Tony Blair

COMING SOON!

He has modernised the Labour Party, and consequently won three General Elections. But have his charisma and spindoctors helped to deflect the public's attention away from major issues such as the NHS and the war on terrorism?

Biography

Related

1 2

NEXT >>

Tony Blair
born: 06-05-1953
birth place: Edinburgh, Scotland

The son of a barrister and lecturer, Tony Blair was born in Edinburgh, but spent most of his childhood in Durham.

At the age of 14 he returned to Edinburgh to finish his schooling at Fettes College. He was later educated at St. John's College, Oxford, where he obtained a law degree. He joined the Labour Party after graduation.

During the 1983 general election Blair became MP for Sedgefield, and aligned himself with the reforming tendencies in the party. He made a speedy rise through the ranks, being promoted first to the shadow Treasury front bench in 1984. He subsequently served as a trade and industry spokesman, before being elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1988 where he was made Shadow Secretary of State for Energy. In 1989 he moved to the employment brief.

After the 1992 election, the new Labour leader John Smith, promoted Blair to Shadow Home Secretary. It was in this post that Mr Blair made famous his pledge that Labour would be tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime.

Two years later Smith died of a heart attack. Blair and fellow shadow cabinet member, Gordon Brown, famously agreed that Blair would stand for the leadership, with Brown becoming Chancellor in the event of victory.

Elected using the new election rules they had helped to bring in, Blair and Brown set about changing the Labour Party, modifying its constitution away from commitments to public ownership, and allying the party to big business, rather than the trade unions movement.

Although it attracted much criticism for its alleged superficiality, from both political opponents and traditionalists within the party, "New Labour" achieved a landslide victory over John Major’s ruling Conservative Party in the 1997 general election.

1 2

NEXT >>