   #copyright

Tony Blair

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Political People


   This is a featured article. Click here for more information.
   The Rt Hon. Tony Blair
   Tony Blair

   Tony Blair addressing a news conference at the 2006 G8 summit in
   Strelna, Saint Petersburg, Russia
     __________________________________________________________________

   Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
   Incumbent
   In office since
   2 May 1997
   Deputy John Prescott
   Preceded by John Major
   Succeeded by Incumbent
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born May 6, 1953 (age 53)
   Edinburgh
   Constituency Sedgefield
   Political party Labour
   Spouse Cherie Booth

   Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is the Prime Minister of
   the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil
   Service, Leader of the UK Labour Party, and Member of the UK Parliament
   for the constituency of Sedgefield in North East England. As a member
   of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom he is also a Privy Counsellor. As
   First Lord of the Treasury, his official residence is 10 Downing Street
   in London.

   Blair became leader of the British Labour Party in July 1994 following
   the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under Blair's
   leadership, the party won a landslide victory in the May 1997 general
   election, ending 18 years of government by the Conservative Party.
   Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, the only
   person to have led the party to three consecutive general election
   victories and the only Labour prime minister to serve more than one
   full consecutive term.

   Together with Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson, Blair is both credited
   and criticised for moving the Labour Party towards the centre of
   British politics, using the term " New Labour" to distinguish his pro-
   market policies from the more collectivist policies which the party had
   espoused in the past. Blair has described his political philosophy as
   "modern social democracy" and "the third way".

   In domestic government policy, Blair has significantly increased public
   spending on health and education and made controversial structural
   reforms in these areas. Blair's tenure has also seen the introduction
   of the minimum wage, constitutional reform such as devolution in
   Scotland and Wales, and progress in the Northern Ireland peace process.

   Since the advent of the War on Terror in 2001, a significant part of
   Blair's political agenda has been dominated by foreign affairs. Blair
   has strongly supported a number of aspects of US foreign policy,
   notably by participating in the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and
   Iraq in 2003. He has encountered fierce criticism as a result, and the
   circumstances in which he took Britain to war in Iraq have caused many
   opponents of the war to perceive him as dishonest.

   On 7 September 2006 Blair publicly stated he would step down as party
   leader by the time of the September 2007 Trades Union Congress, but has
   not yet stated a precise date for his departure.

Background and Family Life

   Tony Blair was born at the Queen Mary Maternity Home in Edinburgh,
   Scotland, the second son of Leo and Hazel Blair (née Corscadden). Leo
   Blair was the illegitimate son of two English actors, Charles Parsons
   and Mary Augusta Ridgway Bridson, whilst Hazel Corscadden's family were
   Protestants from County Donegal, Ireland. He has one elder brother,
   William Blair, who is a barrister and a Queen's Counsel (QC), and a
   younger sister, Sarah. Blair spent the first 19 months of his life at
   the family home in Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh.
   During this period his father worked as a junior tax inspector whilst
   also studying for a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. His
   family spent three and a half years in the 1950s living in Adelaide,
   Australia, where his father was a lecturer in law at the University of
   Adelaide. The Blairs lived quite close to the university, in the leafy
   suburb of Dulwich.

   The family returned to Britain in the late 1950s, living for a time
   with Hazel Blair's parents at their home in Stepps, near Glasgow. Blair
   spent the remainder of his childhood in Durham, England, his father
   being by then a lecturer at Durham University. After attending Durham's
   Chorister School Blair boarded at Fettes College, a famous independent
   school in Edinburgh, where he met Charlie Falconer, whom he later
   appointed Lord Chancellor. Blair reportedly modelled himself on Mick
   Jagger, and is said to have enjoyed a reputation as a conspicuously "
   cool" young man among his fellow pupils. His teachers, however, were
   less impressed by his behaviour: his biographer John Rentoul reported
   that "All the teachers I spoke to... said he was a complete pain in the
   backside, and they were very glad to see the back of him."

   After Fettes, Blair spent a year in London, where he attempted to find
   fame as a rock music promoter, before going up to Oxford University to
   read law at St John's College. As a student, he played guitar and sang
   for a rock band called Ugly Rumours. During this time, he dated future
   American Psycho director Mary Harron. After graduating from Oxford with
   a second class degree, Blair became a member of Lincoln's Inn, enrolled
   as a pupil barrister and met his future wife, Cherie Booth (daughter of
   the actor Tony Booth) at the Chambers founded by Derry Irvine (who was
   to be Blair's first Lord Chancellor), 11 King's Bench Walk Chambers.
   His biographer Rentoul records that, according to his lawyer friends,
   Blair was much less concerned about which party he was affiliated with
   than about his aim of becoming Prime Minister.

   Blair married Booth, a practising Roman Catholic and future Queen's
   Counsel, on 29 March 1980. They have four children ( Euan, Nicky,
   Kathryn and Leo). Leo (born 20 May 2000) was the first legitimate child
   born to a serving Prime Minister in over 150 years, since Francis
   Russell was born to Lord John Russell on 11 July 1849.

   Although the Blairs stated that they had wished to shield their
   children from the media, Euan and Nicky's education was a cause of
   political controversy. They both attended the Catholic London Oratory
   School, which had been criticised by left-wingers for the perceived
   elitism of its selection procedures. The Blairs chose this school over
   a Catholic school in Labour-controlled Islington, where they then
   lived. However, Tony Blair pointed out that he was the first post-war
   Prime Minister to have sent his children to state-funded schools,
   rather than independent ones. There was further criticism from the left
   when it was revealed that Euan received private coaching from the staff
   of the fee-paying Westminster School, but this was not unusual for
   Prime Ministers of either political party to have arranged for their
   children . He lived in Richmond Avenue, Islington, for the years
   leading up to his election as prime minister.

Early political career

   Blair joined the Labour Party shortly after graduating from Oxford in
   1975. During the early 1980s, he was involved in Labour politics in
   Hackney South and Shoreditch, where he aligned himself with the " soft
   left" of the party. He unsuccessfully attempted to secure selection as
   a candidate for Hackney Borough Council. Through his father-in-law, the
   actor Tony Booth, he contacted Labour MP Tom Pendry to ask for help in
   pursuing a Parliamentary career. Pendry gave him a tour of the House of
   Commons and advised him to stand for selection as a candidate in the
   forthcoming by-election in the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield,
   where Pendry knew a senior member of the local party. Blair was chosen
   as the candidate; he won only 10% of the vote and lost his deposit, but
   he impressed Labour Party leader Michael Foot and acquired a profile
   within the party. In contrast to his later centrism, Blair described
   himself in this period as a Socialist. A letter that he wrote to Foot
   in July 1982, eventually published in June 2006, gives an indication of
   his outlook at this time.

   In 1983 Blair found that the newly created constituency of Sedgefield,
   near where he had grown up in Durham, had no Labour candidate. Several
   sitting MPs displaced by boundary changes were interested in securing
   selection to fight the seat. He found a branch that had not made a
   nomination and arranged to visit them. With the crucial support of John
   Burton, he won their endorsement; at the last minute he was added to
   the shortlist and won the selection over displaced sitting MP Les
   Huckfield. Burton later became his agent and one of his most trusted
   and longest-standing allies.

   Blair's election literature in the 1983 UK general election endorsed
   the distinctly left-wing policies that the Labour Party advocated in
   the early 1980s. He called for Britain to leave the EEC, though he had
   told his selection conference that he personally favoured continuing
   membership. He also, more enthusiastically, supported unilateral
   nuclear disarmament, being a member of the Campaign for Nuclear
   Disarmament at the time. Sedgefield was a safe Labour seat and Blair
   was elected as its MP, despite the party's national landslide defeat.
   Blair was helped on the campaign trail by soap actress Pat Phoenix, his
   father-in-law's girlfriend.

   Blair stated in his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 6 July
   1983: "I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught
   my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I
   believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an
   existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation,
   not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality".
   The Labour Party is declared in its constitution to be a democratic
   socialist party, rather than a social democratic party - Blair himself
   organised this declaration of Labour to be a socialist party when he
   dealt with the change to the party's Clause IV in their constitution.

In opposition

   Once elected, Blair's ascent was rapid, and he received his first
   shadow-cabinet appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. He
   demanded an inquiry into the Bank of England's decision to rescue the
   collapsed Johnson Matthey Bank in October 1985, and embarrassed the
   government by finding a European Economic Community report critical of
   British economic policy that had been countersigned by a member of the
   Conservative government. By this time Blair was aligned with the
   reforming tendencies in the party, headed by leader Neil Kinnock, and
   was promoted after the 1987 election to the shadow Trade and Industry
   team as spokesman on the City of London. In 1987, he stood for election
   to the Shadow Cabinet, with a good show of 77 votes.

   After the stock market crash of October 1987, Blair raised his profile
   further when he castigated City traders as "incompetent" and "morally
   dubious". He also protested against the third-class service for small
   investors at the London Stock Exchange. In 1988, Blair entered the
   Shadow Cabinet as Shadow Secretary of State for Energy, and the
   following year he became Shadow Employment Secretary. In this post, he
   realised that the Labour Party's support for the emerging European
   "Social Charter" policies on employment law meant dropping the party's
   traditional support for closed shop arrangements, whereby employers
   required all their employees to be members of a trade union. He
   announced this change in December 1989, outraging the left wing of the
   Labour Party. As a young and telegenic Shadow Cabinet member, Blair was
   given prominence by the party's Director of Communications, Peter
   Mandelson. His first major platform speech, at the 1990 Labour Party
   conference, was a major embarrassment, however: he spoke too fast and
   lost his place in his notes.

   In the run-up to the 1992 general election, Blair worked to modernize
   Labour's image. He had responsibility for developing the minimum wage
   policy stance that that was expected to see strong opposition; during
   the election campaign he had a notable confrontation with the owner of
   a children's nursery who insisted that the policy would cost jobs.

   When Neil Kinnock resigned as party leader after Labour's fourth
   consecutive electoral defeat, Blair became Shadow Home Secretary under
   John Smith. The Labour Party at this time was widely perceived as weak
   on crime and Blair worked to change this: he accepted that the prison
   population might have to rise, and bemoaned the loss of a sense of
   community, which he was prepared to blame (at least partly) on "1960s
   liberalism". On the other hand, he spoke in support of equalising the
   age of consent for gay sex at 16, and opposed capital punishment. He
   defined his policy, in a phrase coined by Gordon Brown, as " Tough on
   crime, tough on the causes of crime".

   John Smith died suddenly in 1994 of a heart attack. Blair beat John
   Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the subsequent leadership election.
   After becoming Leader of the Opposition, Blair was, as is customary for
   the holder of that office, appointed a Privy Counsellor, which
   permitted him to be addressed with the style " The Right Honourable".

Leader of the Labour Party

   Blair announced at the end of his speech at the 1994 Labour Party
   conference that he intended to replace Clause IV of the party's
   constitution with a new statement of aims and values. This involved the
   deletion of the party's stated commitment to 'the common ownership of
   the means of production and exchange', which was widely interpreted as
   referring to wholesale nationalisation. The clause was replaced by a
   statement that the party is one of democratic socialism. A special
   conference approved this practically insignificant but highly symbolic
   change in April 1995.

   Blair also revised party policy in a manner that enhanced the image of
   Labour as competent and modern — he used the term "New Labour" to
   distinguish the party from its past. Although the transformation
   aroused much criticism (its alleged superficiality drawing fire both
   from political opponents and traditionalists within the "rank and file"
   of his own party), it was nevertheless successful in changing public
   perception. At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Blair stated that his
   three top priorities on coming to office were "education, education and
   education".

   Aided by the unpopularity of John Major's Conservative government
   (itself deeply divided over the European Union), "New Labour" won a
   landslide victory in the 1997 general election with Blair the youngest
   person to attain the office of Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in
   1812.

First term 1997 to 2001

   Blair embraces U.S. President (now former) Bill Clinton.
   Enlarge
   Blair embraces U.S. President (now former) Bill Clinton.

Independence for the Bank of England

   Immediately after taking office, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon
   Brown gave the Bank of England the power to set the UK base rate of
   interest autonomously. This decision was popular with the British
   financial establishment in London, which the Labour Party had been
   courting since the early 1990s. Together with the Government's decision
   to remain within projected Conservative spending limits for its first
   two years in office, it helped to reassure sceptics of the Labour
   Party's fiscal "prudence".

Domestic politics

                                             Styles of
                                                               Tony Blair,
                                                    British Prime Minister
                         Style         Right Honourable (Rt.Hon.)
                         Post nominals PC (not used when Rt.Hon. used), MP

   In the early years of his first term, Blair relied for his political
   advice on a close circle of his staff, among whom his press secretary
   and official spokesman Alastair Campbell was seen as particularly
   influential. Controversially, Campbell was permitted to give orders to
   civil servants, who had previously taken instructions only from
   ministers. Unlike some of his predecessors, Campbell was a political
   appointee and had not come up through the Civil Service. Despite his
   overtly political role, he was paid from public funds as a civil
   servant. His was one of a number of New Labour appointments that gave
   rise to fears that the traditional political neutrality of the civil
   service was being eroded.

   A significant achievement of Blair's first term was the signing, on 10
   April 1998, of the Belfast Agreement, generally known as the Good
   Friday Agreement. Negotiations aimed at bringing peace to Northern
   Ireland had begun under the previous Prime Minister, John Major, but
   had collapsed after the end of the first IRA ceasefire in the
   mid-1990s. In the Good Friday Agreement, most Northern Irish political
   parties, together with the British and Irish Governments, agreed upon
   an "exclusively peaceful and democratic" framework for the governance
   of Northern Ireland and a new set of political institutions for the
   province.

   Blair's first term saw an extensive programme of changes to the
   constitution. The Human Rights Act was introduced in 1998; a Scottish
   Parliament and a Welsh Assembly were set up; most hereditary peers were
   removed from the House of Lords in 1999; the Greater London Authority
   and the post of Mayor of London were established in 2000; and the
   Freedom of Information Act was passed later in the same year, with its
   provisions coming into effect over the following decade. This last Act
   disappointed campaigners, whose hopes had been raised by a 1998 White
   Paper which had promised more robust legislation. Also, whether the
   House of Lords should be fully appointed, fully elected, or be subject
   to a combination of the two remains a disputed question. 2003 saw a
   series of inconclusive votes on the matter in the House of Commons.

   During Blair's first term, the age of consent for gay sex was equalized
   at 16 and the ban on gays in the armed forces was lifted. Subsequently,
   in 2005, a Civil Partnership Act came into effect, allowing gay couples
   to form legally recognised partnerships.

   Tony Blair's touch was less sure with regard to the Millenium Dome
   project. The incoming government greatly expanded the size of the
   project and consequently increased expectations of what would be
   delivered. Just before its opening Blair claimed the Dome would be "a
   triumph of confidence over cynicism, boldness over blandness,
   excellence over mediocrity". In the words of BBC correspondent Robert
   Orchard, "the Dome was to be highlighted as a glittering New Labour
   achievement in the next election manifesto". The ultimate unpopularity
   of what should have been a fringe project meant that its failure had a
   political effect that far exceeded its intrinsic importance.

Foreign policy

   In 1999, Blair planned and presided over the declaration of the Kosovo
   War. While in opposition, the Labour Party had criticised the
   Conservatives for their perceived weakness during the Bosnian war, and
   Blair was among those urging a strong line by NATO against Slobodan
   Milošević. Blair was criticised both by those on the Left who opposed
   the war in principle and by some others who believed that the Serbs
   were fighting a legitimate war of self-defence. One month into the war,
   on 22 April 1999, Blair made a speech in Chicago setting out his
   "Doctrine of the International Community".

   Also in 1999, Blair was awarded the Charlemagne Award by the German
   city of Aachen for his contributions to the European ideal and to peace
   in Europe.

   Blair urged his fellow EU members on October 20, 2006 to send a strong
   message to the Sudanese government that it must allow a UN force into
   Darfur, arguing that it is a critical time for Darfur and therefore a
   chance for the EU to strengthen the pressure on the Sudanese
   government.

Second term 2001 to 2005

   Blair welcomes US President George W. Bush to Chequers, the Prime
   Minister's countryside retreat.
   Enlarge
   Blair welcomes US President George W. Bush to Chequers, the Prime
   Minister's countryside retreat.

   In the 2001 general election campaign, Blair emphasised the theme of
   improving public services, notably the National Health Service and the
   State education system. The Conservatives concentrated on opposing
   British membership of the Euro, which did little to win over floating
   voters. The Labour Party largely preserved its majority, and Blair
   became the first Labour Prime Minister to win a full second term.
   However, the election was notable for a large fall in voter turnout.

   Following the 11 September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington,
   Blair was very quick to align the UK with the United States, engaging
   in a round of shuttle diplomacy to help form and maintain an
   international coalition prior to the 2001 war against Afghanistan. He
   maintains his diplomatic activity to this day, showing a willingness to
   visit countries that other world leaders might consider too dangerous
   to visit. In 2003, he became the first Briton since Winston Churchill
   to be awarded a Congressional Gold Medal by the United States Congress
   for being "a staunch and steadfast ally of the United States of
   America", although media attention has been drawn to the fact that
   Blair has yet to attend the ceremony to receive his medal; some
   commentators point to the unpopularity in Britain of his support for
   the U.S. as the explanation for the delay. In 2003, Blair was also
   awarded an Ellis Island Medal of Honour for his support of the United
   States after 9/11 - the first non-American to receive the honour.

Iraq war

   Blair gave strong support to US President George W. Bush's invasion of
   Iraq in 2003. He soon became the face of international support for the
   war, often clashing with French President Jacques Chirac, who became
   the face of international opposition. Widely regarded as a more
   persuasive speaker than Bush, Blair gave many speeches arguing for the
   overthrow of Saddam Hussein in the days leading up to the invasion.

   Blair's case for war was based on Iraq's alleged possession of weapons
   of mass destruction and consequent violation of UN resolutions. He was
   wary of making direct appeals for regime change, since international
   law does not recognize this as a ground for war. A memorandum from a
   July 2002 meeting that was leaked in April 2005 showed that Blair
   believed that the British public would support regime change in the
   right political context; the document, however, stated that legal
   grounds for such action were weak. On 24 September 2002 the Government
   published a dossier based on the intelligence agencies' assessments of
   Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Among the items in the dossier was
   a recently received intelligence report that "the Iraqi military are
   able to deploy chemical or biological weapons within 45 minutes of an
   order to do so". A further briefing paper on Iraq's alleged WMDs was
   issued to journalists in February 2003. This document was discovered to
   have taken a large part of its text without attribution from a PhD
   thesis available on the internet. Where the thesis hypothesized about
   possible WMDs, the Downing Street version presented the ideas as fact.
   The document subsequently became known as the " Dodgy Dossier".

   Forty-six thousand British troops, one-third of the total strength of
   the British Army (land forces), were deployed to assist with the
   invasion of Iraq. When, after the war, it was established that Iraq had
   not possessed any WMDs, the two dossiers, together with Blair's other
   pre-war statements, became an issue of considerable controversy. Many
   Labour Party members, including a number who had supported the war,
   were among the critics. Successive independent inquiries (including
   those by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons,
   the senior judge Lord Hutton, and the former senior civil servant Lord
   Butler of Brockwell) have found that Blair honestly stated what he
   believed to be true at the time, though Lord Butler's report did imply
   that the Government's presentation of the intelligence evidence had
   been subject to some degree of exaggeration. These findings have not
   prevented frequent accusations that Blair was deliberately deceitful,
   and, during the 2005 election campaign, Conservative leader Michael
   Howard made political capital out of the issue.

   Several anti-war pressure groups want to try Blair for war crimes in
   Iraq at the International Criminal Court. The Secretary General of the
   United Nations, Kofi Annan, stated in September 2004 that the invasion
   was "illegal", but did not state the legal basis for this assertion.
   Prior to the war, the UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, who acts as
   the Government's legal adviser, had advised Blair that the war was
   legal.

   British armed forces were active in southern Iraq to stabilise the
   country in the run-up to the Iraqi elections of January 2005. In
   October 2004, the UK government agreed to a request from US forces to
   send a battalion of the Black Watch regiment to the American sector in
   order to free up US troops for an assault on Fallujah. The subsequent
   deployment of the Black Watch was criticised by some in Britain on the
   grounds that its alleged ultimate purpose was to assist George Bush's
   re-election in the 2004 US presidential election. As of September 2006,
   seven thousand and five hundred British forces remain in Southern Iraq,
   around the city of Basra. After the presidential election, Blair tried
   to use his relationship with President Bush to persuade the US to
   devote efforts to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

   In an interview with David Frost on Al Jazeera in November 2006, Blair
   appeared to agree with Frost's assessment that the war had been "pretty
   much of a disaster", although a Downing Street spokesperson denied that
   this was an accurate reflection of Blair's view.

Domestic politics

   After fighting the 2001 election on the theme of improving public
   services, Blair's government raised taxes in 2002 (described by the
   Conservatives as " stealth taxes") in order to increase spending on
   education and health. Blair insisted the increased funding would have
   to be matched by internal reforms. The government introduced the
   Foundation Hospitals scheme to allow NHS hospitals financial autonomy,
   although the eventual shape of the proposals, after an internal
   struggle with Gordon Brown, allowed for less freedom than Blair had
   wished. Several healthcare trusts established under the foundation
   hospitals scheme are now in severe financial difficulties, having spent
   large proportions of their funding increases on pay rises for staff and
   on expensive drugs. As a result, with supply of healthcare services
   increasing less quickly than demand, benefits from the NHS have not
   increased to the same degree, and the NHS had an £800 million deficit
   for the 2005/6 financial year.

   The peace process in Northern Ireland hit a series of problems. In
   October 2002, the Northern Ireland Assembly established under the Good
   Friday Agreement was suspended. Attempts to persuade the IRA to
   decommission its weapons were unsuccessful, and, in the second set of
   elections to the Assembly in November 2003, the staunchly unionist
   Democratic Unionist Party replaced the more moderate Ulster Unionist
   Party as Northern Ireland's largest unionist party, making a return to
   devolved government more difficult. At the same time, Sinn Féin
   replaced the more moderate SDLP as the province's largest nationalist
   party.

   In its first term, the government had introduced an annual fixed
   tuition fee of around £1,000 for higher education students (rejecting
   requests from universities to be allowed to vary the fee), with
   reductions and exemptions for poor students. At the same time, the
   remaining student maintenance grant was replaced with a low-interest
   loan, which was to be repaid once the student was earning over a
   certain threshold. In 2003, Blair controversially introduced
   legislation permitting universities to charge variable fees of up to
   £3,000 per year. At the same time, the repayment of student loans was
   delayed until the graduate's income was much higher, and grants were
   reintroduced for some students from poorer backgrounds. It was claimed
   the increase in university fees violated a promise in Labour's 2001
   election manifesto, though this claim is arguably unsustainable if the
   relevant promise is interpreted strictly and literally. At its second
   reading in the House of Commons in January 2004, the Higher Education
   Bill which contained the changes was passed with a majority of only
   five, due to a large-scale backbench Labour rebellion. A defeat was
   averted by a last-minute change of intention by a small number of
   Gordon Brown's backbench allies.
   The term "Tony Bliar" is commonly used in anti-war demonstrations
   against the 2003 Iraq War
   Enlarge
   The term "Tony Bliar" is commonly used in anti-war demonstrations
   against the 2003 Iraq War

   On 1 August 2003 Blair became the longest continuously serving Labour
   Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, surpassing Harold Wilson's
   1964-1970 term. By this time, the Government was confronted with the
   crisis over the suicide of Dr. David Kelly, and there were no
   celebrations. The Hutton Inquiry into Kelly's death reported on 2
   August, and, despite widespread expectations that Hutton's report would
   criticise Blair and his government, Hutton cleared the Government of
   deliberately inserting false intelligence into the September Dossier,
   while criticising the BBC editorial process which had allowed unfounded
   allegations to be broadcast. Evidence to the inquiry raised further
   questions over the use of intelligence in the run up to the war, and
   the report did not satisfy opponents of Blair and of the war. After a
   similar decision by President Bush, Blair set up another inquiry - the
   Butler Review - into the accuracy and presentation of the intelligence
   relating to Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction. Opponents of
   the war, especially the Liberal Democrats, refused to participate in
   this inquiry, since it did not meet their demands for a full public
   inquiry into whether the war was justified.

   The political fallout from the Iraq War continued to dog Blair's
   premiership after the Butler Review. On 25 August 2004 Plaid Cymru MP
   Adam Price announced he would attempt to impeach Blair, hoping to
   invoke a Parliamentary procedure that has lain dormant for 150 years
   but has never been abolished. In principle, the British House of
   Commons has the power to indict Tony Blair before the House of Lords,
   who would in turn have the power to pass whatever sentence it
   considered appropriate upon him, without reference to the ordinary
   criminal courts. This move was supported by Plaid Cymru and the SNP, as
   well as by RESPECT's George Galloway and Independent MP Richard Taylor.
   Ten Conservative MPs signed the relevant motion, as did two Liberal
   Democrats, making a total of 23 MPs. The campaign attracted the support
   of writers Iain Banks and Frederick Forsyth, and actor Corin Redgrave.
   The case for Blair's impeachment was outlined by Adam Price in a report
   entitled "A case to answer".

   In April 2004, Blair announced that a referendum would be held on the
   ratification of the EU Constitution. This represented a significant
   development in British politics: only one nationwide referendum had
   previously been held (in 1975, on whether the UK should remain in the
   EEC), though a referendum had been promised if the Government decided
   to join the Euro, and referenda had been held on devolved structures of
   government in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It was a dramatic
   change of policy for Blair, who had previously dismissed calls for a
   referendum unless the constitution fundamentally altered the UK's
   relationship with the EU. Michael Howard seized upon this "EU-turn",
   reminding Blair of his declaration to the 2003 Labour Party conference
   that "I can only go one way. I haven't got a reverse gear". The
   referendum was expected to be held in early 2006; however, after the
   French and Dutch rejections of the constitution, the Blair government
   announced it was suspending plans for a referendum for the foreseeable
   future.

   During his second term, Blair was increasingly the target for protests.
   His speech to the 2004 Labour Party conference, for example, was
   interrupted both by a protester against the Iraq War and by a group
   that opposed the government's decision to allow the House of Commons to
   ban fox hunting.

   On 15 September 2004 Blair delivered a speech on the environment and
   the 'urgent issue' of climate change. In unusually direct language he
   concluded that If what the science tells us about climate change is
   correct, then unabated it will result in catastrophic consequences for
   our world... The science, almost certainly, is correct. The action he
   proposed to take appeared to be based on business and investment rather
   than legislative or tax-based attempts to reduce CO[2] emissions: ...it
   is possible to combine reducing emissions with economic growth...
   investment in science and technology and in the businesses associated
   with it...

Health problems

   On 19 October 2003 it emerged Blair had received treatment for an
   irregular heartbeat. Having felt ill the previous day, he went to
   hospital and was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia. This was
   treated by cardioversion and he returned home that night. He was
   reported to have taken the following day ( 20 October) a more gently
   than usual and returned to a full schedule on 21 October. Downing
   Street aides later suggested the palpitations had been brought on by
   drinking lots of strong coffee at an EU summit and then working-out
   vigorously in the gym. However, former minister Lewis Moonie, a doctor,
   said the treatment was more serious than Number 10 had admitted:
   "Anaesthetising somebody and giving their heart electric shocks is not
   something you just do in the routine run of medical practice."

   In September 2004, in off-the-cuff remarks during an interview with ITV
   news, Lord Bragg said Blair was "under colossal strain" over
   "considerations of his family" and that Blair had thought "things over
   very carefully." This led to speculation Blair would resign. Although
   details of a family problem were known by the press, no paper reported
   them because according to one journalist, to have done so would have
   breached "the bounds of privacy and media responsibility."

   Blair underwent a catheter ablation to correct his irregular heartbeat
   on 1 October 2004, after announcing the procedure on the previous day,
   in a series of interviews in which he also declared he would seek a
   third term but not a fourth. The planned procedure was carried out at
   London's Hammersmith hospital.

Connaught Square

   At the same time as Blair's operation it was disclosed the Blairs had
   purchased a house at 29 Connaught Square, London, for a reported £3.5
   million. Some have speculated that part of No. 29 is to be converted
   into offices for a future Blair Foundation. The purchase also led to
   more speculation that Blair was preparing for life after government.

Third term 2005 to present

   The Labour Party won the 2005 general election and a third consecutive
   term in office. The next day, Blair was invited to form a Government by
   Queen Elizabeth II. The reduction in the Labour majority (from 167 to
   66) and the low share of the popular vote (35%) led to some Labour MPs
   calling for Blair to leave office sooner rather than later; among them
   was Frank Dobson, who had served in Blair's cabinet during his first
   term. However, dissenting voices quickly vanished as Blair in June 2005
   took on European leaders over the future direction of the European
   Union.

G8 and EU presidencies

   The rejection by France and the Netherlands of the treaty to establish
   a constitution for the European Union presented Blair with an
   opportunity to postpone the doubtful UK referendum on the constitution
   without taking the blame for failing from the EU. Foreign Secretary
   Jack Straw announced that the Parliamentary Bill to enact a referendum
   was suspended indefinitely. It had previously been agreed that
   ratification would continue unless the treaty had been rejected by at
   least five of the 25 European Union member states who must all ratify
   it. In an address to the European Parliament, Blair stated: "I believe
   in Europe as a political project. I believe in Europe with a strong and
   caring social dimension."

   Chirac held several meetings with Schröder and the pair pressed for the
   UK to give up its rebate, famously won by Margaret Thatcher in 1984.
   After verbal conflict over several weeks, Blair, along with the leaders
   of all 25 member states, descended on Brussels for the EU Summit of the
   18 June 2005 to attempt to finalise the EU budget for 2007-2013. Blair
   refused to renegotiate the rebate unless the proposals included a
   compensating overhaul of EU spending, particularly on the Common
   Agricultural Policy which composes 44% of the EU budget. After intense
   arguments inside closed doors, talks broke down late at night and the
   leaders emerged, all blaming each other. It is widely accepted that
   Blair came out on top, making allies in the Netherlands and Sweden and
   potentially (and crucially) several of the Eastern European accession
   countries.

   It fell to Blair to broker a deal on the EU budget during the UK's
   Presidency of the European Union during the latter half of 2005. Early
   international opinion, particularly in the French press, suggested that
   Blair held a very strong opening position partly on account of the
   concurrence of British presidencies of the EU and G8. However, early in
   the UK's six-month term the 7 July London bombings distracted political
   attention from the EU despite some ambitious early statements about
   Blair's agenda. Domestically, Blair faced further distractions from
   European affairs including a resurgent Conservative Party under its
   newly-elected leader David Cameron, and assessments of the British
   presidency's achievements under Blair have been lukewarm in spite of
   some diplomatic success including a last-minute budget deal. The most
   controversial result was an agreement to increase British contributions
   to the EU development budget for new member countries, which
   effectively reduced the UK rebate by 20%.

2012 Summer Olympics

   On 6 July 2005, during the 117th International Olympic Committee ( IOC)
   session in Singapore, the IOC announced that the 2012 Summer Olympics,
   the Games of the XXX Olympiad, were awarded to London over Paris by a
   small (four votes) margin. The competition between Paris and London to
   host the Games had become increasingly heated particularly after French
   President Jacques Chirac commented three days before the vote that "one
   cannot trust people [ie: the British] whose cuisine are so bad." The
   surprise win by London over the perceived frontrunner Paris was said to
   have been decided by the presence of Blair at the IOC session. Irish
   IOC member Patrick Hickey said, "This is down to Tony Blair. If he
   hadn't come here I'd say that six to eight votes would have been lost
   and London would not be sitting here today winners".

2005 London bombings

   Tony Blair reads a statement following the July 7, 2005 London
   bombings.
   Enlarge
   Tony Blair reads a statement following the July 7, 2005 London
   bombings.

   On Thursday 7 July 2005, a series of four bomb explosions struck
   London's public transport system during the morning rush-hour. All four
   incidents were suicide bombings. Fifty-six people were killed and 700
   injured. The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the
   United Kingdom since 270 died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
   over Lockerbie, Scotland and replaced the 1998 Omagh Bombing (29 Dead)
   as the second most deadliest terrorist attack on British soil. It was
   also the deadliest bombing in London since World War II.

   Blair made a statement about the day's bombings, saying that he
   believed it was "reasonably clear" that it was an act of terror, and
   that he hoped the people of Britain could demonstrate that their will
   to overcome the events is greater than the terrorists' wish to cause
   destruction. He also said that his determination to "defend" the
   British way of life outweighed "extremist determination" to destroy it.
   On 13 July 2005, he told that international cooperation would be needed
   to "pull up this evil ideology by its roots".

   On 21 July 2005, a second series of explosions were reported in London,
   two weeks and some hours after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Four
   controlled explosions, of devices considerably less advanced than those
   of the previous attacks, were carried out at Shepherd's Bush, Warren
   Street and Oval underground stations, and on a bus in Shoreditch. Even
   though the attacks on the 21st were less severe than those on the 7th,
   Blair was reported to have said that the bombings in London today were
   intended "to scare people and to frighten them, to make them anxious
   and worried". He went on to say how the "police have done their very
   best, and the security services too, in the situation, and I think we
   have just got to react calmly and continue with our business as much as
   possible normal".

   Concerns about terror attacks led to 10 Downing Street requesting media
   organizations not to identify the location of Blair's 2005 summer
   holiday. After Blair attended a public function it was acknowledged
   that the holiday was in Barbados, as a guest of the singer Cliff
   Richard with whom Blair has stayed before. During a renewed stay there
   in August 2006, Blair refused to endorse calls for a ceasefire in
   Lebanon.

   A Guardian/ICM poll conducted after the first wave of attacks found
   that 64% of the British population believed that Blair's decision to
   wage war in Iraq had led indirectly to the terrorist attacks on London.
   The public did however indicate approval of Blair's handling of the
   attacks, with his approval rating moving into positive territory for
   the first time in five years. In December 2005, the Prime Minister was
   presented with the "Statesman of the Decade" award by the EastWest
   Institute, a trans-Atlantic think tank that organizes an annual
   Security Conference in Brussels.

   Proposed laws to cope with the threat of terrorism proved extremely
   controversial; an amendment to require that glorifying terrorism be
   deliberate in order to be an offence was rejected in the House of
   Commons by just three votes (a result initially announced as a one-vote
   margin, due to a miscount). The proposal to allow terrorist suspects to
   be held for questioning for up to 90 days was defeated on 9 November by
   a margin of 31 with 49 Labour MPs voting against the government.
   Instead, MPs supported an amendment to allow questioning for 28 days
   proposed by veteran backbencher David Winnick. This was Blair's first
   defeat on the floor of the House of Commons since he became Prime
   Minister in 1997, and most commentators saw this as seriously
   undermining his authority.

Education reforms 2006

   The introduction of further reforms to the education system, which
   restricted the involvement of local education authorities in opening
   new schools, proved controversial. Labour backbenchers opposed to the
   proposals produced a rival manifesto, and the Bill to introduce the
   changes was delayed while the government negotiated with them. The
   Conservative Party declared its support for the reforms, making passage
   certain but increasing the likelihood that Labour MPs would vote
   against them. On 15 March 2006 the Education and Inspections Bill
   passed its second reading, with 52 Labour MPs voting against; had the
   Conservative Party also voted against it would have been defeated.

Local elections on 4 May 2006 and cabinet reshuffle

   The local elections in England on 4 May 2006 dealt a blow to Blair,
   with the loss of 317 seats and 18 councils. This result was thought to
   be partly continued fallout from public dissatisfaction over the
   decision to invade Iraq, and partly due to a scandal concerning the
   Home Office's mishandling of foreign criminals' deportation. At the
   same time, an affair of the Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott with
   his diary secretary had been made public. Further, some Primary Care
   and Hospital Trust sustained significant deficits and had to release
   staff, which called into question the position of Health Secretary
   Patricia Hewitt. On 5 May, Blair reshuffled his Cabinet. Most
   significantly, Charles Clarke and Foreign Secretary Jack Straw were
   relieved of their duties and many other positions were reassigned. Many
   commentators saw this as a panic reaction designed to ward off calls
   for Blair to step down.

Resignation as Labour Party leader and Prime Minister

   On 7 September 2006, Blair announced that the 2006 Labour Party
   conference would be his last as leader (i.e. he planned to resign by
   September 2007). Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is the
   favourite to be the next Labour Party leader and thereby to take over
   from Blair as Prime Minister.

Background

   After Labour's 2004 conference, Blair announced in a BBC interview that
   he would serve a "full third term" but would not fight a fourth general
   election. No term limits exist in British politics, and such an
   announcement was historically unprecedented. Blair said he would give
   "ample time" for his successor to establish himself before the next
   general election, likely to be held in 2009 or 2010.

   Following the 2005 election there has been constant speculation over
   the date of Blair's departure. At Westminster, he was expected to
   retire after the proposed UK referendum on the European Union
   Constitution, but the constitution's demise eliminated this
   possibility. The July 2005 terror attacks also reduced the likelihood
   of an early departure. Speculation as to the likely timing of Blair's
   departure increased in May 2006, following Labour's poor results in
   English local elections. His successor is widely expected to be Gordon
   Brown, the current Chancellor of the Exchequer. The only politician to
   formally declare himself a contender for Labour leadership following
   Blair's departure is left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell, who launched
   his campaign on 14 July 2006.

   If Blair remains in office until 27 November 2008, he would surpass
   Margaret Thatcher as the longest continuously serving Prime Minister
   since Lord Liverpool, 1812-27.

   On 22 August 2005, the Sunday Mirror suggested Blair would join the
   Carlyle Group upon leaving Number Ten. The chairman of Carlyle is Lou
   Gerstner, whom Blair personally recommended for a knighthood in 2001.

   Blair has said that after stepping down as Prime Minister, he plans to
   leave front-line politics and does not intend to take a seat in the
   House of Lords, commenting that it is, "...not my scene". There were
   rumours in the British press that Blair would stand for the position of
   United Nations Secretary-General when Kofi Annan stepped down on 31
   December 2006, but Blair did not pursue that position.

   It was reported on 30 July 2006 that Blair had agreed a £4m deal for
   his diaries with a publishing firm owned by Rupert Murdoch.

   On 5 September 2006 a letter signed by 17 Labour MPs called for Tony
   Blair to resign. On the same day 49 other Labour MPs signed a statement
   supporting Blair's departure timetable. The next day The Sun reported
   that Blair would step down as Labour leader on May 31, 2007, and as
   Prime Minister when a new leader is elected. That same day, seven of
   the MPs who signed the letter resigned as Parliamentary Private
   Secretaries (unpaid and unofficial posts assisting Government
   ministers).

   Regarding his departure, on 7 September 2006 he stated that the next
   Labour Party conference would be his last as leader. He did not
   announce a specific timetable for either his departure or the election
   of a new leader, but he did state that he would "set a precise date" at
   some point in the future. On 26 September 2006 he restated this at
   Labour's annual conference "this is my last conference as leader".

Row over Muslim women wearing veils

   A row over Muslim women wearing veils developed after Leader of the
   Commons Jack Straw said he asked women in his constituency to remove
   them when they visited him. The Prime Minister believed that this was a
   "mark of separation" and made some "outside the community feel
   uncomfortable". He also backed Kirklees Council, which suspended a
   classroom assistant Aishah Azmi for refusing to remove her full face
   veil at school. There was criticism from some areas asserting that the
   Prime Minister may have breached the ministerial code with his
   outspoken intervention especially as Miss Azmi's court case was still
   ongoing.

Blair and Parliament

   Blair has changed Parliamentary procedures significantly. One of his
   first acts as Prime Minister was to replace the two weekly 15-minute
   sessions of Prime Minister's Questions, held on a Tuesday and Thursday,
   with a single 30-minute session on a Wednesday. This reform was said to
   have led to greater efficiency, but critics have noted that it is
   easier to prepare for one long set of questions than for two shorter
   sessions. In addition to PMQs, Blair has held monthly press
   conferences, at which he fields questions in a less confrontational
   manner than in the Commons.

   Other procedural reforms supported by Blair include changes to the
   rules concerning the times when Parliament sits. These latter changes
   are said to allow Parliament to operate in a more business-like manner.

Blair and Brown

   After the death of John Smith in 1994, both Blair and Gordon Brown were
   viewed as possible candidates for the leadership of the Labour Party.
   They had agreed that they would not stand against each other, and Brown
   had previously been considered to be the more senior of the two men —
   he understood this to mean that Blair would give way to him. It soon
   became apparent, however, that Blair had greater public support. At the
   Granita restaurant in Islington on 31 May, Brown agreed with Blair that
   he would not contest the leadership election. He understood Blair to
   have agreed in return to step down as party leader after a specified
   period (after 8 years, according to some reports), but Blair has always
   denied striking any such deal with him. It may be that both men placed
   honestly differing interpretations on the same conversation. In
   September 2003, British TV Channel Channel 4 broadcast a one-off drama
   about the alleged agreement, called The Deal, which culminated in the
   conversation in question. The final words of it, as spoken by the
   actors playing Blair and Brown, were as follows:

   Brown: And the election after that? (i.e. the election following two
   terms of a Labour Government) Blair: Well... Obviously, I couldn't go
   on for ever.

   It has also been alleged that while in office as Prime Minister, Blair
   gave Brown further indications (and even promises) that he would step
   down in Brown's favour at specified times. Whatever the truth of these
   reports, Blair's consistent refusal to leave office (so far) has led to
   relations between the two men becoming irretrievably embittered. At
   certain times, Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has reportedly acted
   as their "marriage guidance counsellor".

   Another aspect of the political relationship between Blair and Brown is
   the exceptional freedom given by Blair from the start of his time in
   office to his Chancellor in the area of economic policy. Downing Street
   insiders have subsequently reported that Blair grew to regret granting
   Brown this freedom, since he has been excluded from important fiscal
   decisions as a result.

   Blair is still seen as refusing to endorse Gordon Brown as his
   successor. Commentators speculate that this reflects hopes in Downing
   Street that, given sufficient time, other candidates for Prime Minister
   will emerge so as to force a full leadership contest.

Blair's religious faith

   Blair has rarely discussed his religious faith in public, but he is
   often identified as an Anglo-Catholic — that is, a member of the high
   church branch of the Church of England, sympathetic to the beliefs and
   practices of the Roman Catholic Church. His wife Cherie Booth is a
   practising Roman Catholic, and Blair has attended Catholic Masses at
   Westminster Cathedral, while on holiday in Italy, and with his family
   at his current home in Number 10 Downing Street. At one point, he was
   reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume for receiving Holy Communion at Mass
   despite not being a Roman Catholic, a contravention of Catholic
   doctrine.

   In an interview with Michael Parkinson broadcast on ITV1 on 4 March
   2006, Blair referred to the role of his Christian faith in his decision
   to go to war in Iraq, stating that he had prayed about the issue, and
   saying that God would judge him for his decision: "I think if you have
   faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other
   people … and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well." His
   comments were later interpreted by some of his critics as indicating
   that he believed that God had endorsed his decision to participate in
   the invasion.

Political overview

   Which part of the political spectrum Tony Blair occupies is disputed.
   Many Britons would place him in the centre ground. His party (Labour)
   is a socialist political party, and Conservatives consider him left of
   centre. Yet some of his Labour-party backbenchers and other Left-wing
   critics would place him to the right of centre. Blair rarely applies
   such labels to himself, though he promised, in advance of the 1997
   election, that New Labour would govern "from the radical centre", and
   he is on record as describing himself as a " social democrat".

   An overview of Blair's policies gives an idea of the difficulty of
   defining him politically. He has raised taxes; implemented
   redistributive policies (to a rather larger extent than popularly
   realised); introduced a minimum wage and some new employment rights
   (while keeping Margaret Thatcher's trade union legislation); introduced
   significant constitutional reforms (which remain incomplete and
   controversial); promoted new rights for gay people in the Civil
   Partnerships Act; and signed treaties integrating Britain more closely
   with the EU). He has also firmly supported George W. Bush's foreign
   policy (while reportedly attempting to act as a restraining influence
   on him); introduced substantial market-based reforms in the education
   and health sectors; introduced student tuition fees; sought to reduce
   certain categories of welfare payments; and introduced tough
   anti-terrorism and identity card legislation (with claimed public
   support).

Criticism

   The criticism of Tony Blair includes accusations of dishonesty and
   authoritarianism, as well as criticism about his alliance with U.S.
   President George W. Bush, and his policies in the Middle East,
   including the Iraq War, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict and the
   Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Signs of increasing public animosity
   towards him came in a poll by the British television station Channel 4
   in 2003 which found Tony Blair listed as first in a list of the one
   hundred worst Britons.

Spin, authoritarianism and alleged dishonesty

   A widely-levelled criticism of Blair and his subordinates is that they
   make use of spin to such an extent that his government has
   fundamentally lost credibility with the British public. It is also
   claimed that the Government has on occasions crossed the line between
   selective presentation of information and deliberate misleading.

   Blair is perceived by many as an excessively autocratic leader, paying
   insufficient attention both to the views of his own Cabinet colleagues
   and to those of the House of Commons. His style is sometimes compared
   to not that of a prime minister and head of government, which he is,
   but more to a president and head of state, which he is not.

   Blair has consistently supported the police and sought to increase
   police powers. While this policy initially attracted widespread
   support, the government's legislative response to the threat of
   militant Islamism has been regarded by some as authoritarian.

   Blair has often (particularly after the invasion of Iraq) been labelled
   as an insincere "King of Spin" and "Phoney Tony", and has been accused
   of cronyism in his perceived penchant for promoting his friends to top
   jobs (Tony's Cronies). In his early years, Blair was often criticised
   as an unscrupulous opportunist who was solely interested in doing
   anything that would get him elected, a focus group politician. More
   recently, his unpopular support of the United States over Iraq has
   shown more commitment to his own beliefs, despite public opposition.
   His name has been deliberately mis-spelt 'Tony Bliar' (sometimes 'B.
   Liar') or 'Tory Blur' by critics of his actions and his policies
   (particularly his stance on Iraq). The Economist on 5 June 2003 devoted
   its front cover to a photograph of Blair and the headline, "Bliar?".

Relationship with the United States

   George W. Bush and Tony Blair shake hands after their press conference
   in the East Room of the White House on 12 November 2004.
   Enlarge
   George W. Bush and Tony Blair shake hands after their press conference
   in the East Room of the White House on 12 November 2004.

   Along with enjoying a close relationship with Bill Clinton during the
   latter's time in office, Blair has formed a strong political alliance
   with President George W. Bush of the United States of America,
   particularly in the area of foreign policy: at one point, Nelson
   Mandela described Blair as "the US foreign minister". For his part,
   President Bush has lauded Blair and the UK. In his post-September 11
   speech, for example, he stated that "America has no truer friend than
   Great Britain". The alliance between Bush and Blair has seriously
   damaged Blair's standing in the eyes of many British people.

Middle East policy and links with Israel

   One of Blair's first actions in joining the Labour Party was to join
   Labour Friends of Israel. In 1994, a friend and former colleague of
   Blair at 11 King's Bench Walk Chambers, Eldred Tabachnik, Q.C. (one
   time president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews) introduced
   Blair to Michael Levy, later Lord Levy, a pop music mogul and major
   fundraiser for Jewish and Israeli causes, at a dinner party hosted by
   the Israeli diplomat Gideon Meir. Blair and Levy soon became close
   friends and tennis partners. Levy ran the Labour Leader's Office Fund
   to finance Blair's campaign before the 1997 General Election and
   received substantial contributions from such figures as Alex Bernstein
   and Robert Gavron, both of whom were ennobled by Blair after he came to
   power. Levy was created a life peer by Blair in 1997, and in 2002, just
   prior to the Iraq War, Blair appointed Levy as his personal envoy to
   the Middle East. Levy has praised Blair for his "solid and committed
   support of the State of Israel" and has been described himself as "a
   leading international Zionist". In 2004, Blair was heavily criticised
   by 50 former diplomats, including ambassadors to Baghdad and Tel Aviv
   for his policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Iraq War.
   They stated they had "watched with deepening concern" at Britain
   following the U.S. into war in Iraq in 2003 also stating, "We feel the
   time has come to make our anxieties public, in the hope that they will
   be addressed in parliament and will lead to a fundamental
   reassessment," and asked Blair to exert "real influence as a loyal
   ally". The ambassadors also accused the allies of having "no effective
   plan" for the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq and the apparent
   disregard for the lives of Iraqi civilians. They diplomats also
   criticised Blair for his support for the road map which included the
   retaining of settlements on the West Bank stating, "Our dismay at this
   backward step is heightened by the fact that you yourself seem to have
   endorsed it, abandoning the principles which for nearly four decades
   have guided international efforts to restore peace in the Holy Land".

   In 2006, Blair was heavily criticised for his failure to call for a
   ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, with members of his
   cabinet openly criticising Israel. Jack Straw, the Leader of the House
   of Commons and former Foreign Secretary stated that Israel's actions
   risked destabilising all of Lebanon and that it was "very difficult to
   understand the kind of military tactics used by Israel", "These are not
   surgical strikes but have instead caused death and misery amongst
   innocent civilians.". The Observer newspaper claimed that at a cabinet
   meeting before Blair left for a summit with President George Bush on
   July 28, 2006, a significant number of ministers pressured Blair to
   publicly criticise Israel over the scale of deaths and destruction in
   Lebanon.

Relationship with Labour party

   Blair's apparent refusal to set a date for his departure has been
   criticised by the British press and members of parliament. It has been
   reported that a number of cabinet ministers believed that Blair's
   timely departure from office would be required to be able to win a
   fourth election. Some ministers viewed Blair's announcement of policy
   initiatives in September 2006 as an attempt to draw attention away from
   these issues. Upon his return from his holiday in the West Indies he
   announced that all the speculation about his leaving must stop. This
   stirred not only his traditional critics but also traditional party
   loyalists.

   While the Blair government has introduced social policies supported by
   the left of the Labour Party, such as the minimum wage and measures to
   reduce child poverty, Blair is seen on economic and management issues
   as being to the right of much of the party. A possible comparison may
   be made with American Democrats such as Joe Lieberman, who have been
   accused by their party's "base" of adopting their opponents' political
   stances. Some critics describe Blair as a reconstructed neoconservative
   or Thatcherite. He is occasionally described as "Son of Thatcher",
   though Lady Thatcher herself rejected this identification in an
   interview with ITV1 on the night of the 2005 election, saying that in
   her opinion the resemblances were superficial.

Approval rating

   In May 2006, the Daily Telegraph reported that Blair's personal
   approval rating had dipped to just 26 per cent, lower than Harold
   Wilson's rating after devaluation of the pound and James Callaghan's
   during the Winter of Discontent, meaning that Blair had become the most
   unpopular post-war Labour Prime Minister. Of all British Prime
   Ministers, only Margaret Thatcher and John Major have recorded lower
   approval (the former in the aftermath of the Poll Tax Riots).
   Previously Blair had achieved the highest approval ratings of any
   British Prime Minister of either party in the months following his
   election in 1997.

Portrayals in fiction

     * Michael Sheen has portrayed Blair twice in the films The Deal
       (2003) and The Queen (2006).
     * Tony Blair made a cameo appearance as himself in The Simpsons
       episode, The Regina Monologues (2003).

Works

     * Blair, Tony (2003). Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction: The
       Assessment of the British Government Diane Publishing, ISBN
       0-7567-3102-X
     * Blair, Tony (2002). The Courage of Our Convictions Fabian Society,
       ISBN 0-7163-0603-4
     * Blair, Tony (2000). Superpower: Not Superstate? (Federal Trust
       European Essays) Federal Trust for Education & Research, ISBN
       1-903403-25-1
     * Blair, Tony (1998). The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century
       Fabian Society, ISBN 0-7163-0588-7
     * Blair, Tony (1998). Leading the Way: New Vision for Local
       Government Institute for Public Policy Research, ISBN 1-86030-075-8
     * Blair, Tony (1997). New Britain: My Vision of a Young Country Basic
       Books, ISBN 0-8133-3338-5
     * Blair, Tony (1995). Let Us Face the Future Fabian Society, ISBN
       0-7163-0571-2
     * Blair, Tony (1994). What Price Safe Society? Fabian Society, ISBN
       0-7163-0562-3
     * Blair, Tony (1994). Socialism Fabian Society, ISBN 0-7163-0565-8

Miscellany

     * Blair, T. (2004). "Blair, The Right Hon. A. C. L." from Who's Who,
       156th ed., London: A & C Black.
     * Halsbury's Laws of England (2004), reference to impeachment in
       volume on Constitutional Law and Human Rights, paragraph 416
     * The Queen (2006 film)

Political offices

   Parliament of the United Kingdom
   Preceded by:
   (constituency created) Member of Parliament for Sedgefield
   1983 – present Incumbent
   Political offices
   Preceded by:
   Roy Hattersley Shadow Home Secretary
   1992 – 1994 Succeeded by:
   Jack Straw
   Preceded by:
   Margaret Beckett Leader of the Opposition
   1994 – 1997 Succeeded by:
   John Major
   Leader of the British Labour Party
   1994 – present Incumbent
   Preceded by:
   John Major Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
   1997 – present
   Preceded by:
   Bill Clinton

   George W. Bush
   Chair of the G8
   1998

   2005
   Succeeded by:
   Gerhard Schröder

   Vladimir Putin

   Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom Flag of the United Kingdom
   Walpole, Wilmington, Pelham, Newcastle, Devonshire, Newcastle, Bute, G
   Grenville, Rockingham, Chatham (Pitt the Elder), Grafton, North,
   Rockingham, Shelburne, Portland, Pitt the Younger, Addington, Pitt the
   Younger, W Grenville, Portland, Perceval, Liverpool, Canning, Goderich,
   Wellington, Grey, Melbourne, Peel, Melbourne, Peel, Russell, Derby,
   Aberdeen, Palmerston, Derby, Palmerston, Russell, Derby, Disraeli,
   Gladstone, Disraeli, Gladstone, Salisbury, Gladstone, Salisbury,
   Gladstone, Rosebery, Salisbury, Balfour, Campbell-Bannerman, Asquith,
   Lloyd George, Bonar Law, Baldwin, MacDonald, Baldwin, MacDonald,
   Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Churchill, Eden, Macmillan,
   Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair

                         Leaders of the Labour Party
   Keir Hardie, Arthur Henderson, George Nicoll Barnes, Ramsay MacDonald,
   Arthur Henderson, William Adamson, John Robert Clynes, Ramsay
   MacDonald, Arthur Henderson, George Lansbury, Clement Attlee, Hugh
   Gaitskell, George Alfred Brown, Harold Wilson, James Callaghan, Michael
   Foot, Neil Kinnock, John Smith, Margaret Beckett, Tony Blair
   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair"
   This reference article is mainly selected from the English Wikipedia
   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
   of authors and sources) and is available under the GNU Free
   Documentation License. See also our Disclaimer.
