Regardless of your personal opinion on the man, Tony Blair has changed UK Politics for decades to come. If nothing else, he was and still is a great politician, I would hazard as to say greater than the original Teflon Don - Lord Mandilson.
For years, politicians would chose their political party based on their political beliefs. Margret Thatcher and Winston Churchill were undoubtedly Tories through and through in terms of their beliefs and so they sought to lead the Conservative Party. A party that is on the right of the spectrum of the political arena, traditionally appealing to the ideology of the state should model very little in the lives of people - less reliance on benefits and less taxes from the citizens.
The Labour Party on the hand was a party the represented labourers and workers. That's why they traditionally have had politicians such as John Prescott and Alan Johnson whose paths into politics started from the trade unions. No matter what the annals of history may say, looking at the policies and the re-branding of Labour as "New Labour", Tony Blair was a Tory in all but name. His stance was to shift the party's objectives as close to the right as possible without changing its colour, to appeal to the majority.
Blair introduced the Foundation Hospitals scheme to allow for more financial autonomy but the NHS is now in an estimated deficit of over £500m; it was also under Blair that tuition fees were first introduced and the student maintenance grant was replaced with a low-interest loan. These are changes that would befit a Tory government but the Blair brand of Labour moved the party's orientation to fit with the voters as oppose to convincing the voters that the party's orientation is the best direction for the country.
This notion of the middle being good is now the political norm. So much so that Mr. Cameron decided to sandwich "left-wing" between "weak" and "irresponsible", in true Orwell 1984 style, in describing Ed Miliband's decision to support public-sector workers who went on strike on Tuesday 29th November. Cameron speaks as though the strikes are designed to purely "disrupt services and the country" when the whole point of the strikes is to try to desperately save the pensions of thousands of public sector workers. Workers whose pensions don't even come close to the pensions of the bankers behind the financial crisis or the money that was sunk into the Millennium Dome or even the money that government bailed the banks out with.
If the Labour party did not support public sector workers, then we will end up with a monolithic political system where the only difference between the political debates of the coming elections would be the colour of the speakers' ties. When you get Blairite MPs concerned about the Leader's stance and pretty much agreeing with Mr. Cameron, you begin to question if Labour even knows what it stands for anymore.
Like people, a party cannot be all things to all people and in the pursuit of falling on the right side of public opinion, Labour may be losing its identity - turning into a mutated political entity that is neither Labour nor Conservative.
Though the disciples of Blair have feared "Ed the Red" and his tough stance on certain issues, it may be about time that Labour have a leader that would steer it back from the pursuit of public approval and towards the direction of supporting the workers; the families that live from paycheck to paycheck; and to convince the public tat this is the direction that they should follow too.
Though some may still think that Ed is not the leader that Labour may have wanted, he is definitely the Leader that they - and our politics- need.