Jun 28 2007
The departure of Tony Blair - Parliament hits a new low
I had a premonition I would not approve of Tony Blair’s style of departure from the Commons, so I watched proceedings from the TV in my office rather than jostling into the chamber. I am so glad I made that decision.
There was no point in asking him anything more, after ten years of his evasions, refusals to answer??and unwillingness to listen to sound advice on so many things. His decision to treat the Commons to a Variety Show performance was symptomatic of the whole Blair approach to Parliament. At least he had the honesty to tell us he never liked the place, but did fear it. That shows it was not all in vain, and maybe the weekly requirement to come before us provided some much needed ??brake on his intentions and actions.
The stage management of the whole show was designed to send him off in the best possible light. There was no attempt at balance - with the finale provided by two tributes, one from Paisley and the other from the Father of the House.
I think David Cameron was right to be charming and to say pleasant things on a personal level, as the time for him to fight Blair is over. What I found too much to accept was that Blair should go out to applause. Applause has never been part of the Commons tradition for a variety of good reasons. It is particularly inappropriate for such a contentious figure.
Tony Blair reported to us three more deaths from his wars last week. His senior staff still have a police enquiry hanging over them concerning the award of peerages. He has left us the loathsome EU draft treaty, which would mean if implemented he surrendered 140 areas of public policy to EU majority voting. He leaves us?? bodged constitutional arrangements in Scotland, Wales and London, and a purged but not reformed House of Lords. He has plundered our civil liberties and our wallets and purses. Never has a government spent so much of the people’s money to so little effect.
He did not deserve a standing ovation. History will be rightly more sceptical of his claims to greatness than the Commons was yesterday.
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John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
JR:
Pleased to read your comments. The proceedings in the Commons yesterday were nauseating and typify the severe decline of our parliamentary democracy under Blair’s premiership. There seem to be so few people of principle now in the Commons which now resembles a weird mixture of a “reality” TV show and some communist regime from the past.