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@lukerobertblack Do you not understand that a large number of pensioners now pay tax on their state pension? Showing the net cost would be a more honest assessment.

The triple lock is a significant sum of the welfare budget

Steven - in which reality can we afford to spend more on the triple lock than defence, education, justice and other departments - combined? Because that is where the triple lock is headed. We will be unable to afford it unless we raise taxes signicantly or we borrow more.

@ClareTa97789912 The difference was that Blair knew how to win elections.

I would always listen to Gordon Brown before I listened to Tony Blair. Blairite was seduced by the US Republicans and the prospect of big money.

@johnmcdonnellMP And how did the general elections go? Perhaps you should have gone to Sir Tony for some guidance.

If you recall, Blair’s attack on Jeremy Corbyn was one of the decisive factors that secured the scale of his victory in the first leadership campaign.

@HannaHasbara @MrJEMills Winning general elections, three out of of three. Which is a better win rate than Pep Guardiola!

@CofiBlue @MrJEMills Winner, at what game?

Oh, so Tony Blair’s “radical centre” is: - reducing workers’ rights - opposing wealth taxes - axing climate commitments - greater NHS privatisation - toadying up to a Republican US president Not exactly sure where the “radical” part of Blair’s radicalism is... 🤔

@forwardnotback And, unlike Byrne & co, he had the knack of winning elections.

Politicians like Ian Byrne hate Blair because his government delivered real benefits for working class people while they prefer opposition and slogans 1. Introduced the National Minimum establishing a legal floor for pay, directly boosting earnings for millions of low paid

@likesretirement @BenKentish The reality is that wealthier pensioners already pay income tax on their pension, so the net amount paid can be a lot less than the headline figure. Never mentioned in the debates.

@BenKentish Quite a few pensioners agree. I’m sure there is a way to abolish it and increase the basic rate for those whose income is below £xxx with a less complicated solution than the application for pension credits. Those earning above that level won’t miss the triple lock

Loads of MPs admit it in private. Almost all of them are too cowed to say it in public. inews.co.uk/news/politics/…

@cmw2003 Many of his observations are timeless truths. But very inconvenient truths for the left of the Labour Party.

Whoever dismisses what Blair has to say on a number of issues is a fool. You can't simply not listen to what the longest serving Prime Minister alive has to say on a number of things because "he's evil", "Iraq", and the rest.

@mragilligan Can anybody list Burnham’s achievements as mayor of Greater Manchester? I recall him introducing a charge for pensioners to use trams, spent rather a lot on a clean air scheme that was scrapped, and painted the buses yellow. Anything else?

Andy Burnham has long benefited from abject, fawning coverage by the local paper, the Manchester Evening News - but it will harm him in the end. My piece for the Spectator. spectator.com/article/how-th…

@MirrorPolitics But he knows how to win general elections. And most of his observations are timeless.

'Blair’s Silicon Valley sermon shows how far he has drifted from Labour’s soul' mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

@TorstenBell Blair was a serial winner, and much of his advice is timeless. The far left does not win general elections.

Blair putting on full display what is in many ways his special ability - to lay out a political argument grounded in his own view of global trends (globalisation in the 2000s, tech in the 2020s). But…

@David__Osland Perhaps it’s good advice to listen to the views of a serial winner.

Labour's road to recovery doesn't lie in doubling down on the policies that have alienated its core voters for decades

@PeoplesMomentum And a serial election winner.

Tony Blair: ❌ continues to advise corrupt regimes ❌ urges the Government to cut welfare ❌ runs an institute funded by billionaires The less we hear from him the better.

@AydinDikerdem A serial winner in general elections.

Unsurprising that Tony Blair thinks the answer to the UK’s problems is AI, scrapping net zero, welfare cuts and re-armament. Literally the wish list of his corporate client base.

@BrianLeishmanMP And a serial winner, unlike the Labour Party leaders who followed him.

Tony Blair is on the side of billionaires and corporations and he is a prime architect of this current version of a Labour Party that millions of people no longer recognise as being the Labour Party.

@HenryJackson87 With Pep leaving, Arsenal hardly got any coverage in the UK.

What I will say about Arsenal's title coverage is it shows they are huge worldwide - the 3rd-biggest English club behind Liverpool and Man Utd. Compare this coverage to when City win the title, and it's night and day. For all their money, they'll never be close to those three.

@jeremycorbyn The country thought he was right, three times out of three. Much better than the combined results of all the Labour Party leaders that followed.

Tony Blair thinks the answer to this country’s problems is AI, welfare cuts and endless spending on war. Who benefits? Arms companies and tech billionaires. Once again, Blair is wrong. The answer is a redistribution of wealth and power and the relentless search for peace.

@Hepworthclare Three elections won out of three.

Tony Blair’s essay on Labour failings gets full marks for being unhelpful theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

@yanisvaroufakis Elected three times out of three by the British people.

Tony Blair is the living embodiment of what happens when political office becomes a down payment on future plunder. Ejected in 2007 by his own MPs as a massive liability, he bequeathed Britain a wild casino economy primed for the 2008 crash. And when the British economy crashed and burned, Mr Blair kept quiet while honing his skills at securing power by other means. His first job, after his ejection from 10 Downing Street, was as the West’s Middle East envoy, with a supposed emphasis on Gaza. It took six painful years for Mr Blair’s tenure to prove a failure so profound it amounted to active complicity in Israel’s ethnic cleansing, in Palestinian erasure, and in paving the ground for the ongoing genocide. Soon after, the Chilcot Inquiry demolished Blair’s Iraq lies, exposing him as a liar, a chancer and a war criminal responsible for countless corpses of Iraqis, but also of British soldiers. Then came Blair’s real innovation: the financialisation of the ex-premiership itself. The Tony Blair Institute, fuelled by £130 million from Oracle's Larry Ellison—coincidentally, the largest individual donor to the Friends of the IDF—became a shadow state, brokering governance contracts for autocrats and companies like Palantir that weaponise AI to produce mega-death abroad and full-on surveillance of Western populations. Now, in May 2026, this corporate fixer issues a 5700 word tantrum demanding that Labour embrace Trump even more than Starmer already has, denounce what is left of Labour’s betrayed Green New Deal, and trash the remnants of workers' rights. This is not the wisdom of an aging statesman. It is the frantic squirming of a man fearing his grip on oligarchic power might soon wane and whose entire post-10 Downing Street existence depends on preventing the many from ever reclaiming what the few have plundered. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

@johnmcdonnellMP Was Tony Blair the Labour Leader who won three general elections? How many did Jeremy Corbyn win?