Tony Blair Quotes - Page 7

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.

In Downing Street they called me 'Boss'. Civil servants would always call me 'Prime Minister'.

In April 1991, after the Gulf war, Iraq was given 15 days to provide a full and final declaration of all its WMD.

I say to the Taliban: surrender the terrorists; or surrender power. It's your choice.

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

You know, the media and politicians are always gonna be in a bit of tension with one another and probably most of the time that's healthy and indeed even creative. But it's where - it's really when news organisations are used as kind of instruments of politics that it gets tricky.

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

Ah yes, liberal democrats unified as ever in opportunism and in error.

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.

NATO's got a vital role to play. It's very important that we protect NATO.

The Donald Trump phenomenon in the U.S. is mirrored completely by the Brexit phenomenon in the U.K. It's very similar forces. And what is interesting to me is there are two different groups that come together, who don't really agree with each other, but have come together in unity against, if you like, what is perceived as the status quo, or - and certainly what is a more center-right or center-left type of politics.

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.

Immigration was probably the driving thing behind Brexit.

Obviously it is right that the Afghans take responsibility for their own future in the end, but they need to know and feel that we are there as partners for them if they are prepared to make the necessary changes. But we should be in no doubt as to why we are in Afghanistan. We ended up there because terrorism hatched there erupted thousands of miles away in New York on Sept. 11.

If you're interested in politics and you're not following it, then it's a little bizarre.

All the evidence here, for example, in Britain, is that migrants, particularly from the rest of Europe, who come here contribute far more in taxes.

Sometimes people say to me, 'Well, what was the difference between Kosovo, which was a successful intervention, and Iraq and Afghanistan that have been so difficult?' And the answer is perfectly simple. In Kosovo, you have, after the removal of the loss of its regime, you had a process of political and economic reconstruction that took its part without the intervention of terrorism. If you had the intervention of terrorism, by the way, it would have been extremely difficult there - but we didn't.

The moment you stigmatize a whole group of people - for example, Muslims - then, obviously, you make the decent, law-abiding Muslims feel as if they're under threat in some way or that their legitimacy, as members or citizens of society, is brought into question.

There are millions of young children being educated to a very narrow-minded view of religion. And it's out of that education of large numbers of young people that you then get this extremism.

Real integrity means an answer. It doesn't just mean - it doesn't mean riding the anger. And this is very difficult to do.

For me, 9/11 was a game changer. It altered my perception of the security threat we faced. I took the position that Britain should be shoulder to shoulder with the U.S. It was a big decision; I didn't take it lightly, or in ignorance of its consequences. It's a big commitment for a country to give, but I believed it was the right thing to do.

I've never ruled out the possibility of going back into public service.

I am a pretty straight sort of guy.

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.

Where radical Islamism is going to be a factor, it's going to be very, very tough.