Tony Blair's big problem is that he can never be forgiven by two forces in British society the Labour left and the Tory right. Tony Blair presided over a liberalisation of policy on things like gay rights against the opposition of the conservative party both in the lords and to a significant extent in the commons. I would suggest to you that far from being a blight for all his occasional wrong judgments and so on actually left this country a much better place as evidence by the Olympics of 2012 in the country he found in 1997. We will talk more about what we think were and we think were the education achievements and the health achievements after our first witness, Professor Emeritus Margaret Brown at King’s College
Tony Blair is the man who reinvented Labour, won a landslide majority in 1997 and went on to win three elections, becoming Labour’s longest-serving prime minister. He is also the man accused of lies, hubris, money-making deals and taking us into an illegal war.
This episode features a live event which Intelligence Squared hosted in London in March 2016, when we put Tony Blair on trial and examined his legacy on foreign policy, health, education and much more.
Levelling charges against him was Tom Bower, investigative journalist and author of Broken Vows: Tony Blair and the Tragedy of Power. Defending him was the journalist and Times columnist David Aaronovitch.
This event was originally produced by Hannah Kaye. This series was produced by Farah Jassat and Catharine Hughes, with editing and artwork from Catharine Hughes. Music is by Lesfm.
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