Healey condemns Blair's record

Monday, 4 December 2006 12:00 AM

Tony Blair had one good year and since then "everything he's done has been wrong", a former Labour chancellor and one of the party's most senior statesmen has said.

Lord Healey said that although 1997 was not bad, the war in Iraq, foundation hospitals and university top-up fees meant the prime minister's legacy would be one of mistakes.

His interview in The Observer comes as Mr Blair enters his final few months in No 10, and is a damning indictment of the longest serving Labour prime minister.

"He did quite well in his first year. Since the invasion of Iraq everything he's done has been wrong," Lord Healey told the newspaper.

The peer, who was chancellor in 1974-79 and deputy Labour leader in 1980-83, admitted that Mr Blair had shown that someone in his office can "do anything if he wants to".

But he said: "Unfortunately it was nearly all wrong - the Iraq war, foundation hospitals, university top-up fees, and now cash for peerages."

Mr Blair has promised to quit by next September, but Lord Healey said he should have gone earlier, particularly as he promised Gordon Brown in a restaurant meeting years ago that he would quit two years into a second term - in 2003.

"Almost certainly, he agreed at Granita [the restaurant] to go after two years. But he's still hanging on, and no one can be certain he'll go. Yet the sooner he goes the better," he said.

The criticism of the prime minister continued on the thorny issue of Iraq, which many commentators believe will sully Mr Blair's reputation for many years to come and which Lord Healey straightforwardly called an "absolutely bloody disaster".

He said: "Tony Blair had no reason to go with Bush. He had insisted on the UN, but still did. He could have made that [the UN] the reason. He has no understanding of foreign affairs or defence. My generation had been in two world wars."

Top-up fees and foundation hospitals proved tough reforms to get through parliament, primarily because of major opposition from within the Labour party.

Today Mr Blair is gearing up for a new battle with Labour backbenchers over the future of Britain's nuclear deterrent, which many MPs believe is unnecessary and costly.

Lord Healey said he was "doubtful" of the wisdom of replacing the current missile system, Trident, when the only major nuclear threat was a terrorist one. The only answer to this was better intelligence, he argued.

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