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Tony Blair
(Anthony Charles Lynton Blair)
British prime minister
Born:
5/6/1953
Birthplace:
Edinburgh, Scotland
Tony Blair was first elected to Britain's House of Commons in 1983,
where he served on various shadow cabinets of the Labour party for the
next decade. In July of 1994, he assumed leadership of the Labour party.
“New Labour, New Britain” was his slogan, encapsulating
Blair's ambition to restructure Britain's then-minority party into an
appealingly centrist organization capable of winning general elections
(which it lost four consecutive times from 1979–1997). Espousing a
tough but liberal crime policy, readiness for a free-market economy,
anti-inflationary tactics, and full support of Britain's induction into
the European Community, Blair drastically improved Labour's electability.
He accomplished this by eschewing Labour's pro-union, socialist roots and
concern for welfare and nuclear disarmament.
Blair's deft dismantling of Labour's long-time commitments drew
opposition from liberal Britain (Tony Blur and Tory Blair being two of
their favorite epithets) but elicited promising results from the ballots:
the Labour party won 250 of 258 townships in 1995 municipal elections. In
1997's anticipated landslide election, Blair was voted in as Prime
Minister, the first Labour member to do so since 1979.
Blair's
popularity suffered greatly as a result of his decision to follow the
United States to war in Iraq. In May 2007, with the Labour party trailing
in the polls, he announced he would step down in June, after ten years in
office.
Blair began his career in the public spotlight as the lead singer of
the Ugly Rumours, a maudlin rock cover band. This happened during his
years studying law at Oxford where he was also a notable actor and
athlete. Cherie Booth, Blair's wife, is a distinguished lawyer and the
child of actor Tony Booth.
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