Looks to me that Standee is happy for people to have opinions, as long as they agree with his. And then has the nerve to have a go at other people for having opinions.

Perhaps next time Standee posts we should all just agree with him and leave it at that.

I'm just bloody glad he chose not to have children.

Describing Tony Blair as average politically is ridiculous. He was the most politically shrewd politician we have had for decades. That doesn't mean everything he did was brilliant or correct - his decisions on Iraq finished him off IMO (something gets them all in the end) but as a politician he is light years ahead of anyone on either front bench at the moment. The only people that scared him were the likes of Robin Cook.



You certainly need a salesman, which is what Cameron is (it is all he is in fact) but behind the scenes the work is still done by the Sir Humphrey's. The civil servants at the FCO for example are the ones who know how to negotiate as was shown by what happened when you don't use them in that fiasco before Christmas when Cameron froze them and Hague out of the EU summit negotiations.

Aye, can you imagine the moaning if he had to pay for his own as well as yours, mine and everyone else's?

If you take out of the equation his disastrous ventures into foreign policy, I thought Blair's domestic politics were the most in touch with mainstream UK opinion of any major politician I can remember, hence him winning three elections including two huge landslides. A lot of his views on responsibilities as well as rights, rule of law and order, 'hand up rather than hand out' on welfare, would have been broadly shared by the public and the business community liked the fact that he was essentially pro business and didn't interfere with them or tax them too highly. Blair was Labour leader for 13 years and in all that time the Tories were never in the ball game, even at the height of his unpopularity over the Iraq war and tuition fees in 2003-2004, it was only when people saw that Blair was going to be handing over the reins in his last 18 months, that Labour's dominance dropped, and that was a very messy succession that IMO sowed the seeds of Labour's defeat in 2010.

The biggest handicap he had was having Brown in the Treasury and his cabal of allies effectively pursuing a different agenda to his. I think if Blair had kept his nose out of foreign policy and had a 'Blairite' Chancellor (eg had Darling been in No.11 from 1997 rather than Brown) I think Blair could have managed a fourth term in office, or at least a Blairite successor like David Miliband would have won the fourth term for Labour.

However the flipside of that is with a Blairite Chancellor and no policy distractions we might have gone into the Euro.

Do you remember when he was bleating on and on when Cameron didn't bow down to Europe. Making out the world was going to end, total scaremongering. Well we are all still here and Cameron is more popular than ever.

It's a rugby league forum, league is a northern sport. They love Labour and socialism up there and haven't quite forgiven Maggie for when she didn't let the miners get what they wanted.

I strongly suspect Europe is still here and has rather more of a say than Little England.

Or do you think that Little England carries more weight in the world? If you do I suspect you are perhaps incorrect.

"These are the hard yards of opposition. We have taken the hard road, not the line of least resistance. I think it is a fight. I always knew it was going to be a fight. It is one I relish – I never expected it to be anything else."

Dont think he's done himself any favours with this. When have Labour taken the hard road under Miliband? Taking the line of least resistance probably sums up his leadership.