Why I hate tony Blair.

I wrote this in response to a column by John Rentoul. 

Here's why I hate Tony Blair.

I grew up on a council estate in South London in the 1980s. It was Thatcher's Britain. One of five children, I lived with my mother and two of my brothers in a tiny little house while my older brother and sister were housed in a flat on the same estate but across the road. There were no council houses available that would fit us all in.

One of my brothers has a learning disability and couldn't share a bedroom. As a result I was required to share a room with my other brother; we're six years apart and he hated sharing a room with his little sister. I was only ever in the room to sleep and get dressed as the space was limited and big brothers take up lots of room.

We had no money. We lived on benefits. We ate the same things over and over. I dreamed of coming from a family where they had huge overly stocked refrigerators filled with coke and juice and tasty snacks.. I also wanted a BMX and a skateboard. At other times I wanted a new winter coat but we couldn't afford one.
I had free school dinners, a free bus pass, school uniform vouchers, when there was a school trip my mum only ever had to pay a small proportion of the cost because she was unwaged.

At school we never had enough text books or footballs or netballs or anything. The teachers were fed up constantly and for most of the final two years - during my GCSEs - I didn't have a permanent Maths teacher. Often there was no substitute teacher at all and so we were left to our own devices, free to talk, draw, quietly mess about, waiting for our statutory formal education to conclude.

When I left school I went to FE college (our six form had been closed down) and spent a lot of time drinking in the pub and smoking in the common room. To supplement my child benefit (which my mum was kind enough to give to me) I worked in a McDs. I scraped my way to A levels good enough to get to a "New University". I was entitled to a grant which was intended to be supplemented by the new student loans system. I still had to keep my job because there was no one back home who could help me out so I transferred to a McD's in my New University town.

Now, I'm not telling this as a sob story (by and large I had it easier than a lot of people on our estate). No, I'm detailing all this in order to contextualise my hatred for Blair. You see, the thread that runs through that narrative, (which is perhaps unseen by a white, middle class, privileged male like Rentoul), is a burning hatred for Margaret Thatcher.

Every time I opened that fridge and wanted juice or cola or a snack that wasn't Jacobs cream crackers and marge, I blamed Maggie. She was the one that cut benefits we needed. When I got a D for GCSE Maths, I blamed Maggie. She was the one that launched a war against teachers. Every time I longed for a room of my own, I blamed Maggie. She was the one that eroded the housing stock. When I couldn't pay my rent, I blamed Maggie - how was anyone supposed to live on grants and loans that totalled £3600 a year?

I was also acutely aware about how Maggie was destroying the lives of miners, nurses, social workers - public servants up and down the land, similar to the ones who had helped my family. I was aware that as I had grown up things had become worse on my estate: so many jobless, so many penniless, so many depressed.

It was in that context I first perceived Tony Blair. I didn't read a single word of New Labour's manifesto, I just knew that they were Labour. They were Labour and they would take back all the things that Maggie had done to make life so dreadful for so many of us. I just thought "New Labour" was a tactic to get all those mug Sun voters to get behind them. If I had known that New Labour was a stop gap in Thatcherite neo-liberalism, maybe I would have been less optimistic and ultimately less disappointed.

I suppose Rentoul is right. It is self loathing. My hatred of Blair is partially disappointment in myself for trusting him on the basis of very little. I allowed my tribal loyalty to suspend criticism of him and his administration for years because I simply refused to believe I had could be so easily duped. I can't speak for everyone, but I think we hate him so much because he made such fools of us all for so long. We trusted him implicitly and ignored the creeping doubts until it was too late. By the time he crossed the final line (Iraq War), we had been completely humiliated and exploited. We were left perplexed as to how we had fallen for such an obvious confidence trick and allowed ourselves to we vote in our very own Maggie. The policies may not have been the same but the deception identical and so is the end result: blind hatred.

Of course I don't hate Blair with the same kind of irrational, personalised hatred my younger self had for Maggie. But I am filled with outrage and anger on behalf of a 17 year old Iraqi counterpart who might not know to say "fucking Tony Blair" when she's contemplating how much worse things have become during her lifetime. My loathing for Tony Blair will remain on her behalf, just as I retain my antipathy for Maggie for my 17 year old self. It's the least he deserves.