A Quote by David Trimble

We had a completely deniable exchange of papers - in the winter before the 1997 election - with [Tony] Blair, setting out what we thought were the realistic parameters for a solution: and we were getting reasonable responses back from him. That's what led to Blair's visit to Belfast on May 16, 1997 - two weeks after he became Prime Minister and his first official visit outside London.

David Trimble

Quote Topics

After Back Became Before Belfast Blair Election Exchange First Getting Had Him His Led London May Minister Official Out Outside Papers Parameters Prime Prime Minister Realistic Reasonable Responses Setting Solution Thought Tony Two Two Weeks Visit Weeks Were Winter

Quote Author

David Trimble
Irish - Politician
Born: October 15, 1944

Tony Blair will be remembered as a great friend to Wales because it was his landslide election victory in 1997 that led to devolution.

Rhodri Morgan

Tony Blair was a good politician but not a good Prime Minister, and that's what we don't want to be. We don't want to be just people who are good at winning elections: we want to be good at governing. I think we benefit from having seen the mistakes that we think Tony Blair made in 1997.

George Osborne

On my first day at Yale Law School, there were posters in the hallways announcing an event with Tony Blair, the former British prime minister. I couldn't believe it: Tony Blair was speaking to a room of a few dozen students? If he came to Ohio State, he would have filled an auditorium of a thousand people.

J. D. Vance

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown committed to John Major's spending envelopes in 1997. No-one said that Tony Blair and John Major were identical. This happens quite often that parties actually, despite all the sound and fury, agree on the overall need to make sure that we live within our means as a country.

Nick Clegg

Tony Blair is not just the worst prime minister we've ever had, but by far the worst prime minister we've ever had. It makes my blood boil to think of the British soldiers who've died for that little liar.

George MacDonald Fraser

On Sunday, the president flies to the Azores islands to attend a summit with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Aznar, and here's my prediction: Bush gets voted off.

Craig Kilborn

We went all the way down the Himalayan chain for a day and a half. That was magnificent, except the Chinese told us they were going to shoot us down if we came out the far end. So I spent a lot of my time contacting former Prime Minister Tony Blair begging him to tell the Chinese we were coming in this direction by mistake and could he please say we have no nasty motives for flying into their territory.

Richard Branson

Tony Blair is a war criminal, and I think he should be tried as a war criminal. Then I see Bono and him as pals, and I'm going, 'I don't like that.' Do I think George Bush is a war criminal? Probably - but the difference between him and Tony Blair is that Blair is intelligent. So, he has no excuse.

Larry Mullen, Jr.

Tony [Blair] slowly sucked me back in for the 2005 campaign, and from six months out, I was basically working full time trying to keep the Tony[Blair] - Gordon[Brown] thing together for the campaign. It was awful.

Alastair Campbell

When Nawaz Sharif was Prime Minister in 1997, we were combating a different kind of terrorism at that time. It was what you call sectarian terrorism, and 9/11 had not happened. And we were tackling that with success and dedication.

Shehbaz Sharif

In 1957, which is now 57 years ago, my grandfather and then-Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi welcomed Prime Minister Menzies as the first Australian Prime Minister to visit Japan after World War II and drove the conclusion of the Japan-Australia Agreement on Commerce.

Shinzo Abe

We were great mates [with Rajiv Gandhi]: very, very, very close friends. In fact, on my visit to India as Prime Minister, we were going to his home for dinner. There were two aspects I remember: one is him saying how he had trouble with his security people, because they insisted he wears a vest. He said it was very uncomfortable and he often took it off, but of course, in the end, it wouldn't have mattered if he'd been wearing three vests - he would have been gone.

Bob Hawke

George W. Bush and Tony Blair had to convince the world that Saddam Hussein represented an imminent threat. Tony Blair lied when he claimed that Iraq could launch a chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes.

Bianca Jagger

Churchill may have made some horrendous mistakes - Gallipoli, for one - but he had a sense of the profundity and integrity of the English experience. By contrast, Blair believes he excised the past in 1997, though what no one on the left seems to have realised is that his historic mission was to destroy the Labour party, not the Tories.

David Starkey

But let's be clear. We're talking about a country where there's no opposition. As leader he can ignore Parliament and - sorry that's Tony Blair isn't it? Um, so he doesn't even have to ask the country before he goes to war - sorry that's still Tony Blair.