Bush and Blair are shaking things up... will it do any good?
603761
Well....with there own parties wanting to bail out on them..I doubt it...those two have made there bed...now have to sleep in it
468024
Probably not. The Iraquis can't seem to make up their minds on how to work together.
642078
Are you implying that governments manipulate data to make themselves look good???\n\nBush is just as angelic as Blair so what do you have to worry about ?
931450
That's just a rehash of Blair's 'with rights comes responsibility' line - for everyone but him - he's just been giving his best one liners to Bush.  That couldn't have taken long!
644306
We are an amazingly divided people and need to get over our petty differences if we ever hope to do anything good on a large scale.\n\nGetting rid of Bush would also be nice.
1078774
If we win the World Cup it will sure help Blair. Not sure what he's ever done for sport though. It is said that national sporting success helps lift the spirit of the population and increases productivity.
943719
I agree wholeheartedly. Whether or not Bush is doing a good job, and he isn't, he should be the least of Britain's concern. Last I heard, Tony Blair wasn't any better, so they need not complain about our government. Plus, we're actually being affected. They have no idea personally what it feels like to have a man like Bush in power.
569831
As one example, President Bush and British Prime Minister \nTony Blair meet and/or speak often to discuss common national goals and concerns.
67588
Yes. And how the fcuk did Bush land back in the White House? Things that make ya go hmmmm...
837396
Diplomacy can not make up for stupid political decisions. But at least it can present a government's best case to the outside world.\n\nAlso, it can garner support for marginal cases by "calling in chips" for past and future favors. 95% of British people have opposed the Iraqi war from the start. Yet Bush somehow got Blair to support him with troops -- and got numerous other countries to supply at least token forces. We will never (or not for 30 years maybe) know the way he did that, what he promised, how he cajoled. But it was diplomacy that did it.\n\nDiplomacy has existed since pre-Roman times -- since biblical times -- so it must work. Since the 1980s, however, it's changed because CNN does so much reporting, and reports from embassies are less urgent. Also communications have improved; technical staff from governments speak to each other, meet up at conferences. And almost everybody speaks English now.\n\nDiplomacy often fails, but that is no reason to abandon it. The reason why diplomatic staff are rotated every few years is because they are supposed to view local cultures and systems through US eyes. And make representations to local government, industry and the press based on instructions from home. Just as in court half the time advocacy fails and the other side wins, the game must be played even if it's hopeless. Often enough one does succeed.\n\nThe worst is when seasoned diplomats see the inevitable failure of a proposed government policy and are ignored. The Iraq war is such a case. The quagmire was predicted. But as is often the case, negative intelligence and diplomatic opinion were suppressed. As documents go through editing in the process of rising through the ranks and getting clearance at political levels, they tend to be rewritten to reflect what the President wants to hear. That's why the Shah got his visa in 1979, and that's why the US went to war in Iraq.
116730
It’s a matter of semantics; Bush and Blair are terrorists to other people, especially many Muslims.  Since the American Government decides what information to release and what spin to put on it, the Government has an enormous amount of control over the way things are named and therefore perceived, thus giving them the good guy status.   \nIn a sense, it's a game of words.  Bombers, hijackers, gunmen, militants, extremists, attackers pick one.  We've done is to them, they've done it to us.  We spin things to make us look right, they spin things to make themselves look right.  \nIn the end, you're going to have to decide for yourself if Bush and Blair are terrorists or freedom fighters.  \n\nI myself would tend to say that they are terrorizing a great deal of innocent women men and children, and are therefore terrorists.
1052002
Absolutely. Could not agree more. He's been in power nine years and suddenly he's noticed it's not working.\nCrucially too, did you spot how he says it's time to redress the balance, not between victims and criminals, but "victims and suspects"? Not that he's planning on getting tough with people convicted of crimes, but that he's planning to strip away still more rights from people who are simply accused of crimes. People fought and died for centuries to win those liberties and judicial protections but Tony "imprisonment without trial" Blair, reckons they should go. Dear God, imagine if Mrs Thatcher had come up with this lunacy. We thought she was a mad old witch, but she didn't charge us for going to university and if George Bush had told her to get busy with invading Iraq she'd have told him where to stick it.
950505
A few things: \n\n(1) As mentioned above, Blair is a member of the Labour Party.\n(2) While the Labour Party and the US Democrats have simliar ideology just as the US Republican party and the British Conservative party do, it is a mistake to assume the two pairs see eye to eye on everything. British and US politics are not the same and have different traditions.\n(3) Often, when the US or Britain see themselves in a crises, they have tended to stand together in the past 100 years. Churchill was a conservative while FDR was a Democrat but worked well together. \n(4) Sometimes these things are a matter of personal chemistry between the leaders of the parties. Reagan and Thatcher got along great, but the first Bush and Thatcher did not. The first Bush also did not get along well with Majors and this caused some strain between the GOP and the Conservative party.
813873
PM Blair would have far better tastes....\nBut, on the other hand, if it WERE true, Bush would make a hell of a biatch if he weren't bum ugly.\nPoetic justice, too. Bushbaby getting the bumming he has given the rest of the world.\n--CJ "The Cheeky Lad"
946267
well let me see Tony Blair:\n\nLied about the war\nCreated foundation hospitals\nIncreased higher education fees\nAllowed buy to let mortgages (which has priced me and many others out of the market)\nWas the Creator of ASBO'S (cos they really work)\nCreated around 1,000 new pieces of legislation that's more than any other government.\nOh and his people let out some of the most dangerous crimminals rather than deport them.\n\nSo I'd say yes!
881065
No. Tony Blair and others have tried to pull that one.
1123629
Oil.  Blair was foolish enough to believe that the war would be a surgical cut and move out operation; that it would be a piece of cake: Invade, loot, colonize and people would throw their arms in welcome.  Yeah right. Power went to his head and blinded him of reality. Too bad because Blair is an intelligent man, unlike Bush.\n\nI think that Tony Blair and the UK government that supported him also suffered from an inferiority complex.  Europe is becoming stronger and increasingly united, the US is the world's super power, China is climbing the economic and trade ladder at incredible speed, but what about the UK? It's sort of searching for it's role in the globalized world - it was once an empire and now it's not.  I think that the UK's involvement had something to do with an deep-seated thirst for some long lost empire lust and power hunger.