“If he was hated by everyone he wouldn’t have been PM for so long, or in fact at all”.
Didn’t you notice who he was standing against? Ian Duncan Smith for PM anyone? Michael Howard?
I’m not sure that many people feel the same loathing towards Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard as they do towards Blair.
Had Blair been an electoral liability he would not have remained leader for so long. It’s not a case of he was hated but the opposition leaders were considered worse.
Blair was popular with the electorate but now everyone hates him.
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He oversaw the signing of the peace agreement with the IRA.
The process of a negotiated peace agreement with the PIRA was started by John Major. Tony Blair did not have any choice politically other than to carry on with the NI peace talks.
It took considerable courage for John Major to instigate talks with the PIRA, the political consequences if it all went pear-shaped were absolutely enormous, specially given both huge public hostility towards the PIRA and decades of British government anti-IRA propaganda.
It took no courage on the part of Tony Blair to continue with the already well established NI peace talks when he became PM. In fact abandoning the peace talks would have been political suicide for Blair as by then they were providing a glimmer of hope in a stalemate situation, as it became obvious that not only could the PIRA not be defeated militarily but that the PIRA was actually prepared to genuinely talk about a lasting peace in NI.
It’s John Major who deserves the credit for the NI peace process, not Tony Blair, although he rarely gets it.