Tony Blair Facts & Worksheets

• On 7 June 2001, despite a significantly lower turnout than the 1997 election, the ruling Labour Party was re-elected to serve a second term in government with a landslide victory and a 167 majority, returning 412 Members of Parliament as opposed to 418 from the 1997 general election, a net loss of six seats. Blair eventually became the lone Labour Prime Minister to hold the position for two consecutive full terms. The media termed the 2001 election ‘the quiet landslide’ since Labour maintained nearly all of the seats they won in the landslide victory in 1997. 
• The previous four years had gone quite well for Labour. Many believed a Labour victory was inevitable from the outset because the party had successfully defended all its by-election seats. Voter apathy was feared by many in the party, as seen in the poster of Hague with Margaret Thatcher’s hair with the text ‘Get out and vote. Alternatively, they get in.’
• Birmingham resident Sharron Storer criticised Prime Minister Tony Blair over the state of the National Health Service in front of the cameras during the election. 
• The widely reported incident occurred on 16 May 2001 as Blair visited the Birmingham Queen Elizabeth Hospital as part of his campaign.
• On 5 May 2005, the UK held its general election to choose 646 members for the House of Commons. Blair secured the party’s third straight victory, making him only the second Labour leader after Harold Wilson to lead his party to three consecutive victories. As the results came in, it was glaringly apparent that there were sufficient numbers of voters who were determined to defect from Labour to other parties — primarily to the Liberal Democrats in safe seats but also to the Tories in southern marginals — for Blair’s ascension to be spectacularly overturned.
• Many voted that Blair’s refusal to listen to the people over Iraq was unacceptable.
• In so doing, they achieved their main objectives – to cast a vote of conscience and to reduce the Labour majority.

DEBATE OVER MUSLIM WOMEN WEARING VEILS

• After Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw said he requested women in his constituency to take their veils off when they visited him, a dispute over Muslim women wearing them erupted. According to Blair, this was a mark of separation and caused discomfort for some people outside the community. He also supported Kirklees Council, which expelled Aishah Azmi, a teaching assistant, for refusing to take off her full-face veil in front of students. 
• Trevor Phillips, the chairman of Britain’s watchdog for racial relations, pleaded for calmer dialogue and warned that the debate ran the risk of sparking racial unrest similar to that which occurred in the north of England five years ago.
• The Commission for Racial Equality’s spokeswoman later stated: ‘As long as the proper provisions are made, this is a reasonable request that all should recognise as it is in a specific location where there are security concerns and people need to be identified.’

ISSUES CONCERNING WORKERS

• Taxing the pension system was one of the ways Brown increased Britain’s financial reserves. He increased the tax on the money people received from the government as a pension, which caused a sharp decline in the value of people’s pensions. The amount that pensioners lost due to the tax reached £8 billion by the time Blair’s premiership ended in 2007. The people did not quickly forget this, which caused Labour’s popularity to decline towards the conclusion of Blair’s presidency.
• With 2.9 million more people employed in 2007 than in 1997, increasing employment was one of the Blair government’s biggest accomplishments. This was merely a surface-level success, however. Employment development had not taken place where it was most needed, among young people and unskilled workers. 
• 5.4 million people were still looking for work and reliant on government assistance in 2007. Additionally, much of the employment produced during this period was in the public sector, which meant they were in the government or institutions under its authority. This sparked claims that Labour was attempting to establish a client state where people were so dependent on it for their employment that they would not oppose it.

CHILD POVERTY

• Britain had the highest proportion of single-mother children and their highest poverty rate. Labour leaders focused on relative poverty and inequality before its 1997 victory, after 18 years of Conservative rule. Before becoming prime minister, Blair said that a new Labour administration would fail unless it raised the poorest’s earnings. Before the election, there were few policy commitments and no child poverty focus. 
• Government policies put much emphasis on very young children and young mothers, and on workless families. The child tax and benefit system had not altered much in 20 years until 1997 arrived.
• Minimum income was needed to end child poverty. Income Support is the minimum income for British social security recipients.

THIRD WAY

• British politicians were split into two groups when it came to the European Union (EU): one group sought greater links with Europe because they believed it would be advantageous for Britain. The other group wanted to avoid it out of concern that Britain would lose its sovereignty and join an EU ‘superstate’. In a speech in Warsaw, Blair argued that a ‘third way’ might be discovered in which EU member states maintained their sovereignty while cooperating on global trade, diplomacy and security issues. Blair’s plan was idealistic but doomed to failure. The leaders of the other EU members were not really persuaded by his proposal; in actuality, they were waiting for Britain to ‘fall in line’ and acquiesce to the established regulations.

BLAIR AND IRAQ WAR

• Without official approval from the United Nations (UN) and, according to Blair, without the majority of the backing of his government, the opposition party, or the British people, American and British soldiers launched their invasion of Iraq on 20 March 2003. A study that provided proof that Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, had weapons of mass destruction served as justification for this war. Many concerns about the rationale for this conflict started to surface under Blair’s leadership as tangible signs of Iraq’s weapons project disappeared. 
• After Dr David Kelly’s suicide in July 2003, the main query arose. Dr Kelly was one of the key defenders of the theory that Iraq President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and had worked as an expert for the Ministry of Defence. Before Kelly killed himself, he told a British journalist that he believed the government had inflated its claims about Hussein’s weapons programme in order to justify an invasion. This put Blair in a tight spot. It was obvious that the Iraq dossier, which was meant to contain proof of the existence of WMD, was phoney.

LIFE AFTER PREMIERSHIP

• Blair resigned as prime minister after ten years on 27 June 2007 and was confirmed as UN, EU, US and Russia Middle East envoy. Blair had planned to stay in parliament after his departure as prime minister, but after being confirmed for the Middle East job, he resigned and took a corporate role. Blair joined investment bank JPMorgan Chase in a senior advisory capacity in January 2008 and advised Zurich Financial Services on climate change. 
• As a Howland distinguished fellow, Blair presented a 2008–09 course on faith and globalisation at Yale University Schools of Management and Divinity. This achievement was followed by the introduction of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University, Durham University and the National University of Singapore in July 2009 to conduct a postgraduate programme with the Foundation. 
• Tony Blair Associates allow him to provide, in partnership with others, strategic advice on political and economic trends and governmental reform commercially and pro gratis.