Party leaders air views on Blair

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/-/1/hi/scotland/6642917.stm

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SNP leader Alex Salmond has said that Tony Blair's time as prime minister would be overshadowed by the Iraq war.

Mr Salmond, likely to be Scotland's next first minister, said he was "very pleased" that Mr Blair announced his departure after 10 years in the job.

However, Scottish Labour leader Jack McConnell described Mr Blair as one of the most successful political leaders of all time.

He said devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland was remarkable.

At the same time, Scots Labour MPs also came under left-wing pressure to ensure a challenge was mounted to Gordon Brown for the Labour leadership.

The Scottish Campaign for Socialism listed the names of more than 100 Labour Party members backing a call to give them the right to choose the next leader.

Mr Salmond told BBC Scotland that prime ministers had "fibbed" over the years, but never about going to war.

In years to come we will look back on the economic stability and progress of the last 10 years as a remarkable achievement Jack McConnellScottish Labour leader

"Iraq is the ultimate calamity, a war which costs unnecessary lives," he said.

"The problem with Iraq is that the position is still deteriorating and has implications which are going to be with us for a generation to come."

Mr Salmond, who said Mr Brown was a figure of "intellectually much greater substance" than Mr Blair, also said the credit for Scottish devolution should go to the late Labour leader John Smith and also to Donald Dewar.

He added: "Events that have controlled the development of Scottish politics have been centred on the views and wishes of the Scottish People.

"They made it so in a referendum."

Mr McConnell, the current first minister, said Mr Blair had made great achievements over the past decade.

He told BBC's Radio Scotland's Scotland Live programme: "He is wise enough to reflect on the fact that there have been controversies.

Economic gap

"In years to come we will look back on the economic stability and progress of the last 10 years as a remarkable achievement, after the boom and bust ups-and-downs of the latter half of the 20th century."

"More than anything else, the thing that will last will be the constitutional change, and in particularly devolution to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland."

Scots Labour MP and Department of Work and Pensions minister Anne McGuire defended Mr Blair over the war in Iraq, saying: "The reality is that a decision was made in 2003 and Tony has never backed away from the responsibility of defining what the decision had to be.

"In 2003 it wasn't just the prime minister who thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."

'Misjudged war'

Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell said there was "no doubt" that winning three general elections had been a great personal triumph for Mr Blair, adding: "He will be judged by what he is perceived to have delivered and, on that, the jury is still out."

Less complimentary was Liberal Democrat MP Malcolm Bruce, who said: "Tony Blair missed the opportunity to be a reforming Prime Minister and change Britain for the better.

"He leaves a legacy of a misjudged war and cash for peerages."

Kirk moderator, the Right Reverend Dr Alan McDonald, said history should remember Mr Blair "above all" for peace in Northern Ireland.

"Though the ever-widening gap between rich and poor, the attachment to American foreign policy, and the decision in favour of a new generation of nuclear weapons are all matters of great regret, I would rather concentrate on positives," he said.