Tony Blair

Tony Blair, British politician, leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and three times Prime Minister, was founder, with Gordon Brown of the movement known as New Labour. He was known internationally for his responsibility for British participation in the conflicts in Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and for his advocacy of aid to Africa and other developing regions. He sought to modernise the United Kingdom's public services, encourage enterprise and innovation in its private sector and keep its economy open to international commerce. Under his premiership, British governments made major changes to the British constitutionn by legislation that transferred decision-making to devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Early life
The second son of Leo Blair and Hazel Blair, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born on 6th May 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland. Between 1955 and 1959, the family lived in Australia, where Leo lectured in law at the University of Adelaide. On returning to Britain, Leo found a job as a lecturer at Durham University, and Tony  attended at a  local  school there. A former communist, Leo became chairman of the local Conservative association, and began to campaign as a Conservative candidate for Parliament. In 1963, Leo had a stroke that left him partially paralysed. With his father temporarily disabled, Blair was sent to Fettes College, an elite private boarding school in Edinburgh. He took an active part in school sports, played major parts in school plays and achieved high grades in English, History and French, but his attitude to authority became sour and rebellious. His housemaster is reported to have said that "He was intensely argumentative and every school rule was questioned: he could uphold his side of the debate about the rights and wrongs of everything better than any boy in the school." , and he was once caned for persistently flouting the school rules. After Fettes, Blair spent a gap year in London, promoting rock bands and stacking shelves in a food hall. In 1972 he became an undergraduate at Oxford University and obtained  a degree with second class in jurisprudence. While at Oxford, his awareness of religion was stimulated by  Peter Thomson, of whom he has written "whatever good that I have done, he inspired it". As a student, he played the guitar and enjoyed rock music and singing. He was briefly a member of a rock band, but his principal leisure interest was in acting, and he is reported to have developed an animated stage presence. In 1975, his mother  died of cancer, an event which, according to  Anthony Seldon, "caused him to re-evaluate his world". In 1976, he became a Bar pupil of Derry Irvine who groomed him intellectually, helped him develop his ability as a performer, and introduced him to key figures in the Labour party. In 1980, he married fellow-barrister Cherie Booth, who is said to have crystallised his political views and shaped his political ambition. They had have four children (Euan, Nicky, Kathryn and Leo).

Political outlook
Tony Blair was  introduced by Peter Thomson to the works of the little-known Scottish philosopher John Macmurray, who had developed  an analysis of the relation between the individual and the state that is in many ways similar to  what is now known as communitarianism. Under Macmurray's influence, he came to see  the   state as a means of helping the individual to "overcome limitations unfairly imposed by poverty, poor education, poor health, housing and welfare". That belief persisted throughout his political career, although his perception of how to achieve those objectives underwent considerable change. He saw the Labour party as a potential instrument for their achievement, but only if it discarded much of its existing ideology.

Even in 1983, when he had ideas on nationalisation that he would later have viewed with derision, he had seen his party as "out of its time", and he was soon to decide to leave it if it did not change. He knew little at that time about the practice of politics, but was to learn much from the following ten years of close association with the more experienced Gordon Brown, of whom he has written "he taught me the business of politics in roughly the same way as Derry taught me the business of the Bar". In the course of that ten-year association, they evolved an essentially pragmatic set of proposals for reform that were to guide their campaign to modernise their party's policy programme (see box).

Early party and parliamentary career
Soon after graduating from Oxford in 1975, Tony Blair joined the Labour party, and ran unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1982 in the safe Conservative constituency of Beaconsfield. At the 1983 UK general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield, County Durham. He and Gordon Brown were recognised by the party leadership as the most able of the new entry of MPs, and they were soon appointed to posts in support of its Shadow Cabinet, and in 1988 Tony Blair joined the shadow cabinet itself, as Shadow Secretary of State for Employment. In that rôle, he gained the party's acceptance of the European Union's Social Charter and by doing so, ended its support for the closed shop. Throughout this time, he was developing a reputation as a moderniser, frequently appearing in the media. Although he supported Neil Kinnock's successful fight, as party leader, against the party's left-wing extremists, Tony Blair became impatient with the pace of change, and he tried unsuccessfully to persuade John Smith to challenge Neil Kinnock's  leadership. By 1992, after the party had been defeated in a succession of four general elections, many of its members had come to accept that its policies were making it unelectable. That was not enough for Tony Blair, however: he advocated change "not because we have to, but because we want to".

When party leader John Smith died unexpectedly in 1994, Gordon Brown confidently expected to succeed him, but Tony Blair had by then come to believe that he had something that Gordon Brown lacked, and they became potential rivals for the leadership. Tony Blair was the more popular with the public and the party, and it was evident that Gordon Brown had  no chance of beating him in a contest for the party leadership. In an attempt to avoid such a contest, he had a series of meetings with Gordon Brown that - he  has described as difficult but not  unfriendlly - Gordon Brown agreed to step aside and support Tony Blair's candidature.

New Labour
Tony Blair was elected as leader of the Labour party in July 1994 and, in 1995, he and Gordon Brown campaigned successfully for a major change to  its constitution. At its annual conference that year, the party  amended  its constitution by removing  its  commitment to "the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange", which  had been in place since 1918. Although the clause in question no longer played a significant part in the party's policies, its formal commitment to nationalisation was recognised as having been a  factor in its unpopularity. For Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, the amendment which removed it symbolised a set of policies that they were determined that the party should adopt, and which they termed  "New Labour". The new policies were to include the acceptance of Margaret Thatcher's trade union law; acceptance of the Conservative governments' privatisations of the public utilities;  renewed investment in, and reform of, the public services; and even-handedness between business and labour. That package was eventually accepted - with some reluctance - by the party's National Executive Committee.

Election campaign
Having won over the Labour party, Tony Blair's next task was to win over the electorate. He had himself become well-known and popular, but the public were still suspicious of his party's policies. To impress upon them the fact that there had been a genuine change of policy, the party adopted five pledges: not to raise income tax, to cut class sizes, to reduce health service waiting lists, and to stick to their predecessors spending plans for two years. The marketing techniques that had been introduced by Saatchi and Saatchi to the Conservative party's 1979 campaign  were extended  by a team of enthusiastic amateurs, including the former journalist, Alastair Campbell. A factor in the party's 1992 defeat was thought to have been the influence of a hostile press and, in particular, the humiliating treatment suffered by former leader Neil Kinnock at the hands of the high-circulation Sun newspaper. Campbell was convinced of the need to avoid a repetition, and he and Tony Blair devoted much effort to winning over those newspapers that had been hostile to Labour. They succeeded in persuading  The Sun to change sides - but none of the others. In fact the evidence suggests that, although intensely partisan, the British press does not have much influence upon election outcomes, and it does not seem likely that their success affected the outcome.

The outcome of the election broke a number of records. More Labour MPs (419) were elected than ever before, and the Conservatives were left with fewer seats (165) than at any time since  1906. In terms of votes, however, the result was unremarkable. At 44.4 per cent, Labour's share of the vote was lower than at any election between 1945 and 1966, and its lead over the Conservatives was less than that secured by the Conservatives over Labour in 1983. The apparent success of the campaign team's efforts was to have a continuing influence, however. Throughout most of his premiership, Tony Blair was to rely more upon the team of Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell, Anji Hunter, Sally Morgan, Peter Mandelson and Phillip Gould than upon his senior political colleagues. Campaigning techniques, such as the use of an instant rebuttal team to counter inaccurate reports and comments, were continued in support of Tony Blair's fear that the party's electoral lead could be lost and that a single term in office would not enable him to push through his wished-for reforms. A process was set in motion that came to be known as "continuous campaigning".

The machinery of government
In the British constitutional tradition, a government's decisions are the product, first of deliberation by the Cabinet, and then of approval by Parliament, and the Prime Minister's rôle in the Cabinet has been that of of "first among equals". The conduct of decision-making during Tony Blair's premiership was a major departure from that tradition. Margaret Thatcher - who he admired - was known to have preferred to use the Cabinet only to provide formal assent to decisions that she had taken in consultation with small groups of like-minded ministerial colleagues. Tony Blair went even further, frequently consulting only with his personal team (and with Gordon Brown) - apart from the minister concerned -  and involving the full Cabinet only on matters of major national importance. The traditional function of the Cabinet Office was to maintain a record of government decisions, to serve as the Prime Minister's staff and to coordinate the work of the civil service in carrying out the government's instructions. Tony Blair seldom used them for any of those purposes,

Prime Ministers had traditionally played no part in the delivery of policy measures, but Tony Blair wanted access to the information needed to monitor that process. When his staff found it difficult to get access to departmental records or to the records of the Treasury-managed Public Service Agreements system, he set up his own Delivery Unit with direct access to government departments. He also set up a Policy Unit and a Strategy Unit to provide him with independent policy research and development reports. He was seldom satisfied with the outcome.

The Blair/Brown partnership
Tony Blair's relationship with Gordon Brown had a major influence upon his decision-making. Their partnership as Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer was closer and longer-lasting than any that had gone before. Much of what passed between them is known only to them, but it is clear from such information that is available that their relationship was at times intensely productive, and at times intensely counterproductive. In the opinion of Tony Blair's biographer, Anthony Seldon, its productive aspects were by far the more important although, at the time, the public were made aware only of its negative aspects.

On some issues, each went his own way (the Good Friday agreement, Kosovo and education for Blair; economic growth and welfare for Brown ) but both remained committed to the policy framework that they had worked out in opposition, and they always sought and obtained each other's agreement on other issues. Tony Blair's memoirs contain fewer than a dozen references to most of his other ministerial colleagues, but over fifty references to his dealings with Gordon Brown.

Public relations
A third distinguishing feature of Tony Blair's premiership was its counterproductive attempt to preserve its initial popularity. The independent Phillis review of government communications reported in 2004 that there had been a "three-way breakdown in trust between government and politicians, the media and the general public" that had been attributed by contributors to   the communications strategy adopted by the Government in 1997 and the reaction of the media to it.

On taking office in 1997, Tony Blair had decided that the staff of the Government Information Service was not up to its task,  and he conferred powers upon his press secretary, Alastair Campbell to give them instructions on media management and to recruit political advisers to help them. Under Campbell's leadership they adopted the methods developed by  Tony Blair's team that were believed to have contributed to the Labour party's election victory. Campbell is reported to have told them that he wanted them to forecast what would be on the front page of next day's Sun, and help to write it. On his instructions, they took to rewarding favourable reporting with preferential access to information and punishing adverse reporting by witholding access. In his own twice-daily press briefings, Campbell himself adopted an agressive manner that some journalists resented. An atmosphere of suspicion developed and there was a growing tendency  to dismiss government  statements as "spin" (an ill-defined term that had by then acquired an implied connotation of misinformation). Tony Blair is reported to have said in 1998 that he feared that he was "suffering more from spin doctoring than benefitting from it", and by 2001 Roy Jenkins was advocating Campbell's dismissal.

Social Policies
In his election campaign, Tony Blair had been anxious to escape from the Labour party's reputation for "tax-and-spend" domestic policies and he wanted instead to establish, a reputation for fiscal prudence. He had undertaken in general terms to modernise the welfare state, but he had avoided undertaking to reduce poverty, achieve full employment, or reverse the increase in inequality that had occurred during the Thatcher administration. Once in office, however, his government launched a package of social policies designed  to reduce unemployment and poverty. The commitment to modernise the welfare state was tackled by the introduction of "welfare to work" programmes to motivate the unemployed to return to work instead of drawing benefit. Poverty reduction programmes were targetted on specific groups, including children and the elderly, and took the form of what were termed "New Deals". There were also new tax credit allowances for low-income and single-parent families with children, and "Sure Start" progammes for under-fours in deprived areas. A "National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal" was launched in 2001 with the objective of ensuring that “within 10 to 20 years no-one should be seriously disadvantaged by where they live";  a  "Social Exclusion Unit" was set up,  and annual progress reports concerning the reduction of  poverty and social exclusion were commissioned.

Efficiency
Throughout his premiership, Tony Blair was preoccupied with the reform of the public services, which he considered to have been  suffering from underinvestment and inefficiency. He had little confidence in the ability of the civil service to introduce the necessary changes, and he repeatedly called upon private sector assistance. The government's commitment to deficit reduction precluded reinvestment during his first term, and he concentrated on improving efficiency by setting up a Performance and Innovation Unit which placed mixed teams of private sector management experts and civil servants in government departments. With the easing of fiscal restraint in his second and third terms,  public sector annual investment  was restored to late-'70s levels, but the increases were usually made conditional upon productivity  gains using the Treasury's new Public Service Agreement system. The eminent industrialist, Sir Peter Gershon was asked to lead an independent review of public sector efficiency and efficiency targets were set. There are several references in his memoirs to Tony Blair's frustration with the results achieved. His discontent with progress made in his first term led to his creation of the Delivery Unit led by Sir Michael Barber and his first expression of satisfaction was with the results achieved by that unit during his second term.

Education
Tony Blair introduced a fundamental change in the rôle of government in education. Before 1988, governments  had confined themselves to introducing  legislation and allocating  funds. Then, in 1988, the Education Act  introduced a national curriculum and national tests at 7, 11 and 14,  but  left implementation in the hands of local education authorities. Under Tony Blair's premiership, the government assumed responsibility for delivery by setting targets and monitoring outcomes. Among the reforms that were introduced were a reduction in class sizes, the creation of a professional standards body for teachers and a training college for head teachers, measures for dealing with failing schools and the introduction of tuition fees for university students. A controversial feature was the  replacement of failing schools by "academies" which were state-maintained independent schools set up with the help of outside sponsors. The reforms were financed by an increase in public expenditure on education from £29 billion in 1997 to £60 billion in 2007. The outcomes are summarised in the paragraph on education outcomes below, and criticisms of the reforms are summarised in the paragraph on education policy.

Health
From the start of his premiership, Tony Blair took a personal interest in the reform of the National Health Service. He was concerned that it was achieving less than other rich countries in cancer treatment and the treatment of heart disease, and that within the United Kingdom there were large regional variations. Within the first year he announced a radical reorganisation aimed at raising quality standards, increasing efficiency, and driving performance, and in 1999 he set up the  National Institute for  Clinical Excellence (NICE) to provide professional guidance, and set national quality standards. He was also concerned by what he considered to be his predecessors' underinvestment in health, and in 1999 he announced the intention of raising the government's health expenditure (then at about 5.7 per cent of GDP) to the European Union average (then about 8.4 per cent of GDP) within three years. In July 2000 the "NHS Plan" announced the government's intention to devolve power to local health authorities, introduce new contractual arrangements for medical professionals and set waiting time targets. In 2002, as a further measure of decentralisation, it announced the intention of creating functionally independent "foundation hospitals . (Those and other measures were given detailed statutory effect by the 2003 Health and Social Care Act )

Health outcomes are summarised in the paragraph on health outcomes below, and criticisms of the reforms are summarised in the paragraph on health policy.

Crime prevention
The Labour party's traditional approach to the problem of crime was to tackle the social conditions to which it could be attributed, but Tony Blair wanted to go further. He wanted to augment existing crime prevention policies with measures to deal with the low-level anti-social behaviour and vandalism  that he saw as a cause of fear and anger for poorer families. On Gordon Brown' suggestion, he adopted the slogan "Tough on Crime. Tough on the Causes of Crime" to signal the adoption of both approaches.

Blair's administration introduced a great number of criminal justice acts starting with the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was largely the expression of the combined approach. It created the Youth Justice Board within the Home Office to provide expert advice on the treatment of young offenders, and introduced measures to strengthen parents' legal responsibility for the conduct of their offspring. More controversially it provided for the use of "Acceptable Behaviour Contracts" (agreements under taken from perpetrators to desist from specified practices) and "Antisocial Behaviour Orders" (orders to desist, a breach of which could lead to prosecution) ; and a range of other provisions such as parenting orders followed. The crime outcomes are summarised below in the paragraph on crime outcomes and criticisms of the government's crime policies are summarised in the paragraph on crime prevention policy

Economic policy
New Labour came into power at a time when the post-war controversies concerning the management of the economy had been largely resolved. As shadow chancellor, Gordon Brown had discussed economic policy with US Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and had adopted the tenets of the Greenspan era. Following Alan Greenspan's advice, it was decided to abandon money supply targets, to instruct the Bank of England to target monetary policy directly upon inflation targets to be determined by the government, and to grant it freedom in its month-to-month execution. It was also decided to adopt a policy of fiscal stability by the adoption of a code for fiscal stability; with  a  "sustainable investment rule" that set  a limit upon the budget deficit, averaged over the economic cycle; and a "golden rule"  that confined the use of deficits to the financing of investment. Economic growth was still a policy objective but it was assumed that it could be achieved by  encouraging innovation,  rewarding  enterprise, and  punishing anticompetitive behaviour.

The outcomes of those policy decisions are summarised below in the paragraph headed economic outcomes and criticisms of the policies are summarised in the paragraph on economic policy.

Northern Ireland
Tony Blair had wanted to try to resolve the Northern Ireland conflict even before he became party leader. The attempt by John Major to broker a settlement had collapsed with renewed terrorism, but he had agreed with John Major that there was still a chance of peace. Once elected as party leader, he disavowed the Labour Party's traditional support for Irish reunification and announced a policy of neutrality between the rival demands for unity with Ireland and for membership of the United Kingdom, and sought for recognition as an "honest broker" in the search for an agreed settlement. He found the Bertie Ahern (then leader of the opposition in the Irish Parliament) to be of like mind and, with the help of Jonathan Powell, he made contact with the leaders of the opposing factions in Northern Ireland.

A major chapter of Tony Blair's memoirs is devoted to the protracted and detailed negotiations with Northern Ireland politicians pursued by himself and Bertie Aherne as Prime Ministers of their countries, with the help of Mo Mowlam, Senator George Mitchell and the support of Bill Clinton. An IRA cease fire in July 1997 was followed by an Anglo-Irish agreement to set up an Independent International Commission on Decommissioning in August 1997, and by the conclusion, in May 1998, of  the Belfast Agreement ("The Good Friday Agreement") creating a Power-Sharing Assembly and Executive. After the suspension of the Assembly in October 2002 over that IRA's failure to decommission, negotiations were resumed and culminated, after a favourable report by the Decommisioning Commission, by the creation of a reconstituted Power Sharing Executive in May 2007.

The outcomes of those policy decisions are summarised in the article on The Troubles (Ireland).

Immigration
After being caught by surprise at the surge of new entrants during the early years of his premiership, Tony Blair gave close attention to the control of immigration. He would have been aware of the strength of popular concern: the monthly MORI poll of "the most important issues facing Britain" was consistently recording  immigration among their main concerns. During his premiership, four major Acts of Parliament on the subject were passed (in 1999, 2002, 2004, and 2006) - more than on any other subject. Their effect was to bring about a fundamental reshaping of the UK's policy towards immigration, intended to to favour skilled migrants and students, and to exclude bogus asylum-seekers.

Europe
Tony Blair saw the European Union, not just as an economic customs union, nor as federation, but rather as a political union of nations.

Within a few weeks of the election, Britain ended its opt-out from the social chapter of the European Union's Maastricht Treaty, and had signed up for what was to become its Amsterdam Treaty. Tony Blair played a major role in sponsoring the Lisbon Agenda which aimed to improve the flexibility and openness of European markets. At the outset of his premiership, he was supportive in principle of the idea of a single European currency (or Eurozone), but he came to accept on practical grounds that  early membership would not  be in Britain's interest. Tony Blair maintained his intention the Britain should join the Eurozone when the conditions are right (as defined by a set of  five conditions), but it became evident before long  that there was no more than a remote possibility of meeting those conditions. He was aware of the strength of "eurosceptic" opinion in the press and the public, and he announced plans to hold a referendum on the  proposed European constitution ("with deep misgivings" ). The plans were abandoned in 2005, however, following the French and Dutch rejection of the treaty.

The United States
According to Tony Blair's biographer, Anthony Seldon, both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had a deep empathy for the United States and their visits and contacts when in opposition had a defining influence on them, and many of those contacts were maintained when they were in office. Their political outlook was influenced by the communitarian teaching of Professor Amitai Etzioni at George Washington University, their campaigning methods were influenced by what they saw of Bill Cinton's 1992 campaign, and their economic thinking was closer to the "Anglo-Saxon model" of open markets, labour market price flexibility and limited government spending than to  the "European Social model"  of  welfare protection, high governmental public spending and inflexible labour markets.

The close personal relationship that developed between Tony Blair and Bill Clinton and their families was also to have an influence on their policies. When the Monica Lewinsky story broke in the press, Blair stood by Clinton; when asked if this was not “politically risky” he said of Clinton, “I have found him throughout someone I could trust, someone I could rely upon, someone I am proud to call not just a colleague, but a friend … And my belief is that the right thing to say is what you feel.”. In a visit to Tony Blair's Chequers residence at the end of his presidency, Bill Clinton has been reported to have advised Tony Blair to "get as close to George Bush as you have been to me, and in spite of their obvious political differences, Tony Blair and George Bush did form a relationship of strong mutual respect.

Military intervention
At an early stage in his premiership, Tony Blair had to work out his attitude to the contentious issue of military intervention in the affairs of other sovereign states. Such intervention had been explicitly forbidden by Article 2 of the Charter of the United Nations (see box), but there had been 17 genocides in the course of the following forty years, and there had  already been several United Nations military interventions on humanitarian grounds. Tony Blair's conclusion was a combination of humanitarianism and pragmatism. In a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago in 1999, he set out his five considerations :
 * - First, are we sure of our case?
 * - Second, have we exhausted all diplomatic options?
 * - Third, are there military operations that we can sensibly undertake?
 * - Fourth, are we prepared for the long term?
 * - Finally, are our national interests involved?

In contrast to the conventional policy of avoiding intervention except in the national interest, he had decided that the humanitarian case should come first - a view that was later endorsed by an international commission (see box). But he acknowledged and respected the many who strongly disagreed: "The opposite view... is not the product of moral disability; it is born from a perfectly natural reservation about the unforseeable ramifications of ...intervention". But, while recognising that danger, he argued that non-intervention could also have unforeseeable ramifications. As an example, he noted that early non-intervention in Bosnia had led Milosevic to believe that he could get away with ethnic cleansing in Kosovo -  as he had in Srebrenica.

Overview
The 1997 general election resulted in the election of a Labour government with a parliamentary majority of 179 seats, and the appointment of Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

The first two years of Tony Blair's premiership were devoted mainly to domestic issues, including devolution and Northern Ireland, housing benefit abuse,  tuition fees for university students,  the "Sure Start" scheme for yougsters, tax credits for working families, penalties for anti-social behaviour,  the  comprehensive spending review, and the introduction of a national minimum wage. Thera were also unplanned activities: in August 1997, he expressed the nation's grief at the death of Princess Diana; and in November he  denied allegations that the government's exemption of  Formula One racing from its ban on smoking advertisements had been a reward for the a donation to party funds. In January 1998, he took up his first six-month presidency of the European Union, and in that year he took the first of a series of foreign policy decisions, with air attacks against Serbian targets in Kosovo and against military installations in Iraq. In the final years of his turned his attention  to the reform of the health and education services. He had by then seen a falling-off of public support for the government, in a defensive speech at the party conference in September 2000,  he acknowledged  a general feeling that the government had lost touch with the people,  and  he apologised for the government's mistakes about pension increases and for its failure to cancel its predecessor's "millenium dome" project.


 * (for links to contemporary reports of events during the period, see the timelines subpage)

Devolution
Almost immedately after the election, Tony Blair set in motion the negotiations described above,  that were to lead to the creation of a power sharing executive in Northern Ireland. Also among the early measures of his first term as Prime Minister were referendums about devolution in Scotland and Wales. Following a favourable result there, the 1998 Scotland Act established a separate parliament for Scotland with devolved responsibilities in most domestic areas ; The first Scottish Parliament was elected in May 1999. The result of the referendum in Wales was also in support of devolution, but by a narrow majority, and with a small electoral turnout; accordingly a Welsh National Assembly was established, but with much more limited responsibilities than the Scottish Parliament.

Kosovo
In 1998 Kosovo was a province of Serbia with a majority Albanian population that was seeking independence from Serbian rule. In February, the tension between the Serbian government and the Kosovo liberation movement turned into large-scale violence, prompting widespread international concern. In October,  an  agreement  backed by the threat of NATO air strikes, achieved a brief pause in the fighting, but in January 1999 a massacre of ethnic Albanian civilians  prompted renewed international concern. In conversations between Tony Blair and President Clinton in January and February, it was agreed that there should be air strikes on the  Serbian forces in Kosovo in order to force their  withdrawal. It was proposed to use the authority of of NATO since the Russian government's opposition to the use of military force had made it clear that  United Nations approval would not be available. On 23 March 1999, Tony Blair made a statement to Parliament proposing air strikes, which was supported by the leaders of the opposition parties. British and American air strikes began the next day and continued for several weeks. However, it soon became evident that they were not succeeding. In a meeting in Washington on 21st April, Tony Blair tried to get President Clinton to agree to the use of ground forces, but their use turned out to be unnecessary because  the Serbian Government eventually agreed to withdraw its trooops  (following  pressure from Russia, and in the belief that a ground attack was imminent),

Sierra Leone
In 1999, a peace treaty had been expected to end the bloody six-year civil war in the West African country of Sierra Leone, but in April 2000, a United Nations peacekeeping force came under attack by rebel forces. Over 500 of them were captured, and chaos returned. Following a personal appeal to Tony Blair by the country's president (and without United Nations authorisation), a force of 800 British paratroops was sent to the capital, Freetown, in Operation Barras. In the course of next six months, the rebels were defeated, the hostages were freed, the rebel leader was captured and a degree of order was restored. .

Overview
The 2001 general election resulted in a slightly reduced Labour majority of 167 seats.

Much of the second term was devoted to a range of activities intended to follow up and reinforce the domestic initiatives of the first term, but they were overshadowed by the developments that followed the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States; and the defining events of the period  were those concerned with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.


 * (for links to reports of legislation and events of the period, see the timelines subpage)

9/11
On September 11th, two passenger aeroplanes were crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, and a third into the Pentagon building in  Washington DC. As soon as it was learned that they had been hijacked by members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organisation, Tony Blair made a statement of solidarity with the United States (see box). On the next day, in a telephone conversation with President Bush, he effectively committed Britain to participation in an attack on al-Qaeda and the Taliban, in Afghanistan. During the following weeks, he rallied support from the leaders of France, Germany, Pakistan and Iran, and discussed diplomacy and tactics with President Bush in Washington. There had been some who feared military failure or a humanitarian disaster, but he was able to assure President Bush that few would oppose an attack.

Afghanistan
Joint US/UK air attacks began in October 2001, and American and British regular troops entered Afghanistan in November. The United Nations Security Council added its endorsement in December, and formal military resistance collapsed by the end of the year. But the Afghanistan war was to continue in a different form. In his memoirs Tony Blair was to say "if I had known then that a decade later we would still be at war, I would have been profoundly disturbed and alarmed",  but that he still believed that to have avoided confrontation would have been a "terrible error, an act of political cowardice".

Iraq
(for contemporary reports on events in 2002 and 2003, see the timelines subpage) In April 2002, Tony Blair learned that President Bush was considering an invasion of Iraq. An invasion for the purpose of removing Saddam Hussein had been authorised by the United States Congress in 1998, and previously by the United Nations Security Council's Resolution 678 in 1991, and President Bush considered that his removal would serve the purpose of his announced "war on terrorism".

In his memoirs, Tony Blair recalls that he had also become convinced of the desireability of removing Saddam Hussein, but that, in view of international opposition to the idea, he had persuaded President Bush of the prior need for a confirmatory United Nations Resolution. A draft resolution was duly submitted and after a joint French/Russian amendment ruling out an immediate invasion had been defeated, was unanimously approved as  Security Council Resolution 1441 in November 2002. However, while confirming Resolution 678, the new resolution did not refer specifically to the use of force, and it remained possible to argue that an intermediate resolution (Resolution 687 ) had put military action on hold. In view of that uncertainty, Tony Blair sought legal advice and was told by the Attorney General, that it would be advisable for safety's sake to obtain a second confirmatory resolution, although in his opinion an invasion would still be legal without one. In the meantime, representatives of France and Russia had announced their intention to veto any further resolution.

Before finally committing the country to military action in Iraq, Tony Blair took the unprecedented steps of publishing the available military intelligence about Iraq, and seeking the approval of parliament. Under the UK Constitution the Royal Prerogative enables a Prime Minister to declare war without first consulting Parliament. The report of the Joint Intelligence Committee stated that Saddam Hussein still possessed the "weapons of mass destruction (WMD)" that had been referred to in the United Nations Resolutions. Also, in a passage that received little attention at the time, it stated that some of them could be made ready within 45 minutes.

Although there had been a massive demonstration against going to war, a large majority of the  British public were in favour of military action to  remove Saddam Hussein , and the decision to invade Iraq  was  supported by the opposition Conservative Party - but  opposed by the Liberal Democrat Party and  by  many   within the Labour party. In the parliamentary debate on the decision, the Government motion was passed on 18th March 2003 by 412 votes to 149, with 139 of Labour's 410 MPs voting against

The outcomes of the decisions on Afghanistan and Iraq are summarised in the paragraph on outcomes below, and criticisms of the decision are summarised in the paragraph on criticisms.

Third term in office, 2005-2007
As a result of the general election of 2005, the Labour  government survived for a further term, although with a much reduced parliamentary majority of 66 seats.

Tony Blair's final period in office was marked by controversy and accusations of wrongdoing. Accusations against him concerning the Iraq war, and his responses to them, are described in detail on the Iraq decisions paragraph of the addendum subpage. They centered on the claim that he had deliberately deceived parliament about his reasons for going to war, and concerning its legality under international law. He was also accused of involvement in what the media called the "cash for honours" scandal, and he  was called as a witness in the police investigation. There was also criticism of his intervention to halt a police investigation into allegations of corruption between Saudi Arabia and a British company (BAE Systems) on the grounds that it would harm Britains's relationship with  Saudi Arabia and there was   controversy and dissension among  his colleagues over the timing of his departure. His public approval rating had dropped below 35 per cent, some in the Labour party considered that he had become an electoral liability, and a group of its MPs urged him to stand down.

Those pressures and distractions did not, however, prevent Tony Blair from continuing his pursuit of what he considered to be an incompletely fulfilled agenda. At home, he was involved in legislative proposals concerning education, health, immigration, identity cards and terrorism. In the European Council, he had in an acrimonious debate with Community leaders about the  Common Agriculture  Policy and the United Kingdom's contribution to the Community budget. At the Gleneagles Summit, he persuaded the leaders of the G8 countries to support the "Make Poverty History" movement with a financial commitment. With the Irish Prime Minister, he negotiated the "St Andrews Agreement" that led to the reinstatement of the power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly.

He resisted calls to announce the date of his departure until May 2007, when he announced his intention to depart at the end of June.


 * (for links to reports of legislation and events during the third term, see the timelines subpage),

Introduction: statistics and public opinion
The Tony Blair premiership was notable for the differences that had developed between the outcomes recorded in official statistics and the public perception of those outcomes (see crime outcomes). The lack of public confidence in official statistics at the time, has been attributed to the fact that, before 2007, they had been produced within government departments. Their constitution at the time was the stipulation of a non-statutory framework document which made the regulation of professional standards the responsibility of an independent Statistics Commission over which the government had no control. There was nevertheless a widespread suspicion that published statistics were being manipulated by ministers and by the newspapers in which they were reported.

The outcomes referred to in the following paragraphs may be expected to have been the product of multiple factors;  their listing below does not imply a claim that they were entirely due to the government  policies that have been referred to.

Education outcomes
A BBC review in 2002 of Labour's 1997 election pledges for education concluded that, with minor exceptions, the pledges had been met.

Spending on education rose from 4.9% of GDP in the school year 1997/1998 to 5.6% for the year 2007/2008, and spending per pupil rose from  £2,910 in 1997/1998 to £5,430 in 2007/2008. Between 1997 and 2007, the number of primary school teachers rose by 2.8%, the number of secondary school teachers by 14.5%, and the number of special education teachers by 17.7%. In primary schools, 10.8% of classes had 31 or more pupils in 2008, compared to 27.9% in 1997. In secondary schools, however, the percentage rose from 5.9 1997 to 10.9 in 2008. According to government figures, the number of pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades rose from 46.3% in 1997 to 65.3% in 2008;  the number of A-level passes increased  from 87.2% of all A-level entries, to 97.2%; and the number of A-C grades at A-level had risen from 55.7% to 73.9% between 1997 and 2008. During this period there was an improvement in the number of A grades awarded from 15.7% of entries in 1997 to 25.9% of entries in 2008. There was also an improvement in primary school test results, but the Statistics Commission attributed much of the improvement by 2005 to external factors, including "teaching to the test".

Health outcomes
A BBC review in 2002 of Labour's 1997 election pledges for health concluded that, with some exceptions, the pledges had been met , and an indpendent audit in 2005 concluded that "Overall, in our view, the results of this audit are very positive" .

Expenditure on the NHS increased from £41.3bn in 1999/2000 to £102.7bn in 2009/10, a real terms increase of 95%. The number of doctors in the National Health Service rose from 89,619 in 1997 to 128,210 in 2007, and the number of qualified nurses from 318,856 to 399,597. Waiting times were reduced. In October 1999, 497,500 had been waiting for longer than 13 weeks for a first outpatient appointment and 526,867 for inpatient treatment. In November 2009, 92.8% of people were treated within 18 weeks of a referral. Cancer and heart disease deaths were reduced. For cancer, the 3-year average mortality rate/m for under-75s fell from 1,287 in 1999-2001 to 1,140 in 2006-08, and for coronary heart disease it fell from 1,145 in 1999-2001 to 748 in 2006-08. .

A broadly favourable assessment of foundation hospitals was published by a cross-party committee in 2008

(See also the report of the UK Centre for the Measurement of Government Activity ).

Crime outcomes
A BBC review in 2002 of Labour's 1997 election pledges for home affairs concluded that, except for street crime, the pledges that concerned crime had been met

Expenditure on the police force rose by over 40 per cent in real terms between 1998/9 and 2008/9 and police numbers rose from 111 thousand to 140 thousand. According to the British Crime Survey (a large-scale survey of a representative sample of adults living in private households in England and Wales that asks about people’s experiences and perceptions of crime)  total crime fell by 48 per cent between 1995 and 2007/8, including falls of 59 per cent in domestic burglary, 48 per cent in crimes of violence, 20 per cent in vandalism, and 15 per cent in robbery (theft from the person.  During that period between 65 per cent and 75 per cent of people thought crime was increasing.

Immigration outcomes
The inflow of long-term migrants  into the United Kingdom increased from about 300 thousand in 1997 to about 600 thousand, or 1 per cent of the population, in 2007. Outflows increased from 250 thousand to 400 thousand, so that the net inflow rose from 50 thousand to 200 thousand. It has been estimated by a House of Lords Committee that foreign-born persons constituted about 10 per cent of the population in 2008,   that immigration has had little impact upon the prosperity of its inhabitants, but that some 40 per cent of the population consider it to be the most important issue facing the country.

Economic outcomes
In 2007, UK GDP per capita was the third highest among  the G7  countries (having been the lowest in 1997) and GDP growth had remained close to a trend rate of around 2¾ per cent. The annual rate of increase of the consumer price index went slightly above 3 per cent in two months during the years 1997 to 2007, but for most of the period it remained below 2½ per cent. The unemployment rate, as defined by the International Labour Organisation, remained below 6 per cent from 1998 to 2007, in contrast to rates that were often above 9 per cent in other European countries

Between 1997 and 2007 the government reduced its budget deficit to slightly below the level it inherited from its predecessors, and used more of  it to finance investment rather than the day-to-day running costs of the public sector. It also reduced its public debt to below the level it had inherited. The "golden rule" and the "sustainable investment rule", of its code for fiscal stability, were both met over the economic cycle  from 1997–98 to 2006–07.

Afghanistan and Iraq
By 2010 there had been over 300 British military fatalities in the war in Afghanistan and over 1800 among other Coalition forces, and despite the establishment of an elected government there, the fighting against Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents was continuing.

The major combat phase of the Iraq war lasted from March 20th to until May 1 2003, during which 50 British soldiers were killed. During the sectarian violence that followed, there were a further 129 British military fatalities, bringing the total to 179. Military fatalities among United States and other Coalition forces amounted to 4,664 bringing the total to 4,742. Three estimates put civilian deaths during that period at between 100 thousand and 150 thousand (the "Iraq Body Count", The Brookings Institute and the World Health Organisation) and there have been others as low as 40 thousand (Associated Press) and one at between 400 and 800 thousand (published in The Lancet).

The majority of Iraqi respondents to an opinion poll said that life in 2007 was better than it had been under Saddam Hussein .

British forces left Iraq in 2009, and by 2010 the sectarian violence there had largely subsided. Iraq had become a parliamentary democracy, and was then considered to be  in the early stages of a negotiated end to a  civil war.

Education policy
There have been major professional and political criticisms of New Labour's education policies. A House of Commons cross-party committee has found a consensus  view that there is urgent need of significant reform of the national curriculum,  and has suggested that less than half of teaching  time should be devoted to it. The Committee also criticised what it considered to be an over-emphasis on national tests, which address only a limited a limited range of children’s skills, and as a result of  which "some children may suffer as a result of a limited educational diet" (and see box). The tests in question are the SATS tests administered at the end of each Key Stage in primary and secondary education (ages 7, 11 and 14) as well as the increase in the number of examinations prompted by the adoption of the Curriculum 2000 measures which added Advanced Subsidiary examinations at the end of the first year of sixth form, as the first half of A-level examinations.

There have also been complaints from major employers coverning the performance of school-leavers . The government has been criticising for the mixed record it has had on vocational training in schools, where the approach has been less coherent than some desire: instead of providing a clear vocational alternative in schools, curriculum reforms have led to an 'alphabet soup' of qualifications (GNVQs, VCEs, AVCEs, ND/HNDs, NC/HNCs and vocational Diplomas) that are not widely understood by the general public or by employers.

Political opposition to the government's education policies has come mainly from within the Labour party, and has been mainly on the subjects of academy schools  and university tuition fees, which increased dramatically under Blair's government.

Health policy
The Government's proposal to introduce foundation hospitals met criticism at the time from within the Labour party and from the British Medical Association on the grounds that it could lead to a two tier health service, with hospitals competing for both patients and staff. Waiting list targets were attacked by the British Medical Association on the grounds that  they could be inconsistent with clinical priorities. But the most persistent criticisms of the Goverment's health policies were about the quality of the health service's management. A 2006 report by the cross-party House of Commons Health Committee, criticised the financial management of the National Health Service, as a result of which an increasing number of hospitals had overspent their budgets, and some had had to close wards, freeze recruitment or delay operations. It attributed the problem to poor financial management on the part of local managers, and to unrealistic estimates and repeated target changes on the part of the Government. A further report by the committee in 2007 criticised the government for attaching more importance to increasing staff numbers and staff pay  than to increasing their efficiency. It referred to evidence of the need to improve the management skills of health service  managers and clinicians, which it attributed to "a disastrous failure of workforce planning". (Overall productivity - the amount of output achieved per unit of input, adjusted for quality - is reported to have  declined by 4.3% between 1997 and 2007 .) The majority of respondents to a national opinion poll in 2010 considered the National Health Service to be in need of a major overhaul.

Crime prevention policy
An audit by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London argues that the government's success had been far less clear-cut than had been claimed, and that in reality, its record is mixed: "Despite the record investment, there has not been a significant step change in outcomes ... Despite a decade of reform, crime and victimisation levels remain high and the proportion of crimes dealt with is extremely low."

The police service has been critical of the government's crime reduction targets. Speaking on Radio 4’s Today Programme in 2008, the President of the Association of Chief Police Officers said that: "Top-down government targets delivered benefits when first introduced to policing, but over time the burdens have come to outweigh some of the benefits. For some years now ACPO have been pointing to the unintended yet unhelpful impact of top-down central targets. No two neighbourhoods are the same so we need local targets to reflect the local needs of that area. Successful policing looks different to everyone. If neighbourhood policing teams are to deliver for local people then they need the space to respond to local priorities, set by and with those they work to protect."

There is also some professional scepticism about the effectiveness of the government's Antisocial Behaviour Orders (ASBOs) A 2006 report by the Youth Justice Board said that many tackling youth offending doubted their effectiveness, and some teenagers saw them as glamorous; and another study revealed that of 137 young people given ASBOs, 67 had breached their order at least once, 42 more than once and six on six occasions or more.

Immigration policy
A BBC survey in 2007 found that 72% of the 1,026 adults questioned felt that the Government was doing a poor job on immigration, and nearly two thirds of respondents thought that Britain would lose its unique identity if immigration continues at its present rate. More than half of those surveyed believed that immigration posed a threat to UK jobs. The pressure group Migration Watch has claimed that: "Government have lost control over our borders during the past fifteen years. This has resulted in immigration on a scale that is placing huge strain on our public services, housing, environment, society and quality of life."

Economic policy
The principal criticisms of the conduct of economic policy during Tony Blair's premiership were made after it was over, and concerned Gordon Brown's conduct of  fiscal policy as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The budget deficit during his premiership did not rise above its level at the end of the previous Conservative administration, and attracted relatively little attention at the time. In retrospect, however the government's fiscal policy of the time has been accused of making insufficient allowance for the possibility of a severe recession, and its financial regulation policies have been held partly responsible fot the Great Recession.

Criticisms of the Blair government's economic policy are discussed in more detail in the article on Gordon Brown.

Iraq war
The severest criticisms of Tony Blair's conduct as Prime Minister concern his decision to go to war in Iraq. He has been called "Bush's poodle"  and  accused of lying to Parliament ; and there have been calls for his prosecution as a war criminal. In 1993 the war was widely expected to lead to a humanitarian disaster, and the subsequent discovery that Saddam Hussein had already destroyed his weapons of mass destruction was taken to have removed all justification for the war. Criticism mounted when the military campaign was followed by protracted factional violence and influential voices spoke of enormous and unnecessary civilian suffering, as  well as mounting military casualties.

Only 12 per cent of UK respondents to an opinion poll in 2010 considered the Iraq war to have been a success

The factual justification for the principal criticisms, and Tony Blair's response to them, are summarised on the addendum subpage.

Subsequent activities
After Blair's resignation, Gordon Brown became Prime Minister and served in this role until the 2010 General Election where Labour did not win a majority. The Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties have formed a coalition government headed by Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. The Labour Party has elected Ed Miliband as their new leader, who claims he will shift away from the policies of New Labour, and who has been heavily endorsed by trade unions.

Blair has stepped away from Labour Party politics. On 27th July 2007, it was announced that Tony Blair had accepted an appointment as a special Middle East envoy with a remit  to work with the Palestinian people to develop the infrastructure and the economy, with the goal of creating a Palestinian state. In early 2008, he accepted a position at the U.S. investment bank JP Morgan as a part time senior advisor . He has also set up a 'Tony Blair Faith Foundation', which "aims to promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions and show how faith is a powerful force for good in the modern world." .