Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. Prices in the area have climbed by an average of 43 per cent in that period, but the Blairs carried out renovations, planning documents reveal. He is the second longest serving prime minister in modern history after Margaret Thatcher, and is the longest serving Labour politician to have held the office. [187] Some ministers viewed Blair's announcement of policy initiatives in September 2006 as an attempt to draw attention away from these issues. He denies any conflict of interest. Somehow this has become distorted by excitable Right-wing newspaper columnists into being a "plot" to make Britain multicultural. What bothered PetroSaudi was that it was paying roughly $55,000 to Firerush and about $10,000 to Windrush. [294] As Blair is considered to have been instrumental in ending the conflict in Kosovo, some boys born in the country following the war have been given the name Toni or Tonibler. [10], They work to promote co-existence and counter extremism by tackling the ideology behind violence, not just the violence itself, and focusing on responses to extremism that first seek to understand the underlying ideology then addressing it by disrupting its spread, reducing its appeal, and building resilience to its messaging. [60] In the event, virtually every opinion poll since late-1992 put Labour ahead with enough support to form an overall majority. Blair attended the independent school Fettes College, and studied law at St John's College, Oxford, where he became a barrister. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. Blair was pelted with eggs and shoes, and encountered an attempted citizen's arrest for war crimes.[229]. A petition calling for Sir Tony Blair to be stripped of his knighthood has been signed by more than 670,000 people. Blair defeated John Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the subsequent leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition. [14] Blair is reported to have hated his time at Fettes. Blair described the report as "nonsense". In 2018, her bid to add a single-storey extension to the house, which is in a conservation area, was branded thoughtless vandalism. Tony, procured by Windrush, is involved at higher level but on an ongoing basis, meeting with senior political leadership and business heads in order to discuss PetroSaudi at a strategic level and to speak highly of your management.. The chief operating officer was listed as Rick Haythornthwaite, a City insider who was also chairman of Network Rail and MasterCard. He received his first front-bench appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Tony-Blair, Tony Blair - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Tony Blair - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). [102], At a special party conference in Manchester on 24 June 2007, Blair formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordon Brown, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer in Blair's three ministries. [28] Although Blair lost the Beaconsfield by-election and Labour's share of the vote fell by 10 percentage points, he acquired a profile within the party. [15]The article quotes a spokesperson saying while the Institute was under no duty to disclose donors or donations they confirmed receiving a donation from Media Investment Ltd, a subsidiary of the Saudi Research and Marketing Group registered in Guernsey, to fund their work for modernisation and reform working for a regional solution to the peace process as well as on governance in Africa and promoting religious co-existence. "[178] No details were given of the subjects discussed. [77] Playwright Harold Pinter and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused Blair of war crimes. [300] A petition cited his role in the Iraq War as a reason to remove the knighthood and garnered more than one million signatures. [189], During the 2010 election campaign Blair publicly endorsed Gordon Brown's leadership, praising the way he had handled the financial crisis. Tony Blair, the Duchess of Cornwall, and Baroness Amos are to be appointed as members of the Order of the Garter, England's oldest and most senior order of chivalry. On 10 May 2007, during a speech at the Trimdon Labour Club, Blair announced his intention to resign as both Labour Party leader and prime minister. [65], 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. [55] At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Blair stated that his three top priorities on coming to office were "education, education, and education". Tony and Cherie Blair are directors at a company involved in the PFI that funded Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital, which continues to receive rent from the NHS for use of the hospital. To convince PetroSaudi that if it paid it would get Blair, his executives revealed for the first time how his complex web of companies worked. As a student, he played guitar and sang for a rock band called Ugly Rumours. PetroSaudi executives warned in early September 2010 that they had no contractual nexus with TB and were anxious about the lack of apparent employment or other involvement of TB in the corporate structure. During his first year in office, he organized referenda that created devolved assemblies in Scotland and Wales and developed a joint committee to coordinate constitutional and other policies with the opposition Liberal Democrats. The son of a barrister, Blair attended Fettes College in Edinburgh (a school often viewed as Scotlands Eton) and St. Johns College of the University of Oxford, where he combined the study of law with interest in religious ideas and popular music. Since then Blair has been back two dozen times and has built a reputation for befriending the rising stars of Chinese politics. "[130], Blair criticised other governments for not doing enough to solve global climate change. [161] Zimbabwe had embarked on a program of uncompensated land redistribution from the country's white commercial farmers to the black population, a policy that disrupted agricultural production and threw Zimbabwe's economy into chaos. In addition to PMQs, Blair held monthly press conferences at which he fielded questions from journalists[85] and from 2002 broke precedent by agreeing to give evidence twice yearly before the most senior Commons select committee, the Liaison Committee. [103] Blair tendered his resignation on 27 June 2007 and Brown assumed office during the same afternoon. [89] Blair was accused of excessive reliance on spin. Polly Toynbee, Michael White and Patrick Wintour, Jeremy Lovell, Britain Set to Miss its Own Greenhouse Gas Target, Last edited on 25 February 2023, at 09:28, September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, Timeline of the 2007 Labour Party leadership election (UK), United Nations Security Council Resolution 1441, referendum on the Brexit withdrawal agreement, withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Knight Companion of the Order of the Garter, Parliamentary motion to impeach Tony Blair, "Blair's birthplace is bulldozed in Edinburgh", "Blair: 'Why adoption is close to my heart', "We had no file on him but it was clear he was up for the business", "Newcastle fan Tony Blair shock candidate for key Premier League role", "British Prime Ministers and their passion for football", "Tony Blair absolutely modelled himself on Mick Jagger", "Tony Blair recalls 'dire' standup attempts and his role as 'Captain Kink', "Tony Blair reveals he was a student 'Trot' inspired to enter politics by the life of Bolshevik leader Leon Trotsky", "Blair reveals he 'toyed with Marxism' after reading book on Trotsky", "Family tragedy at the heart of Blair's ambition", "Labour's Old Romantic: A Film Portrait of Michael Foot", "By-election boost for Thatcher's stance", "The full text of Tony Blair's letter to Michael Foot written in July 1982", "Blair's agent suspended over foul-mouthed threat", "America's Friend: Reflections on Tony Blair", "May 2, 1997: Labour win general election by a landslide to end 18 years of Conservative rule", "Blair mooted Lib Dem coalition deal Ashdown", "Biography: The Prime Minister Tony Charles Lynton Blair", "Rishi Sunak will become being youngest UK PM in modern political history", "Tony Blair: 'Labour can win at any point that it wants to get back to winning ways', "1998: Northern Ireland peace deal reached", "Tony Blair admits: I would have invaded Iraq anyway", "Malaysian former PM Mahathir accuses Tony Blair as war criminal", "Pinter demands war crimes trial for Blair", "Iraq inquiry hears defiant Blair say: I'd do it again", "Tony Blair defends UK involvement in Iraq war", "Tony Blair at Iraq inquiry the key points", "Tony Blair apologises for 'mistakes' over Iraq War and admits 'elements of truth' to view that invasion helped rise of ISIS", "Tony Blair unrepentant as Chilcot gives crushing Iraq war verdict", "Blair agrees to face grilling by select committee critics", "President Blair: Americans love our leader but may cause his downfall", "Blair a casualty of UK support for Iraq war", "Diplomat's suppressed document lays bare the lies behind Iraq war", "Blair Risked Much in Support of U.S.-UK Friendship", "Labour leadership, close of nominations", "Blair resigns as MP and heads for Mideast role", "Tony Blair refuses to produce an honours list", "We're a left-of-centre party pursuing prosperity and social justice", "A decade of Blair has left the Labour party on its knees", "I can't fight my feelings any more: I love Tony", "David Cameron's friendship with Tony Blair is starting to do serious damage", "Tony Blair's legacy: 20% jump in amount of legislation introduced per year", Blair's 'frenzied law making': a new offence for every day spent in office, "Did New Labour spend too much in government? Sir Tony Blair served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007. During his time in office, the UK economy enjoyed record growth. [240][241], Blair wrote in an op-ed published by The Washington Post on 8 February 2019: "Where Iran is exercising military interference, it should be strongly pushed back. [296] It was presented by former President Bill Clinton, and is awarded annually to "men and women of courage and conviction who strive to secure the blessings of liberty to people around the globe". Blair's first PMOS was Alastair Campbell, who served in that role from May 1997 to 8 June 2001, after which he served as the prime minister's director of communications and strategy until his resignation on 29 August 2003 in the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry. Blair was re-elected in a second landslide in 2001. [163] In 2018, Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, said there was "significant regret" over this trip, which helped Putin rise to power. Tony Blair provides advice to African leaders with Tony Blair Institute advisers working in governments, helping them implement their own visions for development. [92], As the casualties of the Iraq War mounted, Blair was accused of misleading Parliament,[93][94] and his popularity dropped dramatically. Lord Avebury said: "The public can now scrutinise the timing of his (Murdoch's) contacts with the former prime minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government. Without peace in the Middle East, grievances will continue to fester, and conflict will spill-over to other countries. [35] Blair's election literature in the 1983 general election endorsed left-wing policies that Labour advocated in the early 1980s. PetroSaudis pitch in the document was that it claimed many countries will get a company in but then bully it around once it is there and has sunk billions of dollars in the ground. The courtship has parallels with Blair's friendly relations with Muammar Gaddafi. Read about our approach to external linking. [45], John Smith died suddenly in 1994 of a heart attack. How did Vladimir Putin lose half of Russia's elite paratroopers? [60] Blair was forced to back down on these proposals because John Prescott and Gordon Brown opposed the PR system, and many members of the Shadow Cabinet were worried about concessions being made towards the Lib Dems. What's he waiting for? [206] Blair has used his Quartet Tony Blair Associates works with the Kazakhstan government, advising the regime on judicial, economic and political reforms, but has been subject to criticism after accusations of "whitewashing" the image and human rights record of the regime. He introduced substantial market-based reforms in the education and health sectors; introduced student tuition fees and sought to reduce certain categories of welfare payments. In an internal 2010 document entitled story for Blair, PetroSaudi sold itself as a vehicle of the Saudi royal family that could count on the full support from the kingdoms diplomatic corps and was set up by Prince Turki bin Abdullah and Obaid, who hailed from a prominent business family. Sir Tony led his party to a landslide victory in 1997 and won two subsequent general elections. The house was one of nearly 40 properties owned by the former Labour Prime Minister, his wife and their four adult children. We exist to equip political leaders and governments to build open, inclusive and prosperous societies. [124][125] They pledged in 2001 to bring NHS spending to the levels of other European countries, and doubled spending in real terms to over 100 billion in England alone. Meg & Harry 'stunned' by King's 'cruel' Frogmore eviction 'punishment', Harry and Meghan evicted from Frogmore Cottage by King Charles after Spare memoir, Emmerdale's Amy Nuttall caught cheating hubby after sexy lingerie slip-up, Constance Marten and lover arrested over manslaughter, News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. Tony Blair Institute for Global Change The Fletcher School at Tufts University About Multi-jurisdictional credentials and over 25 years' substantive professional experience in the public,. This button displays the currently selected search type. Read more about this company. [61], Blair became the prime minister of the United Kingdom on 2 May 1997. Levy praised Blair for his "solid and committed support of the State of Israel". Tony Blair courted Chinese leaders for Saudi prince's oil firm, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. [191] Blair originally indicated that he would retain his parliamentary seat after his resignation as prime minister came into effect; however, on being confirmed for the Middle East role he resigned from the Commons by taking up an office of profit. Blair was appointed prime minister after Labour won the 1997 general election, its largest landslide general election victory in history, becoming the youngest prime minister of the 20th century. "Anthony Blair" redirects here. The chief executive, who bought himself a 22million mansion last month, founded the business just six years ago and in the last eight months it has doubled its previous valuation of 700million. They increasingly saw Labour in terms defined by the opposition, regarding higher taxes and higher interest rates. [208] The Kazakhstan foreign minister said that the country was "honoured and privileged" to be receiving advice from Blair. In July 2009, this accomplishment was followed by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the US, Durham University in the UK, and the National University of Singapore in Asia, to deliver a postgraduate programme in partnership with the Foundation. It comes 22 years after his unfortunate brush with the law, when he was arrested as a teenager for being drunk after a night out in London celebrating his GCSE results. A petition calling for Sir Tony's honour to be rescinded has over a million signatures. In 1982, Blair was selected as the Labour Party candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield, where there was a forthcoming by-election. The father-of-one was introduced to his wife by former defence secretary Geoff Hoon while she was on work experience. My boy Jack [videorecording] / an Ecosse Films and WGBH/Boston production for ITV ; a co-production of Ingenious Broadcasting in association with Octagon Films with the participation of Bord Scannn na hireann/Irish Film Board ; producers, Michael Casey, Douglas Rae ; screenplay by David Haig ; director, Brian Kirk. London. [222][225], Media analysis of the sudden announcement was wide-ranging, describing it as an act of "desperation" to obtain a better launch reception of a humiliating "publishing flop"[226] that had languished in the ratings,[222][226] "blood money" for the lives lost in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,[222][224] an act with a "hidden motive" or an expression of "guilt",[222][223] a "genius move" to address the problem that "Tony Blair ha[d] one of the most toxic brands around" from a PR perspective, and a "cynical stunt to wipe the slate", but also as an attempt to make amends. 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