British Prime Minister (1953- )
The single hardest thing for a practicing politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don't give politics a first thought all day long.
TONY BLAIR
A Journey: My Political Life
It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.
TONY BLAIR
statement in response to the terrorist attack on the London Underground, 7 July 2005
We've tried three forms of intervention in the Middle East; we've tried full-on intervention in Iraq, we've tried semi-intervention in Libya, and we tried non-intervention or very limited intervention in Syria. All of them are difficult.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
You cannot teach people hate and then ask them to practice peace. But neither can you teach people peace except by according them dignity and granting them hope.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
Ask me my three main priorities for government, and I tell you: education, education and education.
TONY BLAIR
The Times, 2 October 1996
The choice for Labour is to renew itself as the serious, progressive, non-Conservative competitor for power in British politics; or retreat from such an ambition, in which case over time it will be replaced.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so ... prudent.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party conference, 28 September 1999
The thing always is to go to where people really are and what they're really feeling about life. And then politics is about listening and it's about leading. You know, you've got to listen but you've also got to lead.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, August 24, 2016
There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere... Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
In today's world, with these great populist currents of feeling, you can either ride the anger, or you can provide the answer.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
September 11 was not an isolated event, but a tragic prologue, Iraq another act, and many further struggles will be set upon this stage before it's over. There never has been a time when the power of America was so necessary or so misunderstood, or when, except in the most general sense, a study of history provides so little instruction for our present day.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
Broadsheets today face the same pressures as tabloids, broadcasters increasingly the same pressure as broadsheets. The audience needs to be arrested, held and their emotions engaged, something that is interesting is less powerful than something that makes you angry or shocked. And the consequences of this are acute. First, scandal or controversy beats ordinary reporting hands down. News is rarely news unless it generates heat as much as or more than light. Second, attacking motive is far more potent than attacking judgment. It is not enough for someone to make an error, it has to be venal, conspiratorial.
TONY BLAIR
lecture, "Our Nation's Future", 12 June 2007
Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party Conference referring to the fact that no WMDs had been found in Iraq, 28 September 2004
I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party conference, 3 October 1995
Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the European Parliament, 23 June 2005
The Labour Party is presently marooned on fantasy island. I understand would-be leaders will want to go there and speak the native language in the hope of persuading enough eventually to migrate to the mainland of reality.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
The threat comes because in another part of our globe there is shadow and darkness, where not all the world is free, where many millions suffer under brutal dictatorship, where a third of our planet lives in a poverty beyond anything even the poorest in our societies can imagine, and where a fanatical strain of religious extremism has arisen, that is a mutation of the true and peaceful faith of Islam. And because in the combination of these afflictions a new and deadly virus has emerged. The virus is terrorism whose intent to inflict destruction is unconstrained by human feeling and whose capacity to inflict it is enlarged by technology.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
When we invade Afghanistan or Iraq, our responsibility does not end with military victory. Finishing the fighting is not finishing the job.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
You know, nowadays, if you step out at all into any area of public controversy, you're going to get a bucket of something unpleasant poured over you, so you just get used to that.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers?
TONY BLAIR
Labour Party Conference speech, 26 September 2006