British Prime Minister (1953- )
We became complacent; we became the managers of the status quo, not the change makers, and we've got to renew the center.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
Some may belittle politics but we who are engaged in it know that it is where people stand tall. Although I know that it has many harsh contentions, it is still the arena that sets the heart beating a little faster. If it is, on occasions, the place of low skulduggery, it is more often the place for the pursuit of noble causes. I wish everyone, friend or foe, well. That is that. The end.
TONY BLAIR
last official words as Prime Minister, 27 June 2007
There is a myth that though we love freedom, others don't; that our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture; that freedom, democracy, human rights, the rule of law are American values, or Western values; that Afghan women were content under the lash of the Taliban; that Saddam was somehow beloved by his people; that Milosevic was Serbia's savior. Members of Congress, ours are not Western values, they are the universal values of the human spirit. And anywhere... Anywhere, anytime ordinary people are given the chance to choose, the choice is the same: freedom, not tyranny; democracy, not dictatorship; the rule of law, not the rule of the secret police.
TONY BLAIR
speech to joint session of the U.S. Congress, July 17, 2003
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
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
statement in response to the terrorist attack on the London Underground, 7 July 2005
You know, nowadays, if you step out at all into any area of public controversy, you're going to get a bucket of something unpleasant poured over you, so you just get used to that.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, September 25, 2017
Do I know I'm right? Judgements aren't the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I'm like any other human being, as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party Conference referring to the fact that no WMDs had been found in Iraq, 28 September 2004
I think the worry all the time, I think in, not just in Europe but outside, is where does the US stand in this slightly difficult space between America first and America alone.
TONY BLAIR
interview, CNBC, November 5, 2019
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
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
The extraordinary thing is the Labour Party's desire to rewrite its only period of majority government in half a century in negative terms.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
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
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
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
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
The spirit of our age is one in which the prejudices of the past are put behind us, where our diversity is our strength.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party National Policy Forum, 16 July 2005
The Labour Party is presently marooned on fantasy island. I understand would-be leaders will want to go there and speak the native language in the hope of persuading enough eventually to migrate to the mainland of reality.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.
TONY BLAIR
House of Commons statement on discussions with President Bush over the Middle East, 10 April 2002
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
There was no way of uniting the country over Brexit. Britain is deeply divided over it. Now that Brexit will happen, we must make the best of it and the country must come together.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019