Tony Blair/Timelines

Sources
 * References, with page numbers, to Tony Blair's memoirs (Tony Blair: A Journey, Hutchinson, 2010) are shown as "Journey (xxx)", and references to Anthony Seldon's biography (Anthony Seldon: Blair,  Free Press, 2004) are shown as "Blair (xxx)".

1953-71
Father's stroke, 1964.

Fettes College, 1966-71.

1971-75
Gap year 1971-72

Oxford: entry 1972; religious influence of Peter Thomson; Law finals 1975.

Mother's death, 1975.

1975-83
Early political career: Labour party membership 1975, search for adoption as a parliamentary candidate 1980-82; adoption as by-election candidate for Beaconsfield, 1982.

Legal career: one-year course at College of Law, 1975; Law pupil of Derry Irvne 1976-77; Bar Finals and entry to chambers, 1977; Employment law practice 1977-82.

Marriage to Cherie Booth, 1980.

1983
Elected as Labour MP for Sedgefield, in a general election that is won convincingly by Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party.

Michael Foot, the left-wing leader of the Labour Party resigns, and is replaced by Neill Kinnock.

Maiden speech in the House of Commons "I am a socialist ... because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear."

1984 to 1987
New Labour party leader Neil Kinnock appoints Blair as assistant spokesman on Treasury matters. Blair aligns himself with the reformers within the party.

1987
Appointed Deputy spokesman for Trade and Industry.

1988
October: Blair is elected by the Parliamentary Labour Party to the shadow cabinet, and is given the post of shadow secretary of state for energy (Labour Party MPs elect some members of the shadow cabinet; others are appointed by the Party leader.)

1989
Elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour party. This is a powerful position, as the National Executive decides which resolutions will be put before the annual Conference. Tony Blair will use this position to promote changes in Labour Party policies and in its constitution.

1992
Promoted to shadow Home Secretary by new Labour Leader John Smith. Blair pledges that his party would be "tough on crime" and on "the causes of crime".

November: Bill Clinton elected President of the USA.

1994
May 12th: The Labour Party leader John Smith dies of a heart attack.

May 31st: Tony Blair and Gordon Brown meet at the Granita restaurant in Islington, London. (Reports that a deal was done at that meeting have since been denied ).

June 1st: Gordon Brown rules himself out of the Labour Party leadership race.

July 21st: Tony Blair beats John Prescott and Margaret Beckett to become leader of the Labour Party. John Prescott is elected as his Deputy.

October: Blair makes his first party conference speech as leader; he uses it to call on the party to revise its constitution and change Clause IV..

1995
April: The Labour Party backs rewriting of Clause IV of its constitution, the clause that formerly committed the party to nationalisation of industry.

1996
November: Bill Clinton re-elected President of the USA.

1997
March: The Sun newspaper announces that it will back Blair at the general election. The Sun is Britain's biggest-selling daily newspaper, and had been a staunch supporter of the Conservative Party. May: Labour wins the general election by a landslide, winning 419 of the 659 seats. At 44, Tony Blair becomes the second-youngest British prime minister. The Conservative leader John Major resigns, and is replaced by William Hague. Despite Labour's massive majority, Tony Blair seeks to involve leading members of the Liberal Democrat Party in his new Government; the Liberal Democrats choose to remain in opposition.

Appointment of Alastair Campbell as the Prime Minister's Press Secretary and spokesman.

Blair's Chancellor, Gordon Brown grants the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates without consulting the government.

June: Britain signs the European Union's "Social Chapter"

August: Tony Blair reflects the mood of the nation on the death, in a traffic accident in France, of Princess Diana, the estranged wife of Prince Charles. He calls her "the people's princess."

September: A referendum in Scotland backs devolution; a referendum in Wales follows a week later, and also backs devolution, but only narrowly.

October: Gordon Brown rules out the immediate prospects of Britain joining the euro setting five key economic tests that must first be met.

Blair meets Gerry Adams, the head of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

1998
April: Blair negotiates the Belfast Agreement ("The Good Friday Agreement") creating a power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland.

May: Referendum to create a new assembly for London and establish direct elections for mayor.

Britain, as part of NATO, joins in the Kosovo war. Britain keeps thousands of troops there as part of a peacekeeping force.

December: Britain and the USA launch air strikes against Iraq after reports that Saddam Hussein is not complying with United Nations weapons inspections.

1999
March: NATO begins air strikes against Serb forces in Kosovo.

May: First elections to the Scottish Parliament and for the Welsh National Assembly. In Scotland, the Labour Party wins an overall majority and takes power under First Minister Donald Dewar. In Wales, Labour wins the largest share of the vote, but The Welsh nationalists (Plaid Cymru) have their best ever election results; Welsh Secretary Alun Michael said: "The message is never take anything for granted. ..Treat even the safest Labour seats as marginals."

June 9th: Yugoslavia and NATO sign an agreement at Kumanovo in Macedonia; this agreement, together with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 ends the NATO bombing campaign. At first limited to military targets in Kosovo itself, the bombing campaign had been extended to cover targets throughout Yugoslavia, including bridges, power stations, factories and government buildings.

August 9th: Charles Kennedy is elected as leader of the Liberal Democrats, replacing Paddy Ashdown.

2000
February 9th: Blair loyalist Alun Michael is ousted as Welsh First Minister in a vote of no confidence in the Welsh National Assembly. He is replaced by Rhodri Morgan, who seeks to distance the Welsh Labour Party from some of the policies of the UK Labour Party.

May 4th: Labour rebel Ken Livingstone wins the first London Mayoral election.

May 7th Operation Palliser: British army stops the civil war in Sierra Leone

May 20th: Leo Blair is born; the first child born to a sitting Prime Minister for more than 150 years.

November: George W. Bush elected President of the USA.

2001
June: Labour wins another landslide general election, winning 413 of the 659 seats in the House of Commons, but the voter turnout is only 59 per cent. Conservative leader William Hague swifly resigns.

September 11th: Terrorist attacks on the USA: four planes are hijacked by members of al-Qaeda; two are crashed into the World Trade Centre, New York, a third into the Pentagon, Washington.

After the attacks, Blair emerges as the strongest ally of President Bush's administration, supporting its "war on terror." In October, British and American forces enter Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban regime and to weaken the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

September 13th: Right winger Iain Duncan Smith beats Ken Clarke to replace William Hague as Conservative Party leader. Duncan-Smith was a rebel MP during John Major's premiership, and has markedly "anti-European" views.

2002
January 1st: The euro becomes the main currency across the European Union; the UK is one of the few countries to remain outside it. February 3rd: In a speech at the Labour Party annual conference, Blair attacks "wreckers" within the Party who stand in the way of public service reforms.

Blair unveils an intelligence dossier (later to be called the "dodgy dossier"), and claims that it shows that Iraq could deploy banned weapons "within 45 minutes".

2003
Blair argues for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, based mainly on his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.

February 15th: An estimated million people march through London to oppose war with Iraq.

March 16th: Blair, Bush and Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar announce they will seek support for military action against Iraq.

March 17th: Left wing Labour MP Robin Cook resigns his Ministerial post (Leader of the House of Commons) because of his opposition to attacking Iraq.

March 18th: 139 Labour MPs vote against the government's decision to go to war with Iraq. Nevertheless, with Conservative support, the Government wins the Commons vote comfortably.

March 19th: Britain sends 45,000 troops to join the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" invasion of Iraq.

March 20th: War on Iraq begins as US forces launch first air strikes on Baghdad. The next day, US and British forces launch a massive aerial assault on Baghdad in what the US called its "shock and awe" strategy. The Iraqi regime falls after three weeks, but Saddam Hussein escapes capture. Bush declares an end to major combat operations on May 1st. British troops remain in Iraq, mainly based around Basra in the south of the country

May 1st: In Wales, the Labour party under Rhodri Morgan win enough seats in elections to the National Assembly to govern alone (i.e. without coalition partners)

May 12th Left-winger Clare Short resigns from the Cabinet, saying that Tony Blair had broken promises about the future of Iraq. May 29th: On the Today programme, the BBC journalist and broadcaster Andrew Gilligan reports allegations that the government enhanced ("sexed-up") its intelligence dossier on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction. July 9th: The Ministry of Defence names Dr David Kelly, a biological warfare expert with the British Ministry of Defence as the source for Andrew Gilligan's report.

July 18th: David Kelly is found dead, apparently having committed suicide.

August: An inquiry into Kelly's death and the circumstances leading up to it begins, led by Lord Hutton.

July 17th: Blair addresses US Congress, to accept the Congressional Gold Medal. July 18th: Government weapons expert Dr David Kelly is found dead in woods near his home. Dr Kelly apparently committed suicide days after giving evidence to MPs about the dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. He was suspected of being the source for a BBC story which alleged the dossier was "sexed up". The next day, Blair launches an inquiry into the tragedy, headed by Lord Hutton. August 29th: Downing Street media chief Alastair Campbell resigns. September 18th: Labour loses the Brent East byelection to the Liberal Democrats. October 19th: Blair suffers irregular heartbeat and spends a few hours in hospital.

November: Meeting at Admiralty House at which Blair promises to resign before the next election provided that Brown supports his policy agenda. December 14th US forces capture Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole near Tikrit. He will later be tried by an Iraqi court and executed.

2004
January 27th: The government narrowly wins a vote on university top-up fees; 72 Labour MPs rebelled, and the government won by just five votes. The measure means that Universities in England and Wales can now raise extra income from student fees (up to a limit of £3,000/year for each student), but must use some of this to support poorer students.

January 28th: The Hutton Report determines that Kelly took his own life, and that the BBC allegations were unfounded. The chairman and director-general of the BBC, and Andrew Gilligan, the journalist who made the allegations, all resign.

February: Blair names a panel to conduct an inquiry into pre-war intelligence, led by Lord Butler.

25 March: Blair holds talks with Libyan leader Colonel Gaddafi, after Libya renounced Weapons of Mass Destruction in December. Diplomatic relations between the two countries had been extremely frosty for many years; Blair hails this as the start of a "new relationship". April 20th: Blair announces there will be a referendum on the proposed new EU constitution, saying that he would "let the people have a final say". June 10th: At local government elections Labour lose more than 450 seats, but Ken Livingstone is comfortably re-elected as Mayor of London. July 14th: The Butler report is published. It criticises the intelligence basis for claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and says that the assertion that Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was unsubstantiated. However, the report found no evidence the intelligence had been manipulated by Blair and his aides.

September 15th: Blair makes a speech on climate change and says that action is urgently needed to combat global warming. October 1st: Blair announces that if he wins the next election he will serve a full term.

November: George Bush is re-elected President of the USA.

December 15th: David Blunkett resigns as Home Secretary over visa row, after it emerges that a visa application for his ex-lover's nanny had been fast-tracked

2005
April 5th: Blair calls a general election, one year earlier than he needs to.

May 5th: Blair becomes the first leader of the Labour party to win three consecutive terms as prime minister. The Labour Party defeats Michael Howard's Conservative Party comfortably, but with a much reduced majority overall of 64 seats. May 29th: French voters reject the EU proposed constitution in a referendum. The Dutch reject it three days later. Blair scraps plans to hold a referendum in the UK, as the prospects for the new constitution now seem dead. June 23rd: In a speech at the start of the UKs six month European Union presidency, Blair says that the EU faces a leadership crisis. The speech is a week after a summit meeting in which Tony Blair refused to give up the UK's £3bn annual refund from the EU budget unless there were reforms to farm subsidies. He said the EU would fail "on a grand scale" if it did not face up to globalisation. July 6th: London wins bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. July 7th: Suicide bombers kill 52 people in attacks on London mass transport, as a protest about Britain's actions in Iraq. July 8th: The G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland is accompanied by large demonstrations ("Make Poverty History"). It ends with an agreement to boost aid for developing countries by $50 billion. July 21st: A second wave of terrorist attacks on London transport; this time the bombs fail to detonate, and the perpetrators are caught swiftly. August 6th: The former Cabinet minister Robin Cook, who had resigned in protest at Government policy on Iraq, dies aged 59. Robin Cook was seen as the only leftwinger likely to be able to make a credible challenge for the leadership of the Labour Party. November 9th: Blair suffers his first defeat in the House of Commons on the Terrorism Act; many Labour MPs vote against plans that would have enabled the police to detain a suspected terrorist for up to 90 days without charges being brought. December 6th: David Cameron is elected as the new leader of the Conservative Party. David Cameron is seen as a young, "telegenic" moderniser in the mould of Tony Blair, and will seek to broaden the appeal of the Conservative Party to the centre ground. The Conservative Party's popularity rises sharply in opinion polls.

2006
January 6th: Charles Kennedy resigns as leader of the Liberal Democrats after admitting to a drink problem. He is replaced, on 2 March, by Menzies Campbell. March 15th: Tony Blair gains endorsement by the House of Commons for controversial school reform plans, but only because of Conservative support; 52 Labour backbenchers rebelled and another 25 did not vote. March 16th: Labour's treasurer Jack Dromey reveals he did not know that the party had secretly borrowed millions of pounds from businessmen. He said that the Electoral Commission should investigate the issue of loans to political parties from non-commercial sources. Home Secretary Charles Clarke denies that money had been borrowed in exchange for promises of honours ("cash for honours"). May 4th: Labour loses more than 300 councillors in local government elections in England, one of the worst local election results in Labour's history. July 12th: Lord Levy is arrested and bailed by police as part of their investigation of the "cash for honours" allegations. Lord Levy, who was Tony Blair's chief fundraiser, denied any wrongdoing and accuses the police of using their arrest powers "totally unnecessarily". September 6th: Reports of an "acrimonious meeting" between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over the succession issue are followed by the resignation of a junior minister and seven government aides who had urged Blair to resign.

September 7th: Tony Blair confirms that he will step down as prime minister within the next 12 months. September 12th: Tony Blair's last speech to the Trades Union Congress. September 26th: Final speech as leader of the Labour Party at the party conference; Tony Blair gets a warm reception from delegates, who give his speech a prolonged standing ovation. December 14th: Police interview Tony Blair about the "cash for honours" allegations. The Crown Prosecution Service will later decide that there is insufficient basis for criminal charges to be brought against anyone.

2007
May 9th: Ian Paisley is sworn in as the First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly. Martin McGuinness, once a prominent IRA commander, is his deputy.

May 4th: Another bad result for Labour in local Government elections, though not as bad as expected. In elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Labour Party loses power; the largest single party in the new Parliament is the pro-independence Scottish National Party, and it takes power as a minority Government under its leader Alex Salmond.

May 10th: Official announcement that Blair will resign as Prime Minister on June 27th

June 27th: Last appearance by Tony Blair in the House of Commons, for Prime Minister's question time. The session ends with an unprecedented 2-minute standing ovation from all members of the House of Commons, political friends and foes alike.