcam link and pay the world's most expensive torturer to practise his art on me in a prolonged and excruciating manner to the point of welcome death on 27 June. It would be what I would deserve - 2 weeks isn't really long enough though.
ReplyDeleteSchofield also toyed with hair dye and then quite rightly thought the better of it.
ReplyDeletecan I go for a bit of a list
ReplyDeleteAnnounce a withdrawal from The EU (please)
sack the chancelor and replace with his arch enemy
Announce a federal solution to rplace the collapsing union
call national and english elections next week
If I were Blair, I would want to get in touch with Radovan Karadzic for some advice on how to stay loose.
ReplyDeleteI'd go to a media event and tell them what I really thought... oh, hang on...
ReplyDeleteHe should visit rural England and speak to the local population to find out what we think of his 10 years.
ReplyDeleteImagine myself into Blair's shoes...with all of my power and denial crumbling around me. I'd get drunk and play my Moody Blues.
ReplyDeleteWe've already said
Goodbye
Since I gotta go,
Woa-oh, had I better go now
Go now, go now (Go now)?
Before you see me cry
I don't want to tell you just what I intend to be now
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin's, darlin' s
I'm still in love with me now
Whoa-oh-oh-oh
We've already said
So long
But I don't wanna go, don't wanna go,
but oh-oh had I better
Go now go now, go now (Go now)?
Or.....what?
Don't you even try
Tellin' me that you really don't want it to end this way
'Cause darlin's, darlin's, can't you see you'll make me wanna stay
Yeah, yeah
Since I gotta go, had I better
Go now go now, go now (Go now)?
Before you see me cry
I don't want to tell you just what I intend to be now
'Cause how many times do I have to tell you darlin's, darlin's
I'm still in love still in love with me now
Whoa-oh-oh-oh
I don't wanna see me go but darlin's, if you won't change your minds
Had I better better go now?
Or...?
That is, of course, unless..........
Pull the troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and whichever tinpot African states we're in at the moment. Withdraw from the EU. Abolish income tax. Push through legislation to privatise the NHS and to shoot cyclists who jump red lights. Oh, and nuke Argentina for old time's sake.
ReplyDeleteTell Jim Naughtie that I always thought he was slimey git and his interest in opera is very boring. Get a good lawyer - not Cherie as she will be in the USA staying with Hilary (and Bill - if he's there) while she amasses $billions to pay off the mortgage - I don't do money! Write a book based on my time as Jackie Milburn's boot boy. Oh, and tell Gordon the Third Way was just a joke!
ReplyDeleteI'd say that I was leaving the Labour Party and forming a right of centre party of my own - Britain needs a right of centre party and there isn't one at the moment. Then I'd cross the floor and look forward to being the junior partner in the inevitable coalition after the next election.
ReplyDeleteI'd phone up an American publisher for my memoirs and arrange for a billion dollar lecture circuit around the US.
ReplyDeleteThen I would switch off my mobile, forward my e-mails to Gordon, and go for a round of golf.
Imagine that you are faced with the fact that everything that you thought was right was wrong. That almost every decision you had made had made your fellow country men and women's lives worse off. That your economic policies had mortgaged off the future to pay for the frivolity of the get something for nothing present. Imagine that you had fundementally destabilised the world order and made the world a much more dangerous place. Imagine that you had imagined youself a shining star, a great leader, a great orator: only to learn that your words were lies and delusional at best, that you were in fact an abject failure and the worst leader Britain had ever produced. Tony Blair should meditate thus. And for the rest of us? Mark your diaries to have a great big piss up in two weeks time! Yippee!!!
ReplyDeletering berlusconi - tell him its safe for him to pay my mortgage now, just like tessa
ReplyDeleteDHL the file containing the REAL UK accounts to Mandelson
Give ALL retired PMs complete immunity from presecution (or move to Saudi)
And then spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder....
If I was me, scrap the Barnett Formula and announce the creation of an English Parliament.
ReplyDeleteIf I was Blair, admit that appointing Alastair Campbell was the biggest mistake of my premiership, admit that his involvement in the preparation of the dossier on Iraqi WMD and subsequent feud with the BBC did more to damage public trust in politics than anything else in the past ten years, and admit that the Government was morally culpable for the death of Dr David Kelly.
I think that Blair would go up in many people's estimations if he were to do this.
If I had the misfortune of being Adolf Damien Blair, I'd commit suicide!
ReplyDeleteAsk the butler to leave a revolver and a bottle of whisky in the study. Tell him not to disturb me until the morning. Then do the decent thing.
ReplyDelete"If you were PM and had two weeks to go, what would you do?"
ReplyDeleteErrrmmm - sack Gordon Brown?!
Go on gardening leave, and an extended holiday to say goodbye to all my mates at the expense of the taxpayer so that Cherie doesn't have to pay for........hang on a mo
ReplyDelete