Enoch Powell once said: “All political careers end in failure”, which also included his own after he made the ‘Rivers of blood’ speech in the Midland Hotel in Birmingham. At the end of ten years in office, Tony Blair’s political career is failing fast as the members of his party, and the public, just want to see the back of him. Ten years ago on May 1st, 1997, a fresh faced and wide eyed Tony Blair won the general election and to the oxymoron tune, ‘It’s getting better’, he entered number 10 Downing Street as the new Prime Minister. He appeared so innocent and vulnerable the press quickly began to call him Bambi, a term no longer used ten years on. After the shambles of John Major’s Government anything seemed better, especially as this eager (call me Tony) Premier promised to be whiter than white - that very soon turned to greyer than grey when sleaze once again reared its ugly head with the Bernie Ecclestone affair. The ghost of old Tory had returned to haunt New Labour - only this time it was people in the Labour leadership who were tainted, rather than a few back benchers. The John Major years in office, which ended in a landslide victory for Blair, were tarnished with sleaze and corruption, but Major’s Premiership looked like a practice run for what we have now. The three Blair Governments have been mired in sleaze, and corruption and look set to end with the loans for Lords scandal. So what has Blair done in his ten years in office? Looking back through the early editions of the Euro Realist, the first edition reported a Tony Blair who was ready to embrace the EU with enthusiasm. His ministers had already begun to sign up to EU legislation, such as the Social Chapter, which the previous Conservative administration had opted out of. On May 23rd, 1997, he swept into a one day summit in Noordwijk promising to use his landslide victory to shape a “new Europe”. A few weeks later Mr Blair was off to Amsterdam to sign the Treaty. He was full of all the things he was going to do for Britain, but quickly found the other EU leaders who were flattering him also quickly squashed many of his proposals, including his request for a better deal for our beleaguered fishermen, which other EU ministers threw out. This was his first lesson that Britain has little influence in the EU. Since those early days it has been downhill all the way, especially for the British people and their liberty, democracy and sovereignty. In the first year in office the Blair Government sneakily repealed some of our most important Acts of Treason in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act, making it harder for people to bring him and his Government to account. After ten years of New Labour penury, Britain is a less free, crueller and sadder place. The Blair regime has introduced legislation the Tories would have never dared to introduce, including student loans and tuition fees. Even more sinister, this Government has introduced some very frightening legislation which would have been more akin to, and not dissimilar to, laws made by the Nazis in Germany. We now have an enabling Act which is not unlike that which gave Adolph Hitler total control. A Civil Contingencies Act which gives the police and Government immense powers, and police state identity cards are on the way which will categorise us all and allow the Government to monitor and control our lives. The Britain of 2007 is a much sadder place than the Britain of 1997. Our NHS is in a mess despite Blair’s promises of a decade ago, our council taxes have soared along with our contributionsto the EU budget. We have more stealth taxes than ever before and our pensions have been wrecked and plundered. It’s no wonder the people want to see the back of Blair. Sadly, the best we have to look forward to is either a Brown or Cameron government and more of the same.