British Prime Minister (1953- )
We do, as a new Government, have to be extremely careful after 18 years in opposition. A lot of people who worked for us, they then go on and work for the lobby firms. I think we have to be very careful with people fluttering around the new Government, trying to make all sorts of claims of influence, that we are purer than pure, that people understand that we will not have any truck with anything that is improper in any shape or form at all.
TONY BLAIR
Daily Mail, 8 July 1998
There was no way of uniting the country over Brexit. Britain is deeply divided over it. Now that Brexit will happen, we must make the best of it and the country must come together.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
What always happens, in my experience, is that people always think American politics is very different, but usually it is a predictor of what happens in the politics elsewhere.
TONY BLAIR
interview, Politico, August 24, 2016
The extraordinary thing is the Labour Party's desire to rewrite its only period of majority government in half a century in negative terms.
TONY BLAIR
New Statesman, December 18, 2019
The fear of missing out means today's media, more than ever before, hunts in a pack. In these modes it is like a feral beast, just tearing people and reputations to bits. But no-one dares miss out.
TONY BLAIR
lecture, "Our Nation's Future", 12 June 2007
The spirit of our age is one in which the prejudices of the past are put behind us, where our diversity is our strength.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party National Policy Forum, 16 July 2005
But all progressive movements have to beware their own successes. The progress they make reinvents the society they work in, and they must in turn reinvent themselves to keep up, otherwise they become hollow echoes from a once loud, strong voice, reverberating still, but to little effect. As their consequence diminishes, so their dwindling adherents become ever more shrill and strident, more solicitous of protecting their own shrinking space rather than understanding that the voice of the times has moved on and they must listen before speaking. It happens in all organizations. It is fatal to those who are never confronted by a reckoning that forces them to face up and get wise.
TONY BLAIR
A Journey: My Political Life
I think the worry all the time, I think in, not just in Europe but outside, is where does the US stand in this slightly difficult space between America first and America alone.
TONY BLAIR
interview, CNBC, November 5, 2019
The reality is that as a result of the changing context in which 21st communications operate, the media are facing a hugely more intense form of competition than anything they have ever experienced before. They are not actually the masters of this change, they are in many ways the victims. The result however is a media that increasingly and to a dangerous degree is driven by impact. Impact is what matters. It is all that can distinguish, can rise above the clamour, can get noticed. Impact gives competitive edge. Of course the accuracy of the story counts, but it is secondary often to impact. It is this necessary devotion to impact that is unravelling standards, driving them down, making the diversity of the media not the strength it should be, but an impulsion towards sensation above all else.
TONY BLAIR
lecture, "Our Nation's Future", 12 June 2007
Moderates are not moderate through weakness but through strength.
TONY BLAIR
speech to the Labour Party National Policy Forum, 16 July 2005