Tony Blair

Birth Data

Biography

A generation of Conservative rule ended on 5/01/1997, when Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, becoming the youngest person to fill the post in 185 years.

Blair grew up in a politically oriented family. His father, Leo, was a trial lawyer and university law teacher at Durham, who started out as a Young Communist but had become a High Tory by 1963 and chairman of the Durham Conservative Association. A stern presence, Leo suffered a massive stroke while preparing to run for Parliament in 1963, and was unable to speak for three years. Young Blair was attending Durham Choristers School at the time and felt the financial impact of his father's health. At age 13, Blair earned a partial scholarship to Fettes, a Spartan private school in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was something of an outsider. A rebel, he took stands against conservative regimes, grew his hair long, and then ran away from school. Upon being re-admitted, he became interested in theatrical productions. Although not an outstanding student, Blair won a place at Oxford and graduated from St. John's College in the class of 1975.

Blair was not interested in politics during his Oxford years, his single gesture being to attend a pair of rallies against the neo-fascist National Front. Religion seemed to provide a steadying influence, and Blair was introduced to the books of Scottish theologian John MacMurray, which attempted to combine Christian thought and psychology with "community" politics. Blair was confirmed in the Anglican Church on the Oxford campus, and remains committed to MacMurray's principles.

After Oxford, Blair studied law with barrister Alexander Irvine, whose other pupils included a young woman named Cherie Booth from Lancashire who had graduated at the top of her class at the London School of Economics. The daughter of British actor Tony Booth, Cherie and Blair began seeing each other, and married on 3/29/1980. They embarked on a political partnership as well.

In 1982, Blair ran for Parliament as a Labour candidate and came in third. In 1983, he and Cherie, who had been a party member since her mid-teens, ran for seats. Less than three weeks before the general election, a seat opened up in Sedgefield, a Labor Party stronghold. The local party leaders chose Blair as the Labor candidate. Blair won by a substantial majority. (Cherie lost her election and her taste for politics as well.) Blair toiled away in Parliament while Cherie, earning $400,000 a year practicing law, was the principle breadwinner. He was assistant spokesman on the Treasury from 1984 to 1987; became deputy spokesman on Trade & Industry in 1987 and was a writer for the Times from 1987-1988. He was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in October 1988, and elected to the Executive Committee of the Labour Party in September 1992. He became the leader of the British Labour Party after the sudden death of John Smith on 5/12/94 by running against acting leader Margaret Beckett and John Prescott to win the appointment on 7/21/1994.

The Blairs have four children. Their son Euan was born on 1/19/1984, son Nicky on 12/06/1985, daughter Kathryn on 3/02/1988 and the newest addition, Leo, on 5/20/2000. Leo is the first new baby born to the sitting Prime Minister in 150 years.

Blair has been a popular, energetic and persuasive leader, aligning himself with the U.S. under Presidents William Clinton, to whom he has sometimes been compared, and George W. Bush. On May 13, 1999, he was awarded the prestigious Charlemagne Prize for his peace-making efforts in Northern Ireland. Calling for an election set for 6/7/2001, he won a second term by a wide margin. Most recently, he risked his political career when, in the face of domestic and international opposition, he supported the Bush administration’s resolve to declare war on Iraq without UN backing. In mid-February 2003, Blair’s standing in the British polls had evaporated to a mere percentage point over the Conservative opposition. On 3/18/2003, however, he won a crucial vote in the House of Commons authorizing an attack on Iraq even though three government ministers had resigned in protest.

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