TONY BLAIR QUOTES

British Prime Minister (1953- )

Tony Blair quote

So, messrs Johnson and Cummings had a strategy for victory, and we had one for defeat. And I noted the cockiness of the Johnson visit to Sedgefield to rub salt in the wound! But I would like to see their strategic brilliance measured against a team other than one whose striker was directionally oblivious, its midfield comatose, the defence absent in the stand chatting to a small portion of the fans and its goalkeeper behind the net retweeting a clip of his one save in a 9-0 thrashing.

TONY BLAIR

New Statesman, December 18, 2019


For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog.

TONY BLAIR

A Journey: My Political Life


The right ideas in politics never work without the right mentality. I mean the mentality of government. The Labour Party is not an NGO, and not a pressure group. Its aim is not to trend on Twitter, or to have celebrities (temporarily) fawn over it or to glory in a bubble of adulation pricked by the sharp point of the first tough decision. Our task is to win power and get our hands stuck into the muddy mangle of governing, where out of it can be pulled the prize of progress measured not in fine words spoken at a distance, but in real grounded changes in the well-being of the people.

TONY BLAIR

New Statesman, February 20, 2020


I have always believed that politics is first and foremost about ideas; Without a powerful commitment to goals and values, governments are rudderless and ineffective, however large their majorities.

TONY BLAIR

The Third Way


To win power, we need self-discipline not self-indulgence; listening to what people are truly saying, not hearing only the parts we want to hear.

TONY BLAIR

New Statesman, December 18, 2019


Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it.

TONY BLAIR

speech, Sept. 27, 2005

Tags: global warming


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

TONY BLAIR

Mail on Sunday, Oct. 2, 1994


The spread of freedom is the best security for the free. It is our last line of defense and our first line of attack. And just as the terrorist seeks to divide humanity in hate, so we have to unify it around an idea. And that idea is liberty.

TONY BLAIR

speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003


I think conspiracy theories have gotten more and more close to the mainstream because what you've got is a fragmentation of the media, where the media becomes much more polarized today, left and right.... You choose your own reality and you--social media then amplifies those conspiracy theories. So that's why I say social media is itself a revolutionary phenomenon. And one thing that gets really troubling to me is that some of these--these two conversations are going on with their own, often, conspiratorial view of the world, left and right, and that's what makes the center ground very difficult.

TONY BLAIR

interview, Politico, August 24, 2016


I mean, what happens is, wherever you go anywhere in the world, and leaders start talking to each other you get into a competition as to who's politics is crazy. I always say to people I think we're ahead, but you know it's a lot of people are competing to catch up with us.

TONY BLAIR

interview, CNBC, November 5, 2019


I am a Socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly.

TONY BLAIR

maiden speech as MP for Sedgefield, July 6, 1983


No sentient political party goes into an election with a leader who has a net approval rating of 40 percent. The takeover of the Labour Party by the far left turned it into a glorified protest movement, with cult trimmings, utterly incapable of being a credible government.

TONY BLAIR

New Statesman, December 18, 2019


Well, America is never a laughingstock because it's too powerful for that. But people do want clarity and consistency.

TONY BLAIR

interview, Politico, September 25, 2017


The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge.

TONY BLAIR

address to the the G8 climate change summit in London, November 1, 2005


We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world.

TONY BLAIR

final speech to the Labour Party Annual Conference as leader, 26 September 2006


So, of course, the visions are painted in the colours of the rainbow, and the reality is sketched in duller tones of black and white and grey. But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That is your call. But believe one thing, if nothing else. I did what I thought was right for our country.

TONY BLAIR

announcing his impending resignation, Trimdon Labour Club, 10 May 2007


The world is moving so fast, if you get stuck on what I call the sort of hard shoulder of nostalgia, the world is just going to pass you by.

TONY BLAIR

interview, Politico, September 25, 2017


Look, I'm a person, an individual with a character and part of my character is about what I believe in and part of my beliefs obviously is a religious conviction. I simply hesitate whenever I get drawn into this territory because I have found, over time, that it either leads to people misunderstanding the basis upon which you are taking decisions or it leads to people trying to colonise God or religion for one particular political position. I make no claims to that at all.

TONY BLAIR

interview with Jeremy Paxman, BBC Newsnight, 16 May 2002


Our ultimate weapon is not our guns but our beliefs.

TONY BLAIR

Tony Blair in His Own Words


I was born in 1953, a child of the Cold War era, raised amid the constant fear of a conflict with the potential to destroy humanity. Whatever other dangers may exist, no such fear exists today. Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. That is a prize beyond value.

TONY BLAIR

The Sun, May 28, 1997