AUSTIN, Texas – Today marks the last day in office for Tony Blair, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. With a name that would suit a used-car salesman, Blair led Britain since his Labour Party was victorious in the 1997 general election. Examining the last 10 years of Blair government throws up a picture that sharply contrasts with the terms of comparable American politicians.

Blair’s government instituted a large number of important policies, far too many to even summarize here. His changes to the Bank of England, work on debt relief and contribution to the Northern Ireland peace process were stand-out pieces of public policy.

Many of Blair’s other policies are of questionable wisdom. Blair vigorously seized upon one of the policies of the previous Conservative government, the Private Finance Initiative. The PFI takes many forms, but most involve a private firm building some needed piece of infrastructure (a school, a hospital, a bridge) and then leasing it back to the government. Treasury reports suggest PFI may reduce costs by tapping into private sector efficiency, but many outrageous boondoggles have their roots in this scheme.

Blair has made a mind-boggling number of changes in an effort to improve education and health, and many of his policies in this area are also questionable. Blair introduced the guideline of a maximum wait of 48 hours between booking an appointment and seeing a state-funded doctor to cut down on onerous wait times. Immediately, anecdotes emerged about doctor’s offices that would not make appointments more than two days in advance, thus automatically hitting the target but obviously missing the point. Many other policy changes of his can be interpreted as disingenuous and misleading political moves, instead of real policy changes.

Perhaps Blair’s definitive policy was following U.S. President George W. Bush into the Iraq war. The reader can evaluate the wisdom or lack thereof of this policy on his or her own time.

Despite his flaws and many mediocre policy decisions (of which I have been only able to give you the slightest taste), Blair appears to have made a real effort to improve the lot of the average citizen.

He attempted to improve health care and education. PFI can be seen as an attempt to find a new way to finance needed government spending without raising tax rates to stifling levels.

At least he was trying. In kindergarten terms, Blair gets a gold star for effort.

Power is more centralized in Britain that it is in America. A British prime minister’s power is roughly comparable to that of both an American president and a governor. When compared with President Bush and Gov. Rick Perry, Blair comes off as much more proactive in attempting to make life better for the average citizen.

While Blair raised real per-student spending by almost 75 percent and laid ambitious new plans to boost the achievement of students in bad schools, Gov. Perry has failed to deliver a school funding solution that tackles the wide disparity between property-rich and property-poor Texas school districts.

While Blair took steps to reduce publicly funded health service waiting lists and improve healthcare delivery, Bush failed to use his congressional majority to improve the healthcare options of the poor, and launched his “Affordable Choices” health insurance initiative only this year, far too late for it to have any real chance of passing.

Beyond partisan bickering over methods, many American politicians are guilty of simple inaction. A quick survey of Blair’s premiership shows that it is reasonable for citizens of mature, stable and successful democratic nations to expect their elected leaders to attempt to improve the lives of their constituents.

Whatever their political alignment, Bush and Perry’s successors should at least make an effort to improve their jurisdictions. Then they can each earn their own gold stars for effort.

Frisby is a Plan II, economics and math junior.