I voted Labour back in the 1997 General Elections for the first time in my life and it was because I was so impressed with Tony Blair.
He was full of enthusiasm and energy, he had vision and he looked and sounded like a Prime Minister should. Tony Blair was the man of our times.
So how does it feel ten years on as Prime Minister Blair spends his last few days in Downing Street and travelling the globe saying farewell to the world’s leaders? Of course, he has made mistakes and had his fair share of successes but will history be kind to him?
At the moment people are focussing on Iraq as his biggest legacy. Of course, as our soldiers and UK civilians die on Iraqi soil, it is a common topic of conversation and in the news. In general, it is not favourable towards the Prime Minister or President Bush. The topic has been discussed at such length that it will serve much purpose in doing it to death here; suffice to say that only time will tell how that part of world history unfolds and enable future generations to judge the decisions made.
How do I feel here and now? I want to believe that U.S. and UK deaths have not been in vain. I want history to judge Tony Blair kindly. But, I fear that the ends have not justified the means and that it was a huge mistake. Time only will tell.
But I fear that the huge legacy left by Tony Blair’s term in office is not yet part of the public’s consciousness. I think that the biggest mistake he and his government made was to abandon common sense for socialist idealism when they deliberately under-estimated the huge numbers of immigrants who would pour into the UK from Eastern Europe.
This morning, I was shopping in town. My local newsagent put up a poster for me for one of my events and commented on some advertising postcards, offering rooms and lodgings, he was displaying. He told me that, until recently, an en-suite room in a nice house was costing people £50 a week. Since my home town of Basingstoke was “invaded” by Polish and other Eastern European migrants, they have now shot up to around £100 a week. This is leaving local people either unable to find or unable to afford their own accommodation.
In the shop was a sales representative. He told us that he had been to a city recently to visit a corner shop but found two men blocking the road. These Eastern Europeans came to his car and asked where he was going; he explained that he was visiting the local shop but they said this was not permitted as the shop only bought items “suitable for the local population”. He was turned away so rang the shop owner only to be told that the area was saturated with foreigners who were dictating what he sold and who he bought supplies from. He dare not buy from anywhere else as he would have no trade.
He reported this to his head office who investigated. They found that there are some 20,000 Eastern Europeans in that city and there are “no go” areas for English people. They have swamped some areas and made them into some form of ghetto.
This reminded me that I was contemplating running a monthly Polish night to enable the local Polish community to get together. On informal advice from local officials I abandoned the idea; their concerns were that gangs of Polish workers have already been banned from town centre bars because of their violent actions.
My local authority licenses taxi drivers and have recently had to introduce English tests because of the complaints from passengers who have had to deal with drivers, to be fair not just Eastern Europeans, who were unable to operate effectively due to an inability to communicate in English.
These issues are causing ordinary local people to complain quietly to one another as it is part of our English culture to not complain too loudly unless provoked. I believe that the migration issue will provoke common folk to complain loudly and, quite probably, to react violently in the medium to long term.
My fear is that cultural unrest is going to be Tony Blair’s lasting legacy and that his idealism will have caused future generations to face a difficult and violent future. It raises all sorts of concerns for businesses and communities and I am not sure what the future holds for us.
This article first appeared as a blog on the My Telegraph website (UK) - June 2007
