Tony Blair
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Tony Blair was the Labour Prime Minister of Britain from 1997-2007, he was replaced by the "charismatic" Gordon Brown in a bloodless coup.
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[edit] Scandals
During his premiership certain MPs repeatedly left under clouds and were readmitted to the Cabinet. David Blunkett and Peter Mandelson were repeat offenders. There was considerable suspicion that peerages and similar honours had been given to Labour party donors (police investigation has, as yet, not resulted in prosecution). The Blairs (Tony & Cherie) have been widely characterised as money hungry opportunists.[citation needed]
[edit] Relationship with George W. Bush
While the US and the UK have had abnormally strong relations throughout the 20th Century, and Blair also enjoyed a strong relationship with Clinton, his relationship with President George W. Bush angered many Brits. As many in Great Britain strongly opposed the Iraq War, and Tony Blair was seen as just following Bush into it, he has often been accused of being "Bush's Poodle." Many believe that this was one of the main reasons why the British public wanted him ousted. Tony Blair believed that his decision to participate in the Iraq War showed real leadership, which under his definition, meant ignoring what the electorate wanted and unquestioningly being led by a different leader.
This rather obscures the fact that Blair already has a long history of interventionism and of trying to use the might of the Western world to reshape the world.
[edit] Legacy
Many people believe that Tony Blair's legacy will be Britain's involvement in Iraq; however this totally ignores many of his other failures. He was also responsible for rolling back civil liberties and giving Britain more CCTV cameras per capita than any other country in the world, signing colonial-style unequal treaties with the US, gigantic hospital waiting lists, and the collapse of a reliable rail network, to name but a few.
