Tony Blair

The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. He has led the Labour Party since July 1994, (following the death of John Smith in May of that year) and brought Labour into power with a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, replacing John Major as Prime Minister and ending 18 years of Conservative government. He is now the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, and the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories, just as Margaret Thatcher was the only Conservative Prime Minister to win three consecutive general elections.

Early political career

Shortly after graduation in 1975, Blair joined the Labour Party. During the early 1980s, he was involved in the Labour Party in Hackney South and Shoreditch, where he aligned himself with the "soft left" who appeared to be taking control of the party. However, his attempt to secure selection as a candidate for Hackney Borough Council was unsuccessful. Through his father-in-law he contacted Tom Pendry, a Labour MP, to ask for help in how to start his Parliamentary career; Pendry gave him a tour of the House of Commons and advised him to run for selection in a by-election due to be held in the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield in 1982, where Pendry knew a senior member of the local party. Blair was chosen as the candidate; he won only 10% of the vote and lost his deposit, but impressed the then Labour Party leader Michael Foot and got his name noticed within the party.

Related Topics:
Labour Party - Hackney South and Shoreditch - Tom Pendry - By-election - Conservative - Beaconsfield - Michael Foot

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At the time Blair was closely associated with the soft left current in the party centred on the Labour Co-ordinating Committee and espoused conventional (for the time) leftist poistions - essentially those of the Kinnockite left: in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament and leaving the EEC. Like Kinnock, though, Blair was no supporter of the Bennite insurgency in party.

Related Topics:
Soft left - Labour Co-ordinating Committee - Kinnockite - Unilateral nuclear disarmament - EEC - Bennite

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In 1983, Blair found that the newly created seat of Sedgefield, near where he had grown up in Durham, had no Labour candidate. Several sitting MPs displaced by boundary changes were interested. He found a branch which had not made a nomination and arranged to visit them; coincidentally, the European Cup Winners Cup final involving Aberdeen FC was happening that night and so Blair settled down to watch it with five senior members of the local party before discussing his potential candidacy. With the crucial support of John Burton he won their endorsement; at the last minute he was added to the shortlist and won the selection over displaced sitting MP Les Huckfield. John Burton later became his agent and one of his most trusted and long-standing allies.

Related Topics:
Sedgefield - Durham - MP - European Cup Winners Cup - Aberdeen FC - Les Huckfield

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The seat was safely Labour despite the party's collapse in the 1983 UK general election; Blair was helped on the campaign trail by soap actress Patricia Phoenix, the girlfriend of his father-in-law Anthony Booth.

Related Topics:
1983 UK general election - Soap - Patricia Phoenix - Anthony Booth

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