WI: Tony Blair stays on, could he win the 2010 election?

Lets say that Gordon Brown circa 2007 suddenly doesn't want the job and that Blair wants to stay on, perhaps a bit ASB I know, but could Blair win in 2010 against Cameron and Clegg? What form would the election take? Would we have the debates? Would we still have the same three parties at it? How would the SNP do? UKIP?

Apologies if this is a bit too present-day politics.
 
Probably not. I am not sure he would even do better than Brown, given that he had lost a great deal of credibility over Iraq, and this scenario would likely see at least some instability in Labour when things start to go bad with the financial crisis and people call for his head so that they can stand a chance at the next election. If Brown is still in the picture, his supporters might attempt a coup against Blair, which could get very messy. His saving grace might be that he retains a degree of appeal to marginal seats in the south that Brown lacked, and so the losses are deflected onto safer Labour areas instead. I say it is less likely the debates take place than in OTL, seeing as the Tory lead might be larger over Labour, and Cameron might worry that Blair would do better in that environment than Brown, and so not agree. In which case, a Tory majority is probable, given that the Lib Dems would not surge.

Seeing as Brown actually managed to gain 2.5% more of the vote for Labour in Scotland in 2015, I'd say Blair would mean a weaker Labour performance in Scotland. Between them and the Lib Dems doing worse, the SNP might pick up a few more seats. UKIP were a bit of an irrelevancy back in those days and I can't see that changing. The Greens might pick up Norwich South in this scenario though. Blair would probably resign at last having suffered a comprehensive defeat and be replaced by a Brownite or someone even further to the left like Ed Miliband was.
 
Blair tended to hold elections a year before the parliament ran out, so I'd imagine that the election would be held in 2009 instead. I'm not sure whether he could win or not- on the one hand he still has charisma and a natural ability to reassure the public, he might have more support from the media and Cameron didn't do so well against him in OTL. On the other hand he's old and tired, his days of soaring popularity are long behind him and he has the baggage of Iraq and the recession behind him.
My gut instinct is that he'd just about win with either a tiny majority or some sort of deal with the Lib Dems. I think he'd be able to pull off the argument Brown tried to use in OTL, that the crisis meant that the country needed an experienced hand in charge, not a novice. In any case Blair won't last longer than two years after the election- aside from the public and the party getting sick of him, his health would have stopped him carrying on much longer. Chances are, he hands over control to someone like David Miliband in 2011. His successor goes on to lose in a landslide to the Tories.
 
No, after no WMDs were found in Iraq he was finished as PM.

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Perhaps some changes survive to 2010 if Blair on some reason decide not go with GWB to Iraq.
 
Perhaps some changes survive to 2010 if Blair on some reason decide not go with GWB to Iraq.

Well, maybe, but he'd still (allegedly) promised Brown he'd serve 2 terms max and so if he'd served a full third and was going for a fourth things would have reached fever pitch.

I suppose had he not gone into Iraq he might have retained some of his ultra popularity and so could maybe have reshuffled Gordon in 2005 if he was powerful enough.

I'm a huge Blair fan so I'm eager to find a way this is possible, but I'm struggling to imagine TB making it from 1997-2015.
 
Perhaps some changes survive to 2010 if Blair on some reason decide not go with GWB to Iraq.

Blair screwed things up for Bush and himself by telling him not to go alone in Spring 2002 that he would succeed in helping get the whole of the UN aboard for the mission.

The combo of waiting too long for political opposition to build into a towering inferno in much of Europe combined with going to the UNSC and a year of allowing their underlings to oversell the case for war mainly to get the UN aboard and allow them to undersell the potental problems along with letting the jihadists have much of a year to organize for after the war allowed for a close to perfect storm.

Blair compounded what he did OTL by doing almost nothing in Basra other then having the troops hang out in a base then an airport. Britian lost much less in Iraq compared to Afghanistan, but their public also felt deep down they accomplished almost nothing and were humiliated by Iranian backed cells in an area of Iraq that by in large supported the toppling of Saddam.

Bush made mistakes in Iraq and managed to get over 30 times the number of his troops killed, but his image is very different on Iraq in the United States then Blair's among the public as well as the elite on the topic because they in the end felt he acted decisively and turned around the war.

Blair instead of helping to clear Basra of militants locked the troops in the airport then bugged out and the British public those that supported or opposed the war deep down resented him double for making them look weak in the process. Blair got to own all the negatives that happened in Iraq from 2003 to early 2006 and none of the positives of the turn around.

But here is the thing no matter how good a politician you are and Blair was no FDR the public gets sick of you after awhile and wants change and I suspect that would have happened by the end of the 2000s regardless of Iraq.

The Republican Party was smashed in 2008 not over foreign policy but mainly over an economic crisis that was fairly global that only nearly a decade in retrospect are elites just starting to admit Bush at the time reacted pretty well to.
 
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Thomas1195

Banned
Mr Blair would be blamed for the GFC. Well, Labour spent too much during boom times (lots of the spending was due to the PFIs), Labour allowed personal debt to surged rapidly, Labour failed in rescuing Northern Rock, Labour allowed Northern Rock to get away with its reckless expansion.
 
Blair compounded what he did OTL by doing almost nothing in Basra other then having the troops hang out in a base then an airport. Britian lost much less in Iraq compared to Afghanistan, but their public also felt deep down they accomplished almost nothing and were humiliated by Iranian backed cells in an area of Iraq that by in large supported the toppling of Saddam.

Bush made mistakes in Iraq and managed to get over 30 times the number of his troops killed, but his image is very different on Iraq in the United States then Blair's among the public as well as the elite on the topic because they in the end felt he acted decisively and turned around the war.

Blair instead of helping to clear Basra of militants locked the troops in the airport then bugged out and the British public those that supported or opposed the war deep down resented him double for making them look weak in the process. Blair got to own all the negatives that happened in Iraq from 2003 to early 2006 and none of the positives of the turn around.

Broadly agree with a lot of this, but not this part. People in Britain have no idea as to the actual role of British troops in Iraq (it isn't true to say they just sat on base and then at the airport from day one either) and so that's not anything to do with why the public weren't supportive.
There's certainly not a perception that the army performed poorly, though there were concerns around the suitability of equipment for desert conditions and whether soldiers were properly equipped.
Indeed, when the Black Watch were deployed outside of the British controlled area to fill in for American forces being used in Falluja there was the perception from vox pops on TV that Britain had done its bit pacifying the south of the country and now we were being asked to sort out an American made mess (the accuracy of this perception is of course up for dispute).

I'd also wager that next to nobody in the country thought Iran backed cells had bested the British army, and that very few had any idea Iran was involved in any way.

No, the public hostility wasn't down to Blair not having enough huge victorious battles of the lack of a British surge. It was that we went in at all without Security Council blessing and without finding WMDs.

(I'd further question if people in America really feel as positively disposed to bush about Iraq as you claim, regardless of how decisively he acted)
 
Mr Blair would be blamed for the GFC. Well, Labour spent too much during boom times (lots of the spending was due to the PFIs), Labour allowed personal debt to surged rapidly, Labour failed in rescuing Northern Rock, Labour allowed Northern Rock to get away with its reckless expansion.

The (accurate) perception in the country was that Brown handled the money side so he'd probably get more blame than Blair for this.
Blair would have been better at spinning too, and would have been sure to point out to all concerned that it's a Global FC and not "labour's FC"
 
No, the public hostility wasn't down to Blair not having enough huge victorious battles of the lack of a British surge. It was that we went in at all without Security Council blessing and without finding WMDs.

I know what Blackwatch did very well and I expected this response as not politically owning the turn around is something that is really very hard to quantify, but I will give it a shot.

I never said the British are angry at their armed forces, but I stand by my point that there is a huge difference in how Bush is seen and interviewed about the war in the US and from what I have seen of Blair interviews and I do think a great deal of it comes down to Blair frankly not being able to politically own when things went right against almost all media and public expectations.

Bush interviews on Iraq amount to mistakes were made early on, but we set things right then the question comes up what to do now and his response is basically mistakes were made again and we are setting them right oh and here is how we might tweek what we are doing some.

With Blair for him it's seemingly forever stuck in no UN support and botched and oversold war interviews where he can't seem to properly pivot the line of discussion beyond a time frame where almost everything that could he could be wrong about and could going wrong seemed to be.

Would it be different if British troops and Iraqi troops and locals were working hand in hand to clear out Basra in 2007/2008? I can't be certain as America and Britian are different, but I just know the American press even NPR which tends to be pretty liberal actually wants to hear what Bush has to say about say ISIS and his POV is given a level of respect in a way the British press certainly doesn't seem to for Blair.

Memories of U.S. troops and Iraqis decisively driving what was then the Islamic State of Iraq into the Iraq/Syria desert in the last two years of his Presidency I strongly suspect plays a big role in that.

If Bush day had a serious medical crisis and stepped down in mid or late 2006 I suspect he would be more or less in Blair's shoes today if he got better of being stuck talking to the press only about a period of misjudgments and mistakes and with no respect given to his views now on related matters.
 
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I know what Blackwatch did very well and I expected this response as not politically owning the turn around is something that is really very hard to quantify, but I will give it a shot.

I never said the British are angry at their armed forces, but I stand by my point that there is a huge difference in how Bush is seen and interviewed about the war in the US and from what I have seen of Blair interviews and I do think a great deal of it comes down to Blair frankly not being able to politically own when things went right against almost all media and public expectations.

Bush interviews on Iraq amount to mistakes were made early on, but we set things right then the question comes up what to do now and his response is basically mistakes were made again and we are setting them right oh and here is how we might tweek what we are doing some.

With Blair for him it's seemingly forever stuck in no UN support and botched and oversold war interviews where he can't seem to properly pivot the line of discussion beyond a time frame where almost everything that could he could be wrong about and could going wrong seemed to be.

Would it be different if British troops and Iraqi troops and locals were working hand in hand to clear out Basra in 2007/2008? I can't be certain as America and Britian are different, but I just know the American press even NPR which tends to be pretty liberal actually wants to hear what Bush has to say about say ISIS and his POV is given a level of respect in a way the British press certainly doesn't seem to for Blair.

Memories of U.S. troops and Iraqis decisively driving what was then the Islamic State of Iraq into the Iraq/Syria desert in the last two years of his Presidency I strongly suspect plays a big role in that.

If Bush day had a serious medical crisis and stepped down in mid or late 2006 I suspect he would be more or less in Blair's shoes today if he got better of being stuck talking to the press only about a period of misjudgments and mistakes and with no respect given to his views now on related matters.

The view over here is that sending in Our Brave Boys was politically motivated and caused instability which led to ISIS. As for Bush's great contribution to the region, the whole Iraqi army completely shattered against a bunch of disorganised zealots on the back of trucks so it's difficult to say he added much to stability in the region.

Again, we're not hostile to Blair's interventions in policy because he didn't crow enough about military victories. Blair was a master politician, far superior in skill to Bush. He was almost on the level of Clinton. He knew exactly how to talk to the public. If talking about the victories of the troops would have helped he would have done it.

He didn't because he had his finger on the pulse of the public. A large proportion of the population from day one, and a majority of the population shortly afterward, were against the whole basis of the war (as opposed to its conduct) and thought it to be an illegal act of aggression. Thus Blair knew if he kept talking about it or kept trying to pursuade people he was doing the right thing he was only going to stir up more hostility. Huge swathes of society saw the resistance as people defending their homes, not as terrorist attacks on a liberating army.

So he tried to just talk about other things. Which given he was re-elected in 2005 and was PM til 2007 shows he was successful-ish at that.
 
The view over here is that sending in Our Brave Boys was politically motivated and caused instability which led to ISIS. As for Bush's great contribution to the region, the whole Iraqi army completely shattered against a bunch of disorganised zealots on the back of trucks so it's difficult to say he added much to stability in the region.

There it's a big difference because the elite and press have trouble in America saying with a straight face that Bush didn't warn pretty much what would happen if the next President just ran for the exits.

The press and the elite on both sides know the last WH was warned by their commanders not to do it as well their SoS and the rest of their foreign policy team. But, Obama also re-engaged and helped to push them out of Iraq which is about to happen so in the end the fall of Mosul is already talked about in the U.S. more as a tactical enemy victory not a strategic one.

The U.S. also seems to comparatively much harder on Assad and his backers when it comes to blaming them for immolating Syria by trying to put down the rebellion with indiscriminate bombing and gas attacks then the European press which seems to like to vaguely blame the fall of Saddam for destabilizing Syria.

Given America unilaterally bombed Assad with majority public support this year that should hardly come as a surprise to anyone. In all the finger pointing seems to be very different in the states then in the British press where yes it does seem to be pretty much entirely put at Bush and Blair's feet.

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I see the neo-cons are out in force here.

Labour won the popular vote in 2005 by only 2.8%. They got really, really lucky. Their percentage, 35.2%, holds the record for the lowest popular vote percentage that produced a House of Commons majority in a British general election. Second place, I think, is the Tory victory in 2015. The way these things usually, happen, 2005 should have resulted in a hung parliament.

Also, Blair pretty much promised during the campaign that he would stand down during the next Parliament. If he hadn't, Labour definitely would have lost!
 
I see the neo-cons are out in force here.

Labour won the popular vote in 2005 by only 2.8%. They got really, really lucky. Their percentage, 35.2%, holds the record for the lowest popular vote percentage that produced a House of Commons majority in a British general election. Second place, I think, is the Tory victory in 2015. The way these things usually, happen, 2005 should have resulted in a hung parliament.

Also, Blair pretty much promised during the campaign that he would stand down during the next Parliament. If he hadn't, Labour definitely would have lost!
Would they, though? There wasn't any great love for Howard either. Maybe he would have lost a couple of points, maybe even lose the popular vote, but the boundaries back then were so stacked in Labours favour that it was very difficult for them not to be the largest party, even if it was in a hung parliament.
 
I see the neo-cons are out in force here.

This isn't about policy disagreements it's talking about why the US worldview is different then Britians.

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Do you know what Bush's favorability looks like in America? Mid 50s approval last polled a year ago about the same as 2014 and low to mid 30s disapproval. Bush never got as low as Tony now even during the economic crisis and telling the country they had to pay to bailout our banks and automakers which about 70-80% of the country was strongly against.

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