Tony Blair and the Statue of the Dying Soldier

On the grounds of Fettes College in Edinburgh, where my grandfather, my dad, and Tony Blair went to school, there is a striking war memorial dating back to the First World War.

A young mortally wounded highlander raises up his arm to the sky for the last time...the jingo words "carry on" carved in the stone below.

My grand dad said that for him that statue represented the folly of war....and the tragic waste of young men's lives. A few years after he left Fettes he was flying in an RAF bomber over Germany...because he said Hitler had to be stopped. But he never changed his mind. Some wars you have to fight he always maintained. But most wars you don't.

My dad said he always felt the dying soldier wasn't crying out "carry on".....but "why did I have to die so young?"

But as for Tony Blair the statue obviously didn't speak to him. He didn't learn anything. And now it's cost him everything. Even if he has no regrets. So many others do.

He could have been so great. He did a lot of good things. He did bury the Thatcherite Cult.

Remember tax cuts for the rich, mass unemployment, soaring child poverty, and deep spending cuts that left holes in school roofs and trolleys in hospital corridors. Think of the Section 28 anti-gay law, and compare that with civil partnerships now. That is how far Tony Blair's government has dragged the country in a progressive direction.

He did make Britain a better place.

Make no mistake, at home he leaves behind a country far better than he found it - and unimaginably better than it would have been under 10 more years of Conservative rule.

He did change the political culture forever.

The fact is, after Tony Blair no party can be elected without espousing Labour's progressive social policies. All must promise generous spending on health and schools, pensions, childcare, and families.

But sadly, twenty years from now he'll mostly be remembered for the way he acted like a poodle of the chimp in the White House.

And helped him sell his crazy war.

The one that eventually destroyed him
















Blair says that history will absolve him. And I suspect it will be kinder to him than it is right now.

But with the death toll in Iraq rapidly approaching the one million mark....and so many British soldiers dead for nothing. And so many other lives destroyed. He should have remembered the statue of the dying young soldier.

That some wars are good ones and some wars are not. And that some things you can be absolved of.

And some things you cannot....