The Best Tony Blair quotes

When I started out as Prime Minister I wanted to please all the people all the time. By the end I was wondering if I pleased any of the people any of the time. — Tony Blair

I don’t concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong. — Tony Blair

I haven’t got the time to sit here arguing with someone whose idea of a coherent foreign policy is what comes up in Google when you type in peace! — Tony Blair

Enough of talking: It is time now to do. — Tony Blair

I tend to thInk that engagement Is Important for the future, so the more you can kInd of keep polItIcal crItIcIsm out of sport, the better I thInk most of the tIme. — Tony Blair

If you don’t see the Internet as an opportunity, it will become a threat. In two or three year’s time, the Internet will become as commonplace in the office as the telephone. — Tony Blair

I think the journey for a politician goes from wanting to please all the people all the time, to a political leader that realises in the end his responsibility is to decide. And when he decides, he divides. — Tony Blair

The single hardest thing for a practicing politician to understand is that most people, most of the time, don’t give politics a first thought all day long. — Tony Blair

The big issue of our time is trying to deal with extremism based on a perversion of religion and how you get peaceful coexistence between people of different faiths and cultures. — Tony Blair

The view we took at the time and we take it now is that the war was justified legally because he [Saddam Hussein] remained in breach of UN resolutions. — Tony Blair

I think everyone’s had their pound of flesh and now it’s time to move on. — Tony Blair

A challenge so far–reaching in its impact and irreversible in its destructive power, that it alters radically human existence… There is no doubt that the time to act is now. — Tony Blair

Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity. — Tony Blair

There should not be a party within a party. — Tony Blair

What people should understand is that I adore the Labour party. — Tony Blair

People know where I stand in the Labour party and what I believe in. — Tony Blair

Our party: New Labour. Our mission: new Britain. New Labour new Britain. — Tony Blair

I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so … prudent. — Tony Blair

Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government. — Tony Blair

I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again. — Tony Blair

The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched over The cliff’s edge to The jagged rocks below. — Tony Blair

I am absolutely delighted to give my full support to Gordon as the next leader of the Labour Party and as prime minister and to endorse him fully. — Tony Blair

There has to be certainty and there has to be clarity. There can’t be ambiguity, .. This has to be certain, clear in all respects from all the parties so nobody is in any doubt about what the future holds. — Tony Blair

Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. — Tony Blair

You get these insurgent movements of populism, left and right. An insurgent movement of populism took my political party over in the UK for example. — Tony Blair

I think social media is a revolutionary phenomenon all in itself. — Tony Blair

I still think the world is better off and safer without Saddam Hussein. — Tony Blair

When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place. — Tony Blair

There will be no peace in our world without an understanding of the place of religion within it. — Tony Blair

The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power. — Tony Blair

I have long believed this interdependence defines the new world we live in. — Tony Blair

This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. — Tony Blair

Nothing is more important to England’s arrangements for the World Cup than the state of David Beckham’s foot. — Tony Blair

Bill Clinton has been a true leader of the western world. He has been a friend and a counsel to me and other leaders right around the world. — Tony Blair

Global warming is too serious for the world any longer to ignore its danger or split into opposing factions on it. — Tony Blair

The British are special. The world knows it. In our innermost thoughts we know it. This is the greatest nation on earth. — Tony Blair

It gave brItain a great image in the world. — Tony Blair

We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world. — Tony Blair

We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world. — Tony Blair

One of the paradoxes of globalization is that, in the developing world, we’ve seen massive reductions in property. — Tony Blair

The kaleidoscope has been shaken. The pieces are in flux. Soon they will settle again. Before they do, let us re–order this world around us. — Tony Blair

There’s a huge wave of anti–establishment feeling. There’s an enormous amount of anger. And it’s collapsing governments and political movements across the world right now. — Tony Blair

But the world is ever more interdependent. Stock markets and economies rise and fall together. Confidence is the key to prosperity. Insecurity spreads like contagion. So people crave stability and order. — Tony Blair

But as I always say to people I’m essentially a public service person. — Tony Blair

If you’re interested in politics and you’re not following it, then it’s a little bizarre. — Tony Blair

Politics is about listening and it’s about leading. — Tony Blair

For most normal people, politics is a distant, occasionally irritating fog. — Tony Blair

So much of politics is about the daily grind of political business: the people to see, the myriad different facets of government, the remorseless agenda of this part of the media or that. — Tony Blair

People always think American politics is very different, but usually it is a predictor of what happens in the politics elsewhere. — Tony Blair

One of the most important things in politics is you’ve got to keep your mind infinitely curious and alive to what is happening differently. — Tony Blair

No one is to blame for the breakdown in trust between politics, media and the public. — Tony Blair

I always say, when they ask me about American politics, is for you guys to decide who you elect. — Tony Blair

I’m afraid that’s in the nature of modern politics–it’s as much conducted by abuse as argument. — Tony Blair

In government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it’s always about the next challenge. — Tony Blair

I haven’t come to the conclusion that centrist politics is wrong or dead. On the contrary. I think it’s very much alive–but it needs to be given a renewal, a revival, and a muscularity which it presently lacks. — Tony Blair

I believe Mrs. Thatcher’s emphasis on enterprise was right. — Tony Blair

By nature, I am a unifier. I am a builder of consensus. I don’t believe in sloppy compromise. But I do believe in bringing people together. — Tony Blair

It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation. — Tony Blair

Do I know I’m right? Judgements aren’t the same as facts. Instinct is not science. I’m like any other human being as fallible and as capable of being wrong. I only know what I believe. — Tony Blair

Fifteen years ago, if you said business will help save the environment people would have laughed at you. Today, I believe that is a serious proposition. — Tony Blair

I’m an avowed centrist, and I believe that–centrism is often–it’s almost the wrong word to use, because it’s often seen as sort of splitting the difference between right and left. — Tony Blair

The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression. — Tony Blair

Retreat might give us a moment of respite but years of repentance at our weakness would, I believe, follow. — Tony Blair

The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death. — Tony Blair

I think it’s important for people like me to evaluate and reevaluate. — Tony Blair

I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated. — Tony Blair

You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife. — Tony Blair

The public think the politicians don’t know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood. — Tony Blair

The thing always is to go to where people really are and what they’re really feeling about life. — Tony Blair

Now you may do it badly, you may do it well, some people like you, some people hate you, all the rest of it–but you have got a real motivating life purpose. [on being Prime Minister — Tony Blair

You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t feel both a sense of responsibility and a deep sadness for those who have lost their lives. — Tony Blair

Politics may be the art of the possible; but, at least in life, give the impossible a go. — Tony Blair

Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. — Tony Blair

Real progress cannot be measured by money alone. We must ensure that economic growth contributes to our quality of life, rather than degrading it — Tony Blair

If you are trying to take a difficult decision and you’re weighing up the pros and cons, you have frank conversations. Everybody knows this in their walk of life. — Tony Blair

In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight. — Tony Blair

Our determination to defend our values and way of life is greater than their (terrorists) determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism upon the world. — Tony Blair

People should go about their daily lives, to work, to live, to travel, to shop, to do the things people did in the same way as they did them before 11 September. — Tony Blair

We must support and protect individuals and companies engaged in life saving medical research — Tony Blair

We can debate this or that aspect of climate change, but the reality is that most people now accept our climate is indeed subject to change as a result of greenhouse gas emissions. — Tony Blair

One thing, change, is what everyone says. The question is, what type of change? What’s the right change to produce a different outcome for the people left behind by globalization? — Tony Blair

I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country. — Tony Blair

Ideals survive through change. They die through inertia in the face of challenge. — Tony Blair

We are going to expand enormously––our economy, our consumption, over the years to come … But the consequences of that on emissions are going to be severe unless we change direction. — Tony Blair

Climate change is probably the greatest long–term challenge facing the human race. — Tony Blair

The blunt truth about the politics of climate change is that no country will want to sacrifice its economy in order to meet this challenge. — Tony Blair

If what the science tells us about climate change is correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for our world. — Tony Blair

I think it is having answers and not simply anger, and providing solutions that people believe will change their lives in a radical way but do it in a way that’s sensible. — Tony Blair

The jolt that Tony Blair received 35,000ft above the Pacific Ocean was not normal turbulence. — Tony Blair

I’m not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn’t owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us. — Tony Blair