British Prime Minister (1953- )
I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.
TONY BLAIR
A Journey: My Political Life
The first rule in politics is that there are no rules, at least not in the sense of inevitable defeats or inevitable victories. If you have the right policy and the right strategy, you always have a chance of winning. Without them, you can lose no matter how certain the victory seems.
TONY BLAIR
A Journey: My Political Life
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
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
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
I think the same feelings that gave rise to Brexit gave rise to the election of Donald Trump. In my view, the important thing for those of us from the progressive side of politics is not just to go in head-on opposition to all that, but to try and work out why it happened, and how we meet the anxieties of people without getting into the politics of fear.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
I think we are dealing with what is essentially the inevitable political challenges of globalization. In other words, as the world transforms, moves closer together, jobs are displaced, and the world of work completely changes the way we live, the way we think. As that revolution goes on around us, it is going to pose political challenges of which immigration is one very obvious one, which are going to be extremely difficult to deal with. But it's like free trade. You know, in the end, if we go protectionist, we'll make a mistake.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, August 24, 2016
What amazes me is how many people are happy for Saddam to stay. They ask why we don't get rid of Mugabe, why not the Burmese lot. Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can you should.
TONY BLAIR
New York Times, 5 September 2003
Sometimes it is better to lose and do the right thing than to win and do the wrong thing.
TONY BLAIR
speech in House of Commons, 9 November 2005
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
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, "Mr. Blair Opts Out", Guardian, 2 December 1994
We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.
TONY BLAIR
Daily Mail, 8 July 1998
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
statement on the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, 31 August 1997
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, 28 April 2003
I can't stand politicians who wear God on their sleeves.
TONY BLAIR
Sunday Telegraph, 7 April 1996
You know, one thing I've learned about peace processes: They're always frustrating, they're often agonizing, and occasionally they seem hopeless. But for all that, having a peace process is better than not having one.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
Okay, so one thing I've learned over a long period time in politics is not to get mixed up in someone else's politics. I've got enough problems back here at home, so we'll leave all these questions around Ukraine and impeachment to American politics.
TONY BLAIR
interview, CNBC, November 5, 2019
What always happens, in my experience, is that people always think American politics is very different, but usually it is a predictor of what happens in the politics elsewhere.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, August 24, 2016
Technology is changing the way we live and we work and we think. It's going to transform the world, and yet I think there is an alarming sort of disconnect between the world of public policy-making, and the world of technology.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
Bluntly, what Labour has stood for in terms of values has been magnificent; its achievements in government huge; but as a political competitor, it has too often been a failure. It has only once been elected for two successive full terms; only once for three; and both as New Labour, a period much of today's party wants to disown.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, February 20, 2020