Top 180 Tony Blair Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “All the way through, we have been willing to take risks, provided at the end of it we can get a decent lasting settlement in Northern Ireland.”

— Tony Blair

102. “Terrorist threats are not happening just in this country, but in every European country and every country across the globe. As a result of that, we do sometimes have to take measures we would rather not take in order to give us the security we need.”

— Tony Blair

103. “What the commission that myself and Leon Panetta is trying to do is analyze this in two respects. First of all, what’s the right military response and security response?”

— Tony Blair

104. “Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit.”

— Tony Blair

105. “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.”

— Tony Blair

106. “The relationship between Britain and the US is fantastically important when confronting terrorism.”

— Tony Blair

107. “And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam.”

— Tony Blair

108. “Repressive states are developing weapons that could cause destruction on a massive scale.”

— Tony Blair

109. “I didn’t come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country.”

— Tony Blair

110. “If there is one thing Britain should learn from the last 50 years, it is this: Europe can only get more important for us.”

— Tony Blair

111. “I want to see a publicly-owned railway, publicly accountable.”

— Tony Blair

112. “I shall not rest until, once again, the destinies of our people and our party are joined together again in victory at the next general election Labour in its rightful place in government again.”

— Tony Blair

113. “I just want to say this. I want to say it gently but I want to say it firmly: There is a tendency for the world to say to America, ‘the big problems of the world are yours, you go and sort them out,’ and then to worry when America wants to sort them out.”

— Tony Blair

114. “Surely we have the wit and will to develop economically without despoiling the very environment we depend upon.”

— Tony Blair

115. “The public think the politicians don’t know or care about their lives; and the politicians feel misunderstood.”

— Tony Blair

116. “Society works by putting opportunity and responsibility together.”

— Tony Blair

117. “There is no doubt as to what needs to happen. There has to be a complete rejection of the type of terrorist attacks carried out in India.”

— Tony Blair

118. “I am absolutely delighted to give my full support to Gordon as the next leader of the Labour Party and as prime minister and to endorse him fully.”

— Tony Blair

119. “I had discovered long ago the first lesson of political courage: to think anew. I had then learned the second: to be prepared to lead and to decide. I was now studying the third: how to take the calculated risk. I was going to alienate some people, like it or not. The moment you decide, you divide.”

— Tony Blair

120. “We expected, I expected to find actual usable, chemical or biological weapons after we entered Iraq.”

— Tony Blair

121. “If what the science tells us about climate change is correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for our world.”

— Tony Blair

122. “As for those that carried out these attacks there are no adequate words of condemnation. Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity.”

— Tony Blair

123. “It’s not that tens of millions of people all want to be violent. But they share the worldview that then, at its extreme, gives rise to the violence. And in my view, this is why this is such a global problem.”

— Tony Blair

124. “They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed.”

— Tony Blair

125. “But in terms of how people live together, how we minimize the prospects of conflict and maximize the prospects of peace, the place of religion in our society today is essential.”

— Tony Blair

126. “The Spanish PM rang me to say: ‘I have the support of only 4 per cent of the people.’ I said, ‘Crikey, that’s even less than think Elvis Presley is still alive.’”

— Tony Blair

127. “The great advantage of the Lib Dems is precisely that no-one knows what they stand for.”

— Tony Blair

128. “I’m not prepared to have someone tell me there is only one view of what Europe is. Europe isn’t owned by any of them, Europe is owned by all of us.”

— Tony Blair

129. “The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power.”

— Tony Blair

130. “There should not be a party within a party.”

— Tony Blair

131. “What we want to see is the development of human rights and greater democracy, not just because it is our system but because we think that’s the best way that economic and political development go hand in hand.”

— Tony Blair

132. “If people in the end think that you can’t do something in a way which is acceptable then it won’t fly. The only way you get anything like this done is if people think, ‘I understand why it is being done.’”

— Tony Blair

133. “She was the people’s princess and that is how she will stay, how she will remain in our hearts and our memories for ever.”

— Tony Blair

134. “King Fahd was a man of great vision and leadership who inspired his countrymen for a quarter of a century as king. He led Saudi Arabia through a period of unparalleled progress and development.”

— Tony Blair

135. “I hope that people know me well enough and realise that I would never do anything to harm the country or anything improper. I never have. I think most people who have dealt with me think I am a pretty straight sort of a guy.”

— Tony Blair

136. “If there are further steps to European integration, the people should have their say at a general election or in a referendum.”

— Tony Blair

137. “There are solutions that are proper, but they require the painstaking and difficult work of building alliances and also being prepared to analyze the problem realistically. And exactly the same thing is going on my side of the Atlantic as is going on your side of the Atlantic.”

— Tony Blair

138. “I happen to think it’s the politics that makes you electable, but the reason for that is politicians sometimes talk about electability as if it’s just a matter of conning the public. Actually, it’s a matter of persuading the public, and in my experience, usually, the public gets it right.”

— Tony Blair

139. “Our tolerance is part of what makes Britain Britain. So conform to it, or don’t come here.”

— Tony Blair

140. “When Europe and America stand together the world is a better and more prosperous place.”

— Tony Blair

141. “We’ve seen the reality of Saddam’s regime: his thugs prepared to kill their own people, the parading of prisoners of war and now the release of those pictures of executed British soldiers.”

— Tony Blair

142. “Bill Clinton has been a true leader of the western world. He has been a friend and a counsel to me and other leaders right around the world.”

— Tony Blair

143. “Their barbarism will stand as their shame for all eternity.”

— Tony Blair

144. “My dad was a militant atheist, or is a militant atheist. My mum was sort of bought up in a religious family because she was a Protestant from Ireland but wasn’t especially religious.”

— Tony Blair

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

— Tony Blair

146. “Examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt.”

— Tony Blair

147. “I don’t concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.”

— Tony Blair

148. “We promise that the events of 1991 will not happen again – we have pledged to remove Saddam and we will deliver.”

— Tony Blair

149. “Saddam Hussein’s regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.”

— Tony Blair

150. “Lord Cranborne told the leader of the opposition to ‘back me or sack me’ – he succeeded in doing both.”

— Tony Blair