1953-
Born on May 6, 1953, in Edinburgh, Scotland, Tony Blair was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield in 1983. He became leader of the Labour Party in 1994, and prime minister of the United Kingdom (UK) in 1997. He played a key role in resetting Labour Party policy in the early 1990s, a resetting designed to address three things: Labour’s inability to win general elections; the impact of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal policies on UK politics and society; and the need to reposition the United Kingdom in the new global age. Blair responded to four election defeats in a row by reaching out to median floating voters, and by making real and symbolic breaks with Labour’s previous policy stance. He responded to Margaret Thatcher’s powerful legacy by linking her passion for markets to Labour’s traditional commitment to social justice. He actively welcomed globalization as a trigger to UK economic competitiveness and as an arena in which a Labour government could play a more active and ethical role.
Blair led the Labour Party to three election victories in a row, the first two (1997, 2001) with huge majorities (179 and 167 seats in the House of Commons, respectively). The 1997 victory came after a relabeling of the Labour Party as New Labour, and the rejection of what had hitherto been many of Labour’s defining policies. Out went public ownership, "tax and spend" welfare policies, unilateral nuclear disarmament, and withdrawal from the European Union. In came private funds for public investment, a freeze on direct taxation, a welfare-to-work program, and a new pro-European ethical foreign policy.
Over time, New Labor under Blair traded increased spending on health and education for public service agreements linking resources to the achievement of rising performance targets. His government made extensive use of private funds for capital projects in the public sector, and increased the degree of market competition allowed between public service providers. Blair governments also developed social policies that traded rights for responsibilities, tackling social exclusion and child poverty while simultaneously toughening the criminal code, restricting immigration, and even punishing parents for the truancy of their children.
New Labour under Blair’s leadership played a crucial leadership role in the European response to the crisis in the Balkans, in the wake of which Blair spoke regularly of the need for the international community to be proactive to avoid crimes against humanity. Accordingly, he was the key architect of the broad coalition of support for the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks; and, more controversially, he remained President George W. Bush’s main ally in the subsequent invasion of Iraq.
Blair’s final years in office were blighted by growing unease—in party circles and the wider electorate—with the consequences of privatization in the welfare sector and of his close alliance with the United States in Iraq. That unease was compounded by tensions with his chancellor of the exchequer over a deal, struck in 1994, that Blair would eventually cede the premiership to him. Relationships soured over time between the factions formed around each man, eventually forcing Blair reluctantly to announce that he would resign office in 2007.
