Tony Blair: Trending quotes

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Tony Blair: 150 quotes1 like

“Powers that are constitutionally there can be used but the Scottish Labour Party is not planning to raise income tax and once the power is given it is like any parish council: it's got the right to exercise it.”

Tony Blair

The Scotsman, 4 April 1997.
Asked whether he would intervene to prevent the Scottish Parliament from raising taxes.
1990s

“I don't like it, to be honest, when politicians make a big thing of their religious beliefs, so I don't make a big thing of it.”

Tony Blair

BBC Newsnight http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/1988874.stm Interview with Jeremy Paxman, 16 May 2002. 2000s

“I understand there is a need for a stable and orderly transition to that leadership, but that people should give me the space to ensure that happens and that this debate is not best conducted in the pages of the Mail on Sunday.”

Tony Blair

Michael White, "I will go in my own time – Blair", The Guardian, 12 May 2005, p. 2.
Speech to the Parliamentary Labour Party, 11 May 2005; the 'leadership' referred to was that of his successor, who was widely assumed to be Gordon Brown.
2000s

“We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years– contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence– Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd.”

Tony Blair

Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030318/debtext/30318-06.htm, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 301, col. 762. House of Commons debate on Iraq, 18 March 2003. 2000s

“Sometimes, and in particular dealing with a dictator, the only chance of peace is a readiness for war.”

Tony Blair

Speech to the Labour conference in Blackpool, 2 October 2002. Perhaps echoes an old latin proverb, Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, be prepared for war).
2000s

“It has been an unrelenting, but, I have to accept, at least partly successful campaign to persuade Britain that Europe is a conspiracy aimed at us, rather than a partnership designed for us and others to pursue our national interest properly in a modern, interdependent world. It is right to confront this campaign head on. Provided that the treaty embodies the essential British positions, we shall agree to it as a Government. Once agreed – either at the June Council, which is our preference, or subsequently – Parliament should debate it in detail and decide upon it. Then, let the people have the final say.”

Tony Blair

Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/vo040420/debtext/40420-06.htm#40420-06_spmin0, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 420, col. 157. House of Commons Statement on the publication White Paper on Europe, 20 April 2004. 2000s

“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

Trevor Kavanagh, "We shall prevail .. terrorists shall not", The Sun, 8 July 2005, p. 18
7 July 2005, statement from Scotland's Gleneagles Hotel, in response to the terrorist attack on the London Underground.
2000s

“The intelligence is clear: [Saddam Hussein] continues to believe that his weapons of mass destruction programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. It is essential to his regional power. Prior to the inspectors coming back in, he was engaged in a systematic exercise in concealment of those weapons.”

Tony Blair

Hansard http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030225/debtext/30225-05.htm#30225-05_head0, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 400, col. 123. House of Commons statement on Iraq, 25 February 2003. 2000s

“The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes.”

Tony Blair

Mail on Sunday, 2 October 1994.
1990s

“Sovereignty rests with me as an English MP and that's the way it will stay.”

Tony Blair

ibid.
1990s

“The battles of this century … are less likely to be the product of extreme political ideology—like those of the 20th century—but they could easily be fought around the questions of cultural or religious difference.”

Tony Blair

As attributed without citation in Awake! magazine (anonymous), January 2015 http://www.jw.org/en/publications/magazines/g201501/watching-the-world-religion/ 2010s

“Analogies with the past are never properly accurate and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading, but in pure chronology I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again… This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace.”

Tony Blair

[Martin Hodgson, Blair accuses Iran of fuelling 'deadly ideology' of militant Islam, http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,,2195043,00.html, The Guardian, 2007-10-19, 2007-10-19]
2000s

“To state a timetable now would simply paralyze the proper working of government, put at risk the changes we are making for Britain and damage the country.”

Tony Blair

Prime Minister's monthly press conference May 2006 http://web.archive.org/20061001142642/www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page9400.asp, Prime Minister's website. 8 May 2006, refusing to set a date for his retirement. 2000s

“Before people crow about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.”

Tony Blair

Prime Minister's monthly press conference, April 2003 http://web.archive.org/20030511155256/www.number10.gov.uk/output/Page3535.asp, Prime Minister's website. 28 April 2003. 2000s

“Any parent wants the best for their children. I am not going to make a choice for my child on the basis of what is the politically correct thing to do.”

Tony Blair

"Mr Blair opts out", Guardian, 2 December 1994. Statement on 1 December 1994, defending his decision to send his eldest son Euan to the London Oratory School which had opted out of local education authority control under a policy which the Labour Party opposed.
1990s

“Tony Blair: Has the Prime Minister secured even the minimal guarantee from the Euro-rebels that, on a future vote of confidence on Europe, they will support him?
John Major: I can sense the concern in the right hon. Gentleman's voice. Perhaps he would like to tell me whether he has received the support of the 50 MPs who defied his Front Bench over Maastricht; of the 40 who defied him over European finance; on a single currency, where the right hon. Member for Copeland (Dr. Cunningham) was in dispute with the deputy leader of the Labour party; and on clause IV, which half his, I think he called them, infantile MEPs want to keep. He does not, and his deputy leader does one day and does not the next. These are party matters. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what his position is?
Tony Blair: There is one very big difference—I lead my party, he follows his.”

Tony Blair

Hansard http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199495/cmhansrd/1995-04-25/Orals-2.html, House of Commons 6th series, vol. 258, cols. 655-6. Prime Minister's Question Time, 25 April 1995. 1990s

“She was the people's princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.”

Tony Blair

Frank Millar, "Shocked Britain mourns loss of Princess Diana in Paris car crash", Irish Times, 1 September 1997, p. 1.
Statement on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 31 August 1997.
1990s

“A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege, class or background, but on the equal worth of all.”

Tony Blair

Tony Blair's speech in full http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/460009.stm, BBC News online Speech to the Labour Party conference, 28 September 1999. 1990s

“This is the time not just for this Government– or, indeed, for this Prime Minister—but for this House to give a lead: to show that we will stand up for what we know to be right; to show that we will confront the tyrannies and dictatorships and terrorists who put our way of life at risk; to show, at the moment of decision, that we have the courage to do the right thing.”

Tony Blair

Hansard http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmhansrd/vo030318/debtext/30318-09.htm#30318-09_spmin2, House of Commons, 6th series, vol. 301, cols. 773-774. Conclusion of speech in the House of Commons debate on Iraq, 18 March 2003. 2000s

“We've already discovered, just so far, the remains of 400,000 people in mass graves.”

Tony Blair

Peter Beaumont, " PM admits graves claim 'untrue' http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1263830,00.html", The Observer, 18 July, 2004. Statement reported in "Iraq's Legacy of Terror: Mass Graves" produced by USAID, dated 20 November, 2003. 2000s