Everything about Tony Blair totally explained
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born
6 May 1953) is a
British politician who served as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from
2 May 1997 to
27 June 2007,
Leader of the
Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and
Member of
Parliament for
Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007. On the day he stood down as Prime Minister, he was appointed official
Envoy of the
Quartet on the Middle East on behalf of the
United Nations, the
European Union, the
United States and
Russia, and stepped down as an
MP and became
Steward of Her Majesty's Three Chiltern Hundreds of Stoke, Desborough and Burnham in the county of Buckingham.
Tony Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in
July 1994 following the sudden death of his predecessor,
John Smith. Under Blair's leadership the party abandoned many policies that it had held for decades. Labour won a
landslide victory in the
1997 general election, which ended 18 years of rule by the
Conservative Party with the heaviest Conservative defeat since
1832.
Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister and the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive
general election victories.
Gordon Brown, Blair's
Chancellor of the Exchequer during his ten years in office, succeeded him as Leader of the Labour Party on
24 June 2007 and as Prime Minister on
27 June 2007.
Background and family life
Blair was born at the Queen Mary Maternity Home in
Edinburgh,
Scotland on
6 May 1953, son of two English actors, had been adopted by a Glasgow shipyard worker named James Blair and his wife Mary as a baby. Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher and
Orangeman who had moved to Glasgow in 1916 but returned to (and later died in)
Ballyshannon in 1923, where his wife Sarah Margaret née Lipsett gave birth to Blair's mother Hazel above her family's
grocery shop. The Lipsett family in Donegal supposedly originated with a German
Jewish immigrant to
Ireland prior to the 18th century. George Corscadden was from a family of
Protestant farmers in
County Donegal,
Ireland, who descended from
Scottish settlers that took their family name from
Garscadden, now part of
Glasgow. The Blair family was often taken on holiday to
Rossnowlagh, a beach resort near Hazel's hometown of
Ballyshannon in south
County Donegal in the
Republic of Ireland. Tony Blair has one elder brother,
William Blair, who is a
barrister and
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. The Blairs lived close to the university, in the suburb of
Dulwich.
The family returned to Britain in the late 1950s, living for a time with Hazel Blair's stepfather William McClay and her mother at their home in
Stepps, near Glasgow. He 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 from 1961 to 1966, Blair boarded at
Fettes College, a notable
independent school in Edinburgh, where he met
Charlie Falconer (a pupil at the rival
Edinburgh Academy), whom he later appointed
Lord Chancellor. He reportedly modelled himself on
Mick Jagger. His teachers were unimpressed with him: his biographer, John Rentoul reported that, "All the teachers I spoke to when researching the book said he was a complete pain in the backside, and they were very glad to see the back of him". Blair was arrested at Fettes, having being mistaken for a burglar as he climbed into his dormitory using a ladder, after being out late.
After Fettes, Blair spent a year in London, where he attempted to find fame as a
rock music promoter, before going up to the
University of Oxford to
read jurisprudence 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. He became influenced by fellow student and priest
Peter Thomson, who awakened within Blair a deep concern for religious faith and left wing politics. Whilst at Oxford, Blair's mother Hazel died of cancer which was said to have greatly affected Blair. After graduating from Oxford in
1976 with a
Second Class Honours BA in Jurisprudence, 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.He acted predominantly for employers or wealthier clients, as in
Nethermere v. Gardiner where he unsuccessfully defended employers that had refused holiday pay to employees at a trouser factory. 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'd wished to shield their children from the media, their children's education was a cause of political controversy. All three attended the Roman Catholic
London Oratory School, criticised by left-wingers for its selection procedures, instead of a poorly-performing
Roman Catholic school in Labour-controlled
Islington, where they then lived, in Richmond Avenue. There was further criticism when it was revealed that Euan received private coaching from staff from
Westminster School.
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; at the
Beaconsfield by-election 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, a notionally safe Labour seat near where he'd 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 hadn't 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 left-wing policies that the Labour Party advocated in the early 1980s. He called for Britain to leave the
EEC, though he'd told his selection conference that he personally favoured continuing membership. He also supported
unilateral nuclear disarmament as a member of the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Blair was helped on the campaign trail by
soap actress
Pat Phoenix, his father-in-law's girlfriend. Blair was elected as MP for Sedgefield, despite the party's landslide defeat in the general election.
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's 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 front bench appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. In May 1985 he appeared on BBC's
Question Time arguing that the Conservative Government's Public Order White Paper was a threat to civil liberties.
Blair 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 receiving 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", and criticised poor 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. He gave his first major platform speech at the 1990
Labour Party conference.
In the run-up to the
1992 general election, Blair worked to modernise Labour's image and was responsible for developing the controversial
minimum wage policy.
When Neil Kinnock resigned as party leader after Labour's fourth successive election 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, accepting that the prison population might have to rise, and bemoaning 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".
In 1993, while still Shadow Home Secretary, Blair attended the annual invitation-only
Bilderberg conference.
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 highly symbolic change in April 1995.
Blair also revised party policy in a manner that enhanced the image of Labour as competent and modern using 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—at age 43—to attain the office of Prime Minister since
Lord Liverpool in 1812—at age 42.
Prime Minister
Blair became the
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on
2 May 1997, serving concurrently as
First Lord of the Treasury,
Minister for the Civil Service,
Leader of the Labour Party, and
Member of Parliament for the constituency of
Sedgefield in the
North East of
England and
Privy Counsellor. With victories in 1997,
2001, and 2005, Blair was the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister, the only person to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories.
Blair is both credited with, 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.
In domestic government policy, Blair significantly increased
public spending on health and education while also introducing controversial market-based reforms in these areas. Blair's tenure also saw the introduction of a
National Minimum Wage, tuition fees for higher education, and
constitutional reform such as
devolution in
Scotland and
Wales. The British economy performed well, and Blair kept to Conservative commitments not to increase income tax, although he did introduce a large number of subtle tax increases referred to as stealth taxes by his opponents.
His contribution towards assisting the
Northern Ireland Peace Process by helping to negotiate the
Good Friday Agreement after 30 years of conflict was widely recognised. Following the
Omagh Bombing on
15 August1998 by dissidents opposed to the peace process which killed 29 people and wounded hundreds, Blair visited the
County Tyrone town, and met with victims at
Belfast's
Royal Victoria Hospital.
From the start of the
War on Terror in 2001, Blair strongly supported
United States foreign policy, notably by participating in the invasions of
Afghanistan in 2001 and
Iraq in 2003. He encountered fierce criticism as a result, over the policy itself and the circumstances in which it was decided upon, especially his claims that Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction (which have not been discovered in Iraq). For his unwavering support of the United States government's foreign policy, Mr. Blair was honored with the Congressional Gold Medal on July 18th, 2003.
Following pressure from the Labour Party, on
7 September 2006 Blair publicly stated he'd step down as party leader by the time of the
Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference which was held from
10 September 2007 –
13 September 2007, having promised to serve a full term during the previous general election campaign.
Relationship with Parliament
Blair changed Parliamentary procedures significantly. One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to replace the then twice-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's easier to prepare for one long set of questions than for two shorter sessions. In addition to PMQs, Blair held monthly press conferences, at which he fielded questions from journalists.
Other procedural reforms included changing the official times for Parliamentary sessions in order to have Parliament operate in a more business-like manner.
Resignation
On
10 May 2007, Blair announced during a speech at the Trimdon Labour Club in his
Sedgefield constituency his intention to resign as both Labour Party leader and Prime Minister the following June. On
June 24 he formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to
Gordon Brown at a special party conference in
Manchester. Blair tendered his resignation as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to the Queen on
27 June 2007, his successor Gordon Brown assuming office the same afternoon. He also resigned his seat in the House of Commons in the traditional form of accepting the Stewardship of the
Chiltern Hundreds to which he was appointed by Gordon Brown in one of the latter's last acts as Chancellor of the Exchequer. (It is impossible to resign from the UK Parliament, so this device is used for MPs wishing to step down.)
The resulting
Sedgefield by-election was won by Labour's candidate,
Phil Wilson. Blair hasn't to date issued a list of
Resignation Honours; it has been suggested that the list was delayed because of the Cash for Honours investigation by the police. However, that investigation has now ended and no list has been produced; should Blair choose not to issue one he'll be the first Prime Minister of the modern era not to do so.
Post-Prime Ministerial career
Middle East envoy
On
27 June,
2007, he officially resigned as
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after ten years in office, and Blair was officially confirmed as
Middle East envoy for the
United Nations,
European Union,
United States and
Russia. President George W. Bush had preliminary talks with Blair to ask him to take up the envoy role. White House sources stated that "both Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the proposal".
Private sector
In January 2008 it was confirmed that Blair would be joining investment bank
JPMorgan "in a senior advisory capacity" and that he'd advise the insurance firm
Zurich on climate change. His combined earnings then reached over £7m a year.
Teaching
Yale University announced on
March 72008 that Blair will teach a course on issues of faith and globalization at the Yale Schools of
Management and
Divinity as a
Howland distinguished fellow during the 2008–2009 academic year.
Potential candidacy for President of Europe
Media has speculated that Blair is planning to become the first
President of the European Council (often touted as the "President of the European Union" or the "President of Europe"), a post created in the
Treaty of Lisbon that would come into force in 2009, if successfully ratified.
Blair has been the most common name connected with the post. Touted as far back as 2002, rumours re-emerged since his resignation. In June 2007 French president
Nicolas Sarkozy was the first leader to propose that Blair be the first president, support which was reiterated in October 2007 following an agreement on the
Treaty of Lisbon.
Gordon Brown, Blair's successor, added his support but noted it was premature to discuss candidates before the treaty was approved. A spokesman for Tony Blair hasn't ruled out Blair accepting the post, saying he was concentrating on his current role in the Middle East. Some believe he's unlikely to take the position as it comes with few powers. Blair was later invited to speak on European issues at a rally of Sarkozy's party, the
Union for a Popular Movement, on 12 January 2008. This fueled speculation further.
Honours
In May 2007, before his resignation, it was reported that Blair would be offered a Knighthood in the
Order of the Thistle, rather than the
Order of the Garter, due to his Scottish connections. No such move has been reported since, and, on
St Andrew's Day, the Queen appointed two men to the only openings in the limited Order.
On
22 May 2008, Blair received a honorary law doctorate from
Queen's University Belfast, alongside former taoiseach
Bertie Ahern, for distinction in public service and roles in the
Northern Ireland peace process.
Relationship with media
Rupert Murdoch
Tony Blair's close relationship with
Rupert Murdoch and the reciprocated unprecedented support which he received from Murdoch's globally influential
News Corporation media empire, has been the subject of much criticism.
Contacts with UK media proprietors
A
Cabinet Office freedom of information response, released the day after Blair handed over power to
Gordon Brown, documents Blair having various official phone calls and meetings with
Rupert Murdoch of
News Corporation and
Richard Desmond of
Northern and Shell Media.
The response includes contacts "clearly of an official nature" in the specified period, but excludeds contacts "not clearly of an official nature." No details were given of what subjects discussed.
In the period between September 2002 and April 2005, Blair and Murdoch are documented speaking 6 times; three times in the 9 days before the
Iraq war, including the eve of the March 20 US and UK invasion, and on January 29, April 25 and October 3 2004. Between January 2003 and February 2004, Mr Blair had three meetings with Richard Desmond; on January 29 and September 3 2003 and February 23 2004.
The information was disclosed after a three and a half year battle by the
Lib Dem Lord Avebury. This gave rise to the alleged
Blair-Brown deal. At certain times,
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has reportedly acted as their "marriage guidance counsellor".
Religious faith
On
22 December 2007, it was disclosed that Blair had converted to the
Catholic faith, and that it was "a private matter". He had informed
Pope Benedict XVI on
23 June 2007 that he wanted to become Catholic. The Pope and his advisors criticised some of Blair's political actions, but followed up with a reportedly unprecedented red-carpet welcome that included
Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, who would be responsible for Blair's
Catholic instruction.
Blair had previously rarely discussed his
religious faith in public, but had often been 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 had attended Catholic Masses at
Westminster Cathedral, with his family at
Number 10 Downing Street, and also while on holiday in Italy. During one such visit to that country, on 22 February 2003, when he met with
Pope John Paul II, Blair and his wife stayed at the
Irish College in Rome. In 1996, he was reprimanded by
Basil Cardinal Hume for receiving
Holy Communion at Mass despite not being a Roman Catholic, a contravention of Catholic Canon Law.
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'd
prayed about the issue, and saying that God would judge him for his decision:
"I think if you've 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."
A longer exploration of his faith can be found in an interview with
Third Way Magazine. He says there that "I was brought up as [aChristian], but I wasn't in any real sense a practising one until I went to Oxford. There was an Australian priest at the same college as me who got me interested again. In a sense, it was a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than some sort of special one-to-one relationship with a remote Being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance. I began to make sense of the world". The death of Blair's mother Hazel in 1975 is said to have greatly affected him and prompted his renewed spiritual commitment whilst at Oxford.
These comments prompted a number of questions on Blair's faith. At one point
Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of strategy and communications, intervened in an interview, preventing the Prime Minister from answering a question about his Christianity, explaining, "We don't do God".
Cherie Blair's friend and "spiritual guru" Carole Caplin is credited with introducing her and her husband to various
New Age symbols and beliefs, including "magic pendants" known as "BioElectric Shields". The most controversial of the Blairs' New Age practices occurred when on holiday in Mexico. The couple, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure that involved smearing mud and fruit over each others' bodies while sitting in a steam bath.
Political overview
The Labour Party is historically a
socialist political party. In 2001, Tony Blair said, "We are a
left of centre party, pursuing economic prosperity and social justice as partners and not as opposites".
Blair has rarely applied such labels to himself, but he promised before the 1997 election that New Labour would govern "from the radical centre", and according to one lifelong Labour Party member, has always described himself as a
social democrat. However, Labour Party backbenchers and other left wing critics typically place Blair to the
right of centre. A
YouGov opinion poll in 2005 also found that a small majority of British voters, including many New Labour supporters, place Blair on the right of the political spectrum. The
Financial Times on the other hand has argued that Blair isn't
conservative, but instead a
populist.
Critics and admirers tend to agree that Blair's electoral success was based on his ability to occupy the centre ground and appeal to voters across the political spectrum, to the extent that he's been fundamentally at odds with traditional Labour Party values. Some left wing critics have argued that Blair has overseen the final stage of a long term shift of the Labour Party to the right, and that very little now remains of a Labour Left. There is also evidence that Blair's long term dominance of the centre has forced his Conservative opponents to shift a long distance to the left, in order to challenge his
hegemony there.
Blair has raised taxes, implemented redistributive policies, 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 Partnership Act 2004, and signed treaties integrating Britain more closely with the EU. He introduced substantial
market-based reforms in the education and health sectors, introduced student tuition fees (also controversial), sought to reduce certain categories of welfare payments, and introduced tough
anti-terrorism and
identity card legislation.
Environmental record
Tony Blair talks a lot about the environment abroad and criticizes other governments for not doing enough. In 1997 Tony Blair in a visit to the
United States made an comment of "great industrialized nations" that fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Again in 2003 Mr. Blair went before the
United States Congress and said that climate change "cannot be ignored," insisting "we need to go beyond even
Kyoto." His record at home tends to say something different. Tony Blair and his party have promised a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide but during his term the emissions rose. The Labour Party also claimed that by 2010 10% of the energy would come from renewable resources but in fact only 3% currently does.
In 2000 Mr. Blair "flagged up" 100 million Euros for green policies in an effort to get greens and businesses to work together.
Criticism
Tony Blair has been criticised for 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. Blair is also criticised for an alleged tendency to
spin important information in a way that can be misleading. Blair is the first ever Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to have been formally questioned by police officers whilst in office, although he wasn't
under caution when interviewed.
Critics also regard Tony Blair as having eroded
civil liberties and increased social
authoritarianism, by increasing police powers, in the form of more arrestable offences, DNA recording, and the issuing of dispersal orders.
Presidentialism
Blair was sometimes perceived as paying insufficient attention both to the views of his own Cabinet colleagues and to those of the
House of Commons. His style was sometimes criticised as not that of a prime minister and
head of government, which he was, but of a president and
head of state, which he was not.
Relationship with the United States
Along with enjoying a close relationship with
Bill Clinton during the latter's time in office, Blair has formed a strong political alliance with
George W. Bush, particularly in the area of foreign policy. At one point,
Nelson Mandela described Blair as "the U.S. foreign minister". Blair has also often openly been referred to as "Bush's poodle". Kendall Myers, a senior analyst at the
State Department, reportedly said that he felt "a little ashamed" of Bush's treatment of the Prime Minister and that his attempts to influence
U.S. government policy were typically ignored: "It was a done deal from the beginning, it was a one-sided relationship that was entered into with open eyes... There was nothing, no payback, no sense of reciprocity".
For his part, 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
Britons. Blair has argued it's in Britain's interest to "protect and strengthen the bond" with the United States regardless of who is in the White House.
Relationship with other European nations
Blair played a key role in extending the membership of the
European Union from 15 to 27 states, and worked to ensure that
free-market values were adopted.
Blair also forged allegiances with several conservative European leaders, including
Silvio Berlusconi of
Italy,
Angela Merkel of
Germany and more recently
Nicolas Sarkozy of
France.
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'd "
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 that'll 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. The 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. Kim Howells, a minister in the Foreign Office, stated 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
28 July 2006, a significant number of ministers pressured Blair to publicly criticise Israel over the scale of deaths and destruction in Lebanon.
In May 2008 Tony Blair announced a new plan for peace and for Palestinian rights, based heavily on the ideas of the
Peace Valley plan.
Relationship with Labour Party
Blair's apparent refusal to set a date for his departure was 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. 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. Blair himself has often expressed admiration for Thatcher.
Approval rating
In May 2006,
The Daily Telegraph reported that Blair's personal approval rating had dipped to 26%, 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 post-war
British Prime Ministers of both parties, 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 or party leader of either party in the months following his election in 1997. Two months later, in July 2006, Blair's approval rating hit a further low of 23%, the lowest rating he ever received. Blair isn't however the most unpopular post-war Labour Party leader, with
Michael Foot recording 13% approval in August 1982, although Foot was merely Leader of the Opposition at the time, rather than Prime Minister. No Labour leader other than Foot, whether in office or opposition, has recorded lower approval than Blair. Blair's approval rating during the final month of his premiership was 35%. Hence, he left office having experienced the extremes of being both the most popular and least popular Labour Prime Minister since the
Second World War.
Portrayals and cameo appearances
Appearances
Blair made a 'virtual'
cameo appearance as himself in
The Simpsons episode, "
The Regina Monologues" (2003). He has also appeared himself at the end of the first episode of
The Amazing Mrs. Pritchard. a British TV series about an unknown housewife becoming Prime Minister, and, on
March 16 2007, in a comedy sketch with
Catherine Tate who appeared in the guise of her character
Lauren Cooper from
The Catherine Tate Show. The sketch was made for the
BBC Red Nose Day fundraising programme of 2007. During the sketch, Blair used Lauren's most famous catchphrase "Am I bovvered?".
Portrayals
Michael Sheen has portrayed Blair twice in the films
The Deal (2003) and
The Queen (2006). Blair was portrayed by
Robert Lindsay in the TV programme
A Very Social Secretary; he reprised the role in
The Trial of Tony Blair.
Blair in fiction, satire and drama
Blair's appearance in fiction has been discussed in
The Guardian.
During Blair's tenure as Prime Minister, the
St. Albion Parish News was a regular feature in the magazine
Private Eye, containing the messages of the incumbent "Rev. A. R. P. Blair MA (Oxon)", and his diatribes against (amongst others) the
parish treasurer, Mr. Brown.
Blair is recognisable as the Bible-reading Prime Minister, receiving inspiration directly from
God, in
A. N. Wilson's satirical novel,
My Name is Legion. He is also a clear model for the ex-Prime Minister in
Robert Harris's novel,
The Ghost.
The climax of
Alistair Beaton's satirical play on
political spin,
'Feelgood' , is a Blair-like speech given by a Blair lookalike, using typical Blair gestures.
Titles and honours
Styles from birth
- Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, (1953–1983)
- Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, Esq, MP (1983–1994)
- The Rt Hon Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, MP (1994–2007)
- The Rt Hon Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (2007–)
Honours
Privy Councillor (1994)
Congressional Gold Medal
Works
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 0-7163-0565-8Further Information
Get more info on 'Tony Blair'.
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