Tony Blair News and Articles
1 September 2010: Tony Blair releases his memoirs
In his book A Journey, Blair revealed the extent of his division with Gordon Brown and revealed that "the relentless personal pressure from Gordon was wearing".
29 January 2010: Tony Blair gives evidence
Tony Blair gave evidence to the Iraq inquiry in London about the legality of the 2003 Iraq war. His evidence is available on video and in transcript form.
18 June 2009: Tony Blair's expense claims cause controversy
Amongst the barrage of controversial claims revealed to have been made by MPs was Tony Blair's expense claim for almost £7,000 of roof repairs on his designated second home just two days before stepping down as Prime Minister.
31 May 2008: Tony Blair launches Faith Foundation
Since Tony Blair has left the post of Prime Minister, Tony Blair's office has announced the setting up of a Faith Foundation as well as a Sports Foundation.
10 January 2008: Tony Blair joins JPMorgan
Tony Blair has joined US investment bank JPMorgan in a part-time role "in a senior advisory capacity".
22 December 2007: Tony Blair becomes a Catholic
Tony Blair converted to the Catholic faith on Friday 21 December 2007.
He joins Cherie Blair, who was already a Catholic.
For some time there had been speculation that Blair, who had been an Anglican, would convert.
23 July 2007: Tony Blair makes first Middle East visit as envoy
Tony Blair, acting on behalf of the European Union, the United Nations, the USA, and Russia, has commenced his first visit to the Middle East as special envoy to the area.
27 June 2007: Tony Blair to be Middle East envoy:
Tony Blair stood down as Prime Minister today and resigned as a member of parliament. He announced that he would become a Middle East envoy on behalf of the US, Russia, the UN and the EU.
Blair's predecessor, former World Bank president James Wolfensohn resigned last year because of the lack of progress that had been made.
10 May 2007: Tony Blair names date of departure:
Tony Blair has announced that he will stand down as Prime Minister on 27 June. Gordon Brown, who is the favourite to take over from Tony Blair, praised "his unique achievement over 10 years and the unique leadership he has given to the party, Britain and the world".
In his resignation speech, Tony Blair said:
"I was, and remain, as a person and as a Prime Minister, an optimist. Politics may be the art of the possible; but at least in life, give the impossible a go.
"So of course the vision is painted in the colours of the rainbow; and the reality is sketched in the duller tones of black, white and grey.
"But I ask you to accept one thing. Hand on heart, I did what I thought was right."
28 April 2007: Tony Blair on crime: "the original analysis I had was incomplete and therefore misguided"
Writing for the Daily Telegraph today, Tony Blair noted "about 15 years ago, I more or less made my name on changing Labour's traditional stance on law and order", and went on to draw comparisons between his thinking back then and David Cameron's now.
Blair also reflected: "What I have learnt over these 10 years is that the original analysis I had was incomplete and therefore misguided, ie, guiding us to the wrong policy conclusion, not in the sense that investment in poorer neighbourhoods and regeneration was wrong - it has been absolutely right - but in the sense that it will not deal with this small and unrepresentative minority."
14 December 2006: Tony Blair interviewed by police in honours investigation
Tony Blair was interviewed by police although not under caution. Assistant Commissioner John Yates expects to report to the Crown Prosecution Service in January 2007 about his findings in his investigation into allegations of cash for honours.
7 September 2006: Tony Blair says he will step down as PM within a year
The Prime Minister's statement followed intense speculation of a rift with Gordon Brown and the timetable of Mr Blair's departure.
Tony Blair apologised on behalf of the Labour Party for the last week and said its important that the Labour Party understands that it is the interests of the country that come first.
Tony Blair said: "The next party conference in a couple of weeks will be my last party conference as party leader.
"The next TUC conference next week will be my last TUC, probably to the relief of both of us.
"But I am not going to set a precise date now. I don't think that's right ..."
The Prime Minister's full statement is available here.
6 June 2006: Tony Blair webcast tonight
Just days after meeting Pope Benedict, Tony Blair will be answering questions from the British public via the Downing Street website.
The Prime Minister will be taking questions from Sarah Sands of the Daily Mail and Michael White of The Guardian, as well as the general public.
The interview is broadcast tonight from 1700 BST on the website.
6 May 2005: Tony Blair leads Labour to historic third term
Tony Blair has led the Labour Party to their third consecutive general election victory. The first time the party had achieved this.
Additionally Tony Blair's own vote held up well in Sedgefield, despite facing a challenge from various independents including Reg Keys.
In one of the strangest set of election results, it was difficult to discern a clear national pattern, with large regional disparities in the results.
The speeches of Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy all seemed to welcome the results. Additionally pundits on British television were finding it difficult to discern which party would least welcome the results.
5 May 2005: Exclusive: Tony Blair's Secret Fitness Campaign
Election day has finally arrived. Although the official campaign was rather short, it seemed at times more like a marathon.
Whatever the outcome, Tony Blair had to be fit and full of energy to get through it, although, at times, particularly, on Question Time, he seemed to be sweating somewhat profusely.
And now the scoop ... The Sedgefield 2005 Election Guide can finally show you secret footage of Tony Blair's fitness campaign ...Full Story
28 April 2005: Attorney General's Legal Advice Leaked
Most of the front pages of the papers, with the notable exceptions of Rupert Murdoch's Sun and The Times, were plastered with headlines based around the leak of legal advice by the Attorney General which indicated that the invasion of Iraq could be judged to have been illegal.
The Attorney General's letter is full of legalese, as witnessed by the following extract demonstrating an extreme case of sitting on the fence:
"I judge that, having regard to the arguments on both sides, and considering the resolution as a whole in the light of the statements made on adoption and subsequently, a court might well conclude that OPs 4 and 12 do require a further Council decision in order to revive the authorisation in resolution 678.
"But equally I consider that the counter view can be reasonably maintained."
With advice of this type, no wonder the recipient, in this case Tony Blair, might tend towards a 'presidential approach' and just do what he was going to do anyway.
One of the most poignant points about the letter is made by the Financial Times:
"The second factor that will get headlines is the sheer inconsistency between the first private statement by the attorney-general which was heavily "caveated" and the second public statement in which he declared the war to be legal without any qualification at all.
"Mr Blair has repeatedly stated that these two statements were consistent. In the Commons on March 9 2005, Mr Blair said: "If it is being said that the legal opinion of the attorney-general was different from the attorney-general's statement to the House, that is patently absurd."
"But the public might well judge that it is Mr Blair's statement to the Commons that smacks of absurdity. The nature of these two documents is different in every sense."
13 April 2005: 12 April 2005 will be remembered as a critical moment in British Politics
Biogs.com has just posted an article on The Blair-Brown Balance of Power. One key aspect of yesterday that might go down in history as a turning point in British politics is that Gordon Brown appeared in Time Magazine's list of the 100 most influential people and Tony Blair did not.
8 April 2005: Tony Blair comes first on a google search for Liar!
These thing have a habit of changing, but as I write if you type liar into Google, then the first result returned is the Downing Street website's biography of Tony Blair!
Soon after I mentioned the same phenomenon with 'poodle', the effect had gone. Any guesses what would be next?
7 April 2005: Tony Blair relieved to talk about the economy
The suspicion that Tony Blair was irritated by the questions of journalists at his press conference today was confirmed by his entry in Tony Blair's Campaign Diary, where the Prime Minister states:
"What a relief it was finally to get into a proper debate about serious economic issues at our first campaign press conference today. But it took a fair old time getting there.
"Once I had said what I had to say about Gordon and his role in our economic success, several of the journalists seemed to want their own version of the same answer.
"I suspect their interest in the soap opera side of the debate may be greater than that of the public who want to see the policies of all the parties put under real scrutiny."
It is good to see that Tony Blair has provided us with this diary and also the chance to get answers to emailed questions.
But the website raises interesting questions. The Labour Party page on IT Compliance seems to mirror the words of Tony Blair's speeches in the sense of saying 'we still have some way to go'. It states:
"The Labour Party recognises the need for sites to comply with the best practice, legal and regulatory guidelines. While we are not yet 100 per cent compliant with best practice we are working hard to ensure that we move towards this goal ... We are also considering getting privacy accreditation from a third party in order to offer greater confidence to our users ... Other aspects of our on-line presence are being made increasingly secure ... As shown on our disability page, our site is working towards conforming with best practice."
5 April 2005: Tony Blair sets the election for May 5
Mr Blair visited Buckingham Palace today and, as expected, called an election for May 5.
Theoretically, that allows just three-and-a-half weeks for campaigning, but the parties had already been touting their wares in anticipation.
An opinion poll by MORI for the Financial Times today showed the Conservatives for the first time building a clear lead over Labour among Britons who say they are certain to vote. The same poll on March 24 had showed the two main parties were neck and neck.
The big issue, however, is what will happen with those who are undecided and, in particular, will the turnout increase from the very low 59.4% in the last general election in June 2001. All the post-war elections until then had had a turnout of over 70%.
Last election there was considerable tactical voting that benefited the LibDems, however in 2005, it is arguable that the Labour Party and the Conservative Party are closer to each other than to the LibDems.
29 March 2005: Tony Blair - The Enigma
There is an interesting article about Tony Blair by David Clark in today's Guardian entitled A weak man who bends to power, not political vision, in which he posits:
" ... This is the true meaning of "elected as New Labour, govern as New Labour". Labour can govern, but only by deferring to forces more powerful than it ..."
However, the issue is a conundrum because some respected people who know Tony Blair take a very different view. The following is an extract from an interview with Mo Mowlam, from a Channel 4 programme I produced in 2003. The interviewer is Michael Crick:
"Question: What do you think of those who would say that this government listens a lot more now to business than it does to the trade unions?
"Answer: I don’t think it listens to anybody. So I don’t think you can say it’s listening to business but not trade unions, I think it’s not listening to anybody. So I think business is as frustrated as trade unions, as MPs, as a lot of other people... I’m just saying that we’ve got to get to a position where Tony listens. I don’t think at the moment he does. Individual ministers do, and particularly when it’s their department, but I think Tony’s got a problem with listening to people."
27 March 2005: Biogs.com has launched its Sedgefield Election 2005 Special Guide
The site contains regularly updated news and information on the Sedgefield candidates including Tony Blair.
It was with great excitement that I started to download the Prime Minister's speech at Davos from the official 10 Downing Street site.
It wasn't a straightforward text document as usual. Instead it was an acrobat file which was a copy of a fax. Would it have hand-written scribbles in the margin? Maybe the Prime Minister had crossed remarks out and inserted others?
Alas the answer was no. Nevertheless Tony Blair has some interesting things to say and I have put extracts, particularly those relating to the United States on both the Blair speeches page; and the Blair and the USA page.
6 January 2005: Flawed Official Transcript of Tony Blair's Press Conference
The official transcript of the Prime Minister's press conference has some interesting omissions. I am not suggesting foul play, but these are documents of record and they should be right. I will not deal with various other omissions, for example, a long complete question from a chap called George from The Sun, but instead focus on one key example.
After a section described correctly as 'inaudible', there is a gigantic omission as follows:
"Yeah, but I'm not getting into the position of either assuming I have won a general election or going through every single cabinet position, and there's no reason why you shouldn't, however I've already told you what a great job I think he's [Gordon Brown] doing, he's been Chancellor"
then the transcript continues with Blair's answer and then again skips a large segment as follows:
"Whatever happens at the election is up to the British people, not up to you or me. And one thing I've said this yesterday and I get increasingly alarmed by what I read in the papers saying, so far as I read them, of course, about what happens after an election as if assuming the election has already happened. It's going to be tough, this next election, and one thing's for sure, Gordon will be right at the centre of it because the economy will be at the centre of it. And he will carry on making a major contribution as he has done."
And then the transcript gets back to the proper record although it says: "Ity (sic) has been a strong loartnership (sic)", which is very odd as it is generally literal free.
The reason I have made two highlights in bold is that the first is just an odd thing to say and Mr Blair hurried quickly on. The second bold entry is significant because it directly contradicts something he said earlier. He says he his 'alarmed' by press reports, but Mr Blair said earlier: a) "I am not interested in what goes in and out of newspapers" and b) "what I read I gave up bothering about a long time ago."
The other thing of interest is that the missing passage reveals that the economy will be at the heart of the election.
Whether or not, readers think the omissions are significant content-wise is one thing, but surely everybody will agree they are important in that they provide an inaccurate record.