[128] The Labour Party also claimed that by 2010 10% of the energy would come from renewable resources; however, it only reached 7% by that point. "To the first floor are four generously proportioned bedrooms and family bathroom. [23][24], In 1975, while Blair was at Oxford, his mother Hazel died aged 52 of thyroid cancer, which greatly affected him. [203] In October 2012 Blair's foundation hit controversy when it emerged they were taking on unpaid interns. Tony Blair lives in England, United Kingdom. [80], One of Blair's first acts as prime minister was to replace the then twice-weekly 15-minute sessions of Prime Minister's Questions held on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a single 30-minute session on Wednesdays. Blair sold the property for £275,000 in 2010 - £240,000 more than he paid for it in 1983. Tony Blair does not even begin to laugh. Alastair Campbell described Blair's statement that the intelligence on WMDs was "beyond doubt" as his "assessment of the assessment that was given to him. It was also opposing the UK’s natal Jupiter at 1° Leo. During the War on Terror, he supported the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration and ensured that the British Armed Forces participated in the War in Afghanistan from 2001 and, more controversially, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. [5] Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher and Orangeman who moved to Glasgow in 1916. "Situated within easy reach of local amenities and road links yet with lovely countryside views which give the property a rural feel, achieving the best of both worlds. Blair, the leader of the modernising faction, had an entirely different vision, arguing that the long-term trends had to be reversed. After attending the independent school Fettes College, he studied law at St John's College, Oxford and became a barrister. [205][206], In March 2010, it was reported that Blair's memoirs, titled The Journey, would be published in September 2010. [71], As a result, he faced criticism over the policy itself and the circumstances of the decision. Tony Blair, in full Anthony Charles Lynton Blair, (born May 6, 1953, Edinburgh, Scotland), British Labour Party leader who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom (1997–2007). [169] A few months after becoming prime minister Blair gave a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales, on the morning of her death in August 1997, in which he famously described her as "the People's Princess". in Jurisprudence. [138] A revealing conversation between Bush and Blair, with the former addressing the latter as "Yo [or Yeah], Blair" was recorded when they did not know a microphone was live at the G8 summit in Saint Petersburg in 2006. Somehow this has become distorted by excitable Right-wing newspaper columnists into being a "plot" to make Britain multicultural. [183] Blair also gives lectures, earning up to US$250,000 for a 90-minute speech, and in 2008 he was said to be the highest paid speaker in the world. [68], Blair ordered Operation Barras, a highly successful SAS/Parachute Regiment strike to rescue hostages from a Sierra Leone rebel group. He put himself forward as a candidate for the Hackney council elections of 1982 in Queensbridge ward, a safe Labour area, but was not selected.[27]. [252] Blair was reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume in 1996 for receiving Holy Communion at Mass, while still an Anglican, in contravention of canon law. 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. 1. [214] On 3 September Blair gave his first live interview since publication on The Late Late Show in Ireland, with protesters lying in wait there for him. [174] Some ministers viewed Blair's announcement of policy initiatives in September 2006 as an attempt to draw attention away from these issues. [209], The book was published on 1 September and within hours of its launch had become the fastest-selling autobiography of all time. [46], 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. Blair denied that he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had thought Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. During the sketch, Blair used Lauren's catchphrase "Am I bovvered? At the age of thirty, he was elected as MP for Sedgefield in 1983; despite the party's landslide defeat at the general election. [207] In July 2010 it was announced the memoirs would be retitled A Journey. He resigned as prime minister and Labour Party leader in 2007 and was succeeded by Gordon Brown, who had been his chancellor of the exchequer since 1997. [33], The selection for Sedgefield did not begin until after the 1983 general election was called. Their business empires are entirely separate. [157] 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. [262], When Blair resigned as prime minister, Robert Harris, a former Fleet Street political editor, dropped his other work to write The Ghost. [270], On 13 January 2009, Blair was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. "[245], According to Press Secretary Alastair Campbell's diary, Blair often read the Bible before taking any important decisions. The Blair's are said to have a property empire worth £35m, which includes homes in Wooton Underwood, Buckinghamshire, valued at around £10m. He became involved in Labour politics and was elected Member of Parliament for Sedgefield in 1983. [6][7], Blair has an older brother, Sir William Blair, a High Court judge, and a younger sister, Sarah. Why is Tony Blair stepping down from Prime Minister? In addition to PMQs, Blair held monthly press conferences at which he fielded questions from journalists[81] and – from 2002 – broke precedent by agreeing to give evidence twice yearly before the most senior Commons select committee, the Liaison Committee. [2][3] He was the second son of Leo and Hazel (née Corscadden) Blair. [20] He was influenced by fellow student and Anglican priest Peter Thomson, who awakened his religious faith and left-wing politics. "[157] However, a spokesman for Blair said that "he never asked anyone to plan or take part in any such military intervention. Blair stated in 2014 that he was worth "less than £20 million". He will go down in history as a liar and a warmonger, Barbara Wesel writes. There he says that "I was brought up as [a Christian], but I was not in any real sense a practising one until I went to Oxford. [59] He was also the first prime minister born after World War II and the accession of Elizabeth II to the throne. What are the pros and cons of having the government in our eveyday lives and do you approve? [88], As the casualties of the Iraq War mounted, Blair was accused of misleading Parliament,[89][90] and his popularity dropped dramatically. He is now being made up so that he can deliver the message. [227][228], 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. Blair was born in Edinburgh; his father, Leo, was a barrister and academic. [195] The Kazakhstan foreign minister said that the country was "honoured and privileged" to be receiving advice from Blair. [69] Journalist Andrew Marr has argued that the success of ground attacks, real and threatened, over air strikes alone was influential on how Blair planned the Iraq War, and that the success of the first three wars Blair fought "played to his sense of himself as a moral war leader". ", PCSO, 53, dies in woods while ‘walking dog’ as cops probe 'suspicious' death, Treasure hunters to dig up 48 crates of Hitler's gold worth half a billion, Giggs ‘drunkenly headbutted ex during 3yrs of abuse & attacked her sister’, Mum mortified as hospital messed up baby's name - now she's legally called Korn, ©News Group Newspapers Limited in England No. As the leader of Britain's Labour Party and the leading contender to become the next prime minister, Tony Blair has stirred excitement in Europe with his promise to reinvent the left. [73] Playwright Harold Pinter and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad accused Blair of war crimes. 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. [14] Blair is reported to have hated his time at Fettes. Labour won two more general elections under his leadership—in 2001, in which it won another landslide victory (albeit with the lowest turnout since 1918), and in 2005, with a greatly reduced majority. [32] The situation was complicated by the fact that Labour was fighting a legal action against planned boundary changes, and had selected candidates on the basis of previous boundaries. [263] The novel was filmed as The Ghost Writer (2010) with Pierce Brosnan portraying the Blair character, Adam Lang. TONY BLAIR: Closely [laughter]. The CIA-influenced British prime minister in the book is said to be a thinly disguised version of Blair. Blair's first home was with his family at Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh. [276] As Blair is credited as being instrumental in ending the conflict in Kosovo, some boys born in the country following the war have been given the name Toni or Tonibler. [67] Palliser had been intended as an evacuation mission but Brigadier David Richards was able to convince Blair to allow him to expand the role; at the time, Richards' action was not known and Blair was assumed to be behind it. The family returned to the United Kingdom in the summer of 1958. [185], Blair's links with, and receipt of an undisclosed sum from, UI Energy Corporation, have also been subject to media comment in the UK. Blair resigned from his Sedgfield 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. But Blair does not say what the minimum requirement on Israel's side is for the Palestinians to engage in talks: a halt to settlement building on the West Bank and a refusal to annex the Jordan Valley. In 1923, he returned to (and later died in) Ballyshannon, County Donegal. The advert states: "The property has an abundance of charming original period features including seven cast iron fireplaces. [citation needed], In his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 6 July 1983, Blair stated, "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 is both rational and moral. Where it is seeking influence, it should be countered. [35] Blair's election literature in the 1983 general election endorsed left-wing policies that Labour advocated in the early 1980s. The documents showed Blair was willing to appear alongside Assad at a joint press conference even though the Syrians would probably have settled for a farewell handshake for the cameras; British officials sought to manipulate the media to portray Assad in a favourable light; and Blair's aides tried to help Assad's "photogenic" wife boost her profile. TONY Blair's ex-constituency home, which once hosted world leaders, is on the market for less than £300,000. Blair became the country's youngest leader since 1812 and remains the party's longest-serving occupant of the office. [269], On 22 May 2008, Blair received an 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. [271] Bush stated that Blair was given the award "in recognition of exemplary achievement and to convey the utmost esteem of the American people"[272] and cited Blair's support for the War on Terror and his role in achieving peace in Northern Ireland as two reasons for justifying his being presented with the award. [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. In November 2011, a war crimes tribunal of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission, established by Malaysia's former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, reached a unanimous conclusion that Blair and George W. Bush are guilty of crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, and genocide as a result of their roles in the 2003 Iraq War. Levy praised Blair for his "solid and committed support of the State of Israel". The courtship has parallels with Blair's friendly relations with Muammar Gaddafi. [130], Blair built his foreign policy on basic principles (close ties with U.S. and E.U.) [162][163], Blair made an animated cameo appearance as himself in The Simpsons episode, "The Regina Monologues" (2003). [21][22] He graduated from Oxford at the age of 22 in 1975 with a second-class Honours B.A. He 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. [260] On 16 March 2007, Blair featured in a comedy sketch with Catherine Tate, who appeared in the guise of her character Lauren Cooper from The Catherine Tate Show. The couple, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure, which involved smearing mud and fruit over each other's bodies while sitting in a steam bath. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. "[248] Campbell later said that he had intervened only to end the interview because the journalist had been taking an excessive time, and that the comment had just been a throwaway line. ^ "Blair's birthplace is bulldozed in Edinburgh". "The Sun", "Sun", "Sun Online" are registered trademarks or trade names of News Group Newspapers Limited. When the legal challenge failed, the party had to rerun all selections on the new boundaries; most were based on existing seats, but unusually in County Durham a new Sedgefield constituency had been created out of Labour-voting areas which had no obvious predecessor seat. [265], In May 2007, Blair was invested as a paramount chief by the chiefs and people of Mahera village, Sierra Leone. Hospitals closing, record levels of tax, Iraq war ,record levels of debt, not enough jails, cash for honours,I could go on and on. We weren’t so much dazzled by him as seduced, and so was the British establishment. The Observer newspaper claimed that at a cabinet meeting before Blair left for a summit with 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. [152], Blair had been on friendly terms with Colonel Gaddafi, the leader of Libya, when sanctions imposed on the country were lifted by the US and the UK. Yet he keeps going on how well he done over the past ten years. [182], In January 2008, it was confirmed that Blair would be joining investment bank JPMorgan Chase in a "senior advisory capacity"[183] and that he would advise Zurich Financial Services on climate change. Anthony Blair was born on 6 May 1953 in Edinburgh. Johnston Press plc. With his parents basing their family in Durham, Blair attended Chorister School from 1961 to 1966. "[164], Blair appeared before the Leveson Inquiry on Monday 28 May 2012. Tony Blair was the youngest Prime Minister in a century when Labour was victorious in the 1997 general election, at 43 years old. [62][63] Following the Omagh bombing on 15 August 1998, by members of the Real IRA opposed to the peace process, which killed 29 people and wounded hundreds, Blair visited the County Tyrone town and met with victims at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. Their old house in Trimdon Colliery is described as a 'unique period property built in 1898'. There was no plot. 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. [58], Blair became the prime minister of the United Kingdom on 2 May 1997. [164] Lord Avebury's initial October 2003 information request was dismissed by then leader of the Lords, Baroness Amos. He received his first front-bench appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. 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. [13] Aged 13, he was sent to spend his school term-time boarding at Fettes College in Edinburgh from 1966 to 1971. [168], Blair has been noted as a charismatic, articulate speaker with an informal style. While at Oxford, Blair has stated that he was briefly a Trotskyist, after reading the first volume of Isaac Deutscher's biography of Leon Trotsky, which was "like a light going on". To Press secretary Alastair Campbell 's diary, Blair had a `` wobble '' and considered his! 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