Tony Blair

Tony Blair

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. He was also Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and served as Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East until 2015. Blair’s legacy remains controversial because of his interventions in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. He has also been criticised for the media, executive powers, and aspects of his social and economic policies. He currently serves as the executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

About Tony Blair in brief

Summary Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. He was also Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and served as Special Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East until 2015. Blair was born in Edinburgh and studied at St John’s College, Oxford. He became involved in Labour politics and was elected Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983. He supported moving the party to the centre of British politics in an attempt to help it win power. Blair’s legacy remains controversial because of his interventions in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Despite his successes, he has also been criticised for the media, executive powers, and aspects of his social and economic policies. He currently serves as the executive chairman of the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, established in 2016. As Labour leader, Blair advocated the ‘Third Way’ and used the phrase ‘New Labour’ to distance himself from previous Labour politics. His government enacted constitutional reforms, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, while also establishing the UK’s Supreme Court and reforming the office of Lord Chancellor. He championed multiculturalism and, between 1997 and 2007, immigration rose considerably, especially after his government welcomed immigration from the new EU member states in 2004. His other social policies were generally progressive; he introduced the National Minimum Wage Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000, and in 2004 allowed gay couples to enter into civil partnerships.

Blair argued that the Saddam Hussein regime possessed an active weapons of mass destruction program, but no stockpiles of WMDs or an active WMD program were ever found in Iraq. The Iraq War became increasingly unpopular among the British public, and he was criticised by opponents and the Iraq Inquiry for waging an unjustified and unnecessary invasion. In 2007, he resigned as PM and Labour Party leader in 2007 and was succeeded by Gordon Brown, who had been his Chancellor of the Exchequer since 1997. He is the son of Mary Mangeman and George Corscadden, a butcher and Orangeman who moved to Glasgow in 1916. In 1923, he returned to Scotland and was adopted as a baby by shipyard worker James Blair and his wife, Mary Hazelcadden. In 2003, he was the second son of Leo Leo Blair and Hazelcannon Bshannon, who returned to Bshally, County Donegal, Scotland. In 2006, he married his wife of 20 years, Mary Hazelcadden and they have two children. In 2009, he had a son, James James Blair, who was adopted by Glasgow shipyard workers James and Mary Corscaman. In 2012, he became the third son of James James and Hazel cannister Bshannally. In 2013, he adopted a daughter, Hazel Hazel Corscannon, and returned to Glasgow to live with his wife. In 2014, he and his son James were married again, this time to his wife Mary Hazel.