Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Tony Blair

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[edit] Tony Blair

Margaret Thatcher and John Major are both featured, and this is just as good or better. The only objection I can see is that he is still Prime Minister, but there are enough people reading and updating the article that it catches up with events as they happen (for example, the resignation of David Blunkett yesterday). I did some light copyediting a while ago, but it is not my article by any means. -- ALoan (Talk) 11:38, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Support But under "Tony Blair's Second Cabinet, June 2001–present" appears still David Blunkett. He should be removed.--ThomasK 12:09, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
  • Somewhat confusingly, the convention is that the main cabinet list shows the original cabinet members, and the section below ("Changes") records changes to the original list. The final entry to "Changes" records Blunkett's resignation and replacement by Charles Clarke. For example, Robin Cook is also no longer Leader of the House of Commons. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:36, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• SupportIain 12:28, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support (while I declare that I have made major contributions to the article). It often suffers from vandalism, and needs a good copyedit from time to time because people tend to add little bits of information into it, but it's a good comprehensive article with bags of references and has managed to keep NPOV. It's certainly several orders of magnitude better than John Major which is already featured. Dbiv 12:44, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Neutral. Fantastic article, but the organisation is really quite wacky. IMO, it flow a lot easier if the article actually went chronologically. Also, the copyright status of a few of the images needs to be determined. Ambi 14:13, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
  • Erm, other than "Private life" and "Satirical caricature", doesn't it flow chronologically? I'll ask the image contributors about status. -- ALoan (Talk) 14:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • Actually the images could do with a check. There are no less than three which depict him arm-in-arm with a President of the USA, which is a bit POV. The two with Bush are good images, though. The image currently by the 'Private Life' section has a POV caption on its page and looks like it has been elongated. I'll look out for some better ones, especially from earlier in his career. Dbiv 14:58, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
      • I just can't see a good reason for screwing with the chronology and having most of the standard biographical information buried deep in the article. Ambi 05:11, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
        • OK - I've moved "private life" up to the first section, which means that "health" falls nicely at the end of the "2001-present" section. Better? -- ALoan (Talk) 12:12, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support: Giano 14:31, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Filiocht 15:08, Dec 16, 2004 (UTC)
• Support. Edeans 03:37, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Object. Article seems biased in favour of Blair. There ought to be something about Alistair Campbell; about Peter Mandelson; about Blair's friendship with Silvio Berlusconi; about Blair's failure to get Britain to join the Euro; more about the feud with Brown and how Blair has found it difficult to maintain his supporters in the cabinet (cf. Mandelson, Blunkett, etc); about Blair's failure to complete the reform of the House of Lords. Etc. Gdr 04:10, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)
  • Mmm - re perception of bias - are you saying that it is not critical enough? What other brickbats do you think should be thrown? On your specific points: (i) yes, Campbell certainly should be mentioned; (ii) Mandelson's ministerial career is mentioned: what else should be there?; (iii) why Berlusconi in particular?; (iv) well, we have not joined the euro, but I'm not sure that it a "failure" yet, as they have not really been trying: when the answer to the referendum is "no", that will be a failure; (v) what sort of details would you like to see about the 'feud with Brown': and it's not Tony's fault that his best friends keep tripping over their own feet of clay; (vi) again, I'm not sure that Tony has "failed" to complete reform, simply because it has not been a priority (obviously they have not carried it through quite in the way that they said they would, but then an article on any politician would be twice as long if it mentioned each U-turn and undelivered promise.) Basically, I am a little unsure what you think the article should say (in an NPOV way) about most of your specific objections. -- ALoan (Talk) 12:12, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
    • The article should be neither supportive nor critical of Blair: it should be neutral. However, many people are critical of Blair and the article should reflect their position. (iii) An example of how Blair has tried to circumvent the Franco-German axis in the EU by cultivating the support of Spain, Italy etc (iv) Blair wanted to join the Euro but politically it's proved impossible for him to do so: the issue shows an interesting conflict between his principles and his populism. (v) The conflict with Brown shows something about the quality of Blair's support within the Labour party: his strongest supporters are often young and inexperienced and haven't made good ministerial material: this isn't Blair's fault but it is a significiant issue he has had to work with. (vi) Not a big deal. Gdr 15:29, 2004 Dec 17 (UTC)
      • Sorry - by "not critical enough" I meant "does not include enough NPOV summaries of viewpoints of people critical of Blair". (iii) Has he tried to circumvent the Fanco-German axis? Canny. (iv) Lots of people want to join the euro, but politics is the art of the possible. (v) David Blunkett, "young and inexperienced"?! -- ALoan (Talk) 16:25, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support: A great article of its kind. - Trick 23:09, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support with caveat. It is not sufficiently reflected that Gordon Brown is the most powerful Chancellor in history, that the Treasury has dominated domestic policy (with some exceptions like security/defence and agriculture) since 1997, and that Brown was the driving force behind major policy decisions such as Bank of England independence, minimum wage, caution on the euro. There is a clear foreign/domestic split which (even if you don't accept it as an implicit or explicit part of the Granita deal) needs to be reflected in the article. Arguably a Foreign/domestic policy structure would be more useful than a first term/second term one, given the continuity between the two. Rd232 15:28, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I've tried to mention the power of Gordon Brown in the article - ref. to him chairing the Economic Policy Committee of the Cabinet, which no Chancellor has ever done before, and to Blair's having regretted it. The problem is that this fits more naturally into Brown's biography. I will have a try at putting it in. The second term has a domestic/international split but there's been a tendency for the two to cross over when it comes to the domestic effect of Iraq. Foreign policy mattered less in the first term. Dbiv 18:10, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I'd also be tempted add something about Blair's habit of schmoozing millionaires (which Blunkett seems to have caught) - see Murdoch, Berlusconi, Ecclestone, Hindujas, Lord Sainsbury, etc. But it might be hard to make that look NPOV. :-) Rd232 15:31, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• Support He does have something on his lip in this, no? I thought only bad guys have facial hair.--ZayZayEM 11:00, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
• Support - Great Article (anonymous comment by 67.167.20.252)