Lord Ellpus wrote:Nimh, I was referring to his standing in Britain, regarding European affairs. He had no "Image problem" in Europe (unlike Chirac)
Blair had lost popularity here because he had latched onto Bush's coat tails re. Iraq., but as far as DOMESTIC policies were concerned, Blair was recognised as doing a pretty good job. The economy is reasonably strong, and unemployment low.
Hhm, I came away with a very different impression from the British election coverage (and like I said, I did follow it pretty intensively). Yes, the economy is going well, but it was
Brown who was widely credited for that, it didn't shine off on Blair. In fact, Blair's personal popularity ratings were the pits, and voter after voter was interviewed saying they would vote Labour
in spite of, rather than thanks to Blair.
Iraq had a lot to do with that, sure, of course. But so did the spin stuff in general, the whole image/vanity/Campbell thing, the total lack of personal trust and sympathy. Anyway, whichever the
reason, I'd say all the election-period descriptions of Blair's personal impopularity all in all suggested a "damaged image at home" for sure, and
that's all the Lithuanian EU Commissioner said.
After all,
you may have been "referring to [Blair's] standing in Britain,
regarding European affairs", but Grybauskaitė wasn't. So before we launch another discussion on Blair versus Chirac,
this was the remark you found so offensive ("rambling", "total and utter bolocks"):
Quote:Any European discussion on reforms is a long process ... If the goal is to restore the damaged image at home by fashionable discussion on reform, if we will see that by December, I can evaluate it as an example of irresponsible ... populism
Now the way I read that, it says no more than that Blair may have demonstratively tried to kickstart the reform discussion the way he did primarily to improve his image at home. His image at home, generally, period. And Grybauskaitė seems to be implying that, if that was his primary motivation, that would explain the demonstrative, almost insultive aplomb of the way he did it - which in fact is probably highly
counterproductive when it comes to actually bringing reform along, but must surely have been good for his personal popularity ratings (as your reactions for one seem to suggest).
If that is indeed how it ends, with Blair's arrogant way of going about this thing boosting his ratings at home but actually making the solution of reform issues at the EU negotiation tables harder, then it
will indeed have been an exercise in irresponsible populism.
