The Main Successes and Failures of Tony Blairs Government - Essay Example

? The main successes and failures of tony Blair’s new labor government 1997- 2007 Introduction Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was bornin 1953 in the United Kingdom, a graduate of University of Oxford and many other recognized institutions. He was elected Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in the year 1983 to 2007 and from 1994 to 2007, leader of the Labour Party after the dead of John Smith. During the 1997 general elections, the Labour Party won elections winning 418 seats enabling him to serve as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. During his first term as a Prime Minister, Tony Blair formed a 22 member cabinet that had little experience outside politics and without experience of government. This implies that the government was not stable and had no strong probability to solve governmental issues or give firm stands concerning the United Kingdom hence Blair had to work hard under his personal capacity to ensure that the UK was better placed as compared to earlier governments. Tony Blair’s regime as a Prime Minister achieved a landslide of successes though on the other side, the government failed to address some national and international challenges as discussed below (Shaw, 2012: 56). Achievements of tony Blair’s government 1. Development Tony Blair being a Member of Parliament before winning the 1997 general elections had a clue on the sidelines to follow in order to enhance development and growth of the United Kingdom. Though this seem to be unrealistic due to the less informed his cabinet was, he made a lot of positive strides across the entire world. The Prime Minister reasoned out with the all the political parties, British public as well as the media against joining the Eurozone to adopt the Euro. This act brought internal cooperation and peace as the nation spoke in one voice (Gunter & Forrester, 2008: 151). Being a learned person, Blair new well that motivation was key to success and quality work. He therefore introduced the National minimum wage and went as far as raising it. The move positively enhanced the living standards and created a great correlation to the general provision of services which include government and non-governmental based. In the early years, Tony Blair held several meetings with key African leaders showing how personally he was concerned on developing Africa and making it a free sate of success, a message that went down into giving the Africans more attention beyond the issues of aid. The Great 8 (G8) summits majorly centered on issues to do with: development through improving governance, investing in people, embracing peace and stability as well as mutual accountability (David, 2012). The long standing relationship between the South African President; Thabo Mbeki and the British government led to establishment of new approaches to develop Africa as a whole to enable the African countries to rely on their efforts unlike depending so much on donors. Today South Africa stands out to be a great republic through these unstoppable efforts (Andrew, 2013: 90). The New Labour Government invested more in realizing the goals of learning institutions through fully supporting learning processes as from lower levels to high institutions, employment of more civil servants, improving their terms of work and enhancing job creation. 2. Climatic change policy. Unpredictable weather patterns has remained a major issue to be address up to date and policy makers find it difficult due to the ever changing living patterns surrounded with scientific innovations and industrialization. The New Labour Party developed the climate change agenda in 1997 as Europe become reluctant to minimize the levels of sulphure emissions into the air. It was later taken to be the government’s environmental policy that aimed at regulating the amount of harmful gases and other wastes eliminated into the air. Successful cooperation of Tony Blair’s government and the business firms saw more approaches developed towards tackling climatic change. Through Blair’s own efforts, the issue of climatic change has gained a firm position of worldwide concern and the United Kingdom finds itself in a presentable situation of backing up the significance of maintaining a healthy environment. To date, the world’s rapidly developing countries have been incorporated into the climatic change dialogue aiming at cutting down their gas emissions through imposition of heavy penalties. Though Blair focused on environmental conservation and issues to do with climatic change, there is a likelihood that his efforts and personal motives go beyond the acts themselves because of the way He steadily imposed heavy taxes on products that pollute the environment without adequate consultation across the various sectors, as well as being in close relationship with the Bush administration that advocated for a war against Iraq where heavy machines were used destroying the nature co-existence and polluting the environment further (Seldon & Kavaganah, 2005:42). 3. Constitutional reforms and devolution During the 1997 general elections, the Labour Party had promised several constitutional reforms and devolution was one of them. The public was eager waiting for the reforms since they had not occurred for the last 50 years of governance making the Labour Party to win elections by a landslide. The first term in office was marked with rapid reforms in Scotland’s parliament, freedom of information, human rights legislation, changing electoral system and other crucial sectors that could see United Kingdom become more stable and developed. Gender equality was evident through the fact that Blair’s cabinet had 5 women forming a basis for women empowerment; one of the Millennium Development Goals. Despite of all these reforms being undertaken, Blair’s government was swayed by ill-centered motives and could not agree on some of the clauses to be amended. The fact turned out to be that the Labour Party was after making the constitution suit their subsequent re-elections into power clearly shown after they clinched the highest offices on the land. (Bulmer, 2008: 600). On later events, the constitutional Affairs Department was abolished in 2007 painting unimpressive role of Blair’s government and devotion towards permanent reforms. Besides that; Tony Blair was personally devoted to bring peace and harmony in the world, he went against the constitution by the way he handled the Muslim question, and giving in to support US to cross into Iraq. New labour party’s failures The Labour Party Government was associated with several successes as from the start of governance but later were overshadowed by outer policy considerations due to lack of taking considerations of the hard gained developments and democracy of political stability and security as discussed below. 1. The iraq war and its implications. The United States had crossed boarder into Afghanistan and came a time when it wanted to move swiftly into Iraq to address the blinded path that had taken over the Iraq policy. Blair, being a constitutional reformer, innovative with well thought agendas of development and global peace and stability, found Him at a dilemma of making solutions since he feared uttering his thought about the invasion by the US into Iraq. Bush had close ties with Tony Blair as they shared a lot of information on their administrations and even at one time Blair had asked Bush to support the efforts towards conserving the environment to avoid further climatic change (Seldon, 2008: 34). The two went ahead and held a private meeting where Tony Blair betrayed His goodwill of defending humanity and conserving the environment as well as not going much into foreign policy. Though Blair did not support the United States move openly, the situation was clear that He had gone against the will of the Labour Party and had betrayed the UK citizens as revenge attacks from Iraq ensued leading to the London bombing blast and other subsequent killings. The level of insecurity went high and the people felt less protected by the government. Blair’s position made Britain to suffer and change of policies within the country were invetible so as to accommodate the ambitions of US. This might have been the only position for Blair to hold in order to continue enjoying the partnership and coordination with the American Administration (Somerville, 2007: 67). 2. Attrition of power. This is a familiar pattern in a democratic world that many leaders have gone through and Tony Blair is not an exceptional. During the time of elections, the Labour Party came out with very attracting manifestos that if well thought and implemented could see the United Kingdom become the World’s Superpower. The first term in office was accompanied with adverse activities around reforming the constitution and decentralizing power to enhance democracy and expansion. He made lots of efforts towards bringing together global leaders to enhance harmony, political stability and development but later, the influence of the foreign policy, powerful statesmen made Him lose track and became uncomfortable in leading the people who had immensely voted for His Party (Short, 2004: 12). As pressure continue mounting on him to take positions on various global issues, the more he became separated from his own mandate and neglecting the constitution as far as demolishing the constitutional department. Without weighing ideas, Blair thoughtlessly followed the ideas of George W. Bush in the name of bonding United Kingdom and America destroying all what He had built globally and the confidence people had bestowed on Him. Though Blair might be blamed for the diminishing of leadership, it is widely underlined that circumstances did force Him to take that route as both the Bush and Blair administrations were ranked as failed states at that time. References Andrew M. Dorman. 2013. Blair’s Successful War: Military Strategy and Operational Art. New York: Ashgate Publishers. Anthony Seldon & Dennis Kavaganah. 2005. The Blair; Effect 2001-2005. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp. 30-35. Bulmer, S. 2008. New Labour, new European policy? Blair, Brown and utilitarian supranationalism. Parliamentary Affairs, 61(4), 597-620. David Childs. 2012. Britain since 1945: A Political History, 7th Edition. Taylor Francis Ltd. Gunter, H., & Forrester, G. 2008. New Labour and school leadership 1997–2007. British journal of educational studies, 56(2), 144-162. Seldon. 2008. Blair’s Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shaw, E. 2012. Losing Labour’s Soul?: New Labour and the Blair Government 1997-2007. New York: Routledge. Short, Clare. 2004. An Honourable Deception? New Labour, Iraq, and the Misuse of Power. London: Free Press. Somerville, W. 2007. Immigration under new labour. Oxford: The Policy Press. Read More