Chilcot, the referendum and English football

Looks like there is a thread through all of these.

Chilcot reveals that Blair tried and failed to influence American actions. We are obsessing with our role in Iraq, in reality the USA took all the significant decisions.

During the referendum, many people thought that the UK is big enough to be a world player outside Europe.

With English football, we always expected them to be better than the reality.

Perhaps we should change our name from Great Britain to just Britain or Little Britain.

We need to realise we are not a massive empire, a great force in World football, or economic power house in global terms.

Time to wake up smell the coffee.

 

Unfortunately some politicians believe we still are a great nation.

We really ought to concentrate on being a good nation

 

A very sensible post, Y Goch. The collapse in the pound, the downturn in stock markets, the loss of our Triple A credit rating and the fall in confidence in commercial property funds all attest to the markets' and the financial institutions' views of our prospects outside the EU. The Leavers don't have, and never did have a plan. Their clamour to recognise EU nationals' rights to live in Britain without extracting reciprocal promises for UK citizens living in Europe shows their lack of understanding.

The rush to condemn Tony Blair with the Chilcott hindsight which took seven years to assemble, and doesn't find any dishonesty on Blair's part similarly shows the absence of any analytical thought on the part of the usual rent-a-mob suspects. You have to defend by anticipating where the ball will be, rather than waiting till it's arrived there (which will of course be too late).

 

That rent-a-mob as you call them have been condemning Blair since we started the war on Iraq, they haven't just jumped on Chilcott, Chilcot happened because of their protesting.

I don't think there was any dishonesty on Blair's part, but there was lots of stupidity, lots of ignoring the advice of experts and lots of acting without thinking through the consequences.

 

Wouldn't disagree with much of that Rosco, but if stupidity were a crime on the part of politicians then we'd need to build some more courts. It's worth recalling that in 2005 - two years after the invasion - Blair and his government were returned again with a 66 seat majority. I don't necessarily include you in this, but it seems to me that to some, Blair's biggest crime was being an electorally successful centre right politician.

 

I see what you did there

 

I can remember when

Britain felt like it was great - the 1960s, we led the world in music, fashion and football (well England anyway). The future looked like it was ours for the taking, post-war austerity had ended and men were walking on the moon we could do anything. Sadly it's been mostly downhill ever since and I don't blame immigrants for it in any way at all, these islands have always been a melting pot of ethnicity back to the Angles, Celts, Saxons, Norse, Normans.

 

Re: I can remember when

I am not old enough to argue with this statement. But did it really? Was South Yorkshire really buzzing in the 60s? The area I remember from my youth was a bit grim if I am honest. London and Liverpool may have been making amazing music. But I was still singing “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” in Chapel, like the generation before and before that. Are things not always better looking back? Some people even remember the Thatcher years fondly. By then I was doing a PhD on urban weeds. It was a great time to study these as most UK cities were run down and made ideal field sites.

 

Re: I can remember when

It felt like it to me, I was born in 1956 and I have vague memories of the 2-bedroom terraced house in Thurnscoe which had no bathroom and the toilet the other side of the yard. Then we moved to Bolton on Dearne in 1960 and we had 2 toilets one being in a bathroom. The 60s felt modern even in the grim north, girls started wearing mini-skirts and when you got your photos from the chemists, they were in colour.

 

Re: I can remember when

We still have indoor toilets, girls wearing mini-skirts and photos in colour though.

 

To précis : we're **** and we know we are.

 

So why cant britian drag its self up off its arse and become great again. Become a solid industrialand economic powerhouse. Become a leading nation again?

Or should be just accept our lot as being has beens and let others get on with it?

 

We can by collaborating with other likeminded liberal states so we have enough clout to have some real impact on the world stage – Oh wait a minute….

 

Recommend reading this.

Depressing but well reasoned.


https://www.opencanada.org/features/brexit-post-mortem-17-takeaways-fallen-david-cameron/

 

We're the fifth biggest economy in the world on GDP.

 

Re: I can remember when

But it was all new then, never seen before, we didn't know that girls legs were that long....

 

Nope we have already slipped into sixth since Brexit.

 

Is that where you draw the line at economic powerhouses then, just the world's top five nations?

I'm no Kipper or Brexiteer but it's ridiculous to claim we're no longer a global player. We are.

 

Please can I draw you back to the start of the thread. It is clear from Chilcot that Blair had almost no impact at all on the USA, or the Iraq war or what happened afterwards.

 

We can still do that, outside of being part of a political union.