Blair told the British people that Iraq's WMDs posed a fatal threat forbidden by the UN but his real intention was regime change. Whitehall's traditional machinery of government would have stopped that, Shikiri says. Blairism was not an ideology nor a set of principles - he was modernization without meaning. In the name of Britain, he fought wars to remove dictators and now profits from serving dictators. The tragedy is obliged on Britain for the rest of our lives.
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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