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Harsh, but fair?
I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong. That's your call. But believe one thing if nothing else - I did what I thought was right for our country. [Tony Blair - quote from BBC website]
Is it overly harsh for me to think; yes, I believe you when you say you thought you were doing the right thing, but that's not good enough. You are the Prime Minister; you have a duty to do the job properly, it's not a role where you can legitimately excuse your poor perfomance by saying 'I did my best' where your best falls far short of the objective standards of what was needed. And that's not a purely political point - I think there was an arguable political case for involvement in Iraq, the same way there was a good case for not getting involved. But you dodged the issue. You didn't engage with the unpalatable argument, instead you now appeal to the heart; 'I did my best' and fail to engage with the issues.
Is it overly harsh for me to think; yes, I believe you when you say you thought you were doing the right thing, but that's not good enough. You are the Prime Minister; you have a duty to do the job properly, it's not a role where you can legitimately excuse your poor perfomance by saying 'I did my best' where your best falls far short of the objective standards of what was needed. And that's not a purely political point - I think there was an arguable political case for involvement in Iraq, the same way there was a good case for not getting involved. But you dodged the issue. You didn't engage with the unpalatable argument, instead you now appeal to the heart; 'I did my best' and fail to engage with the issues.
no subject
Generally, I think there's several different issues here; "I did what I thought was right" and "I did my best" aren't the same thing. I think it's possible to do what you think is right and still do wrong, if you haven't thought hard enough about it. If you think as hard about something as you possibly can under the circumstances (given limited time and other pressures) and reach a conclusion that you are convinced about and that you think that all the facts you were in posession of at the time would always lead you towards, that is the best that anyone can do and it's definitely overly harsh to ask for more.
I wish the decision had been taken another way in hindsight, but I remember not being nearly so opposed to it at the time, based on very limited information. I don't believe him on everything, but I believe him on that one.