INDEPTH: TONY BLAIR
Tony Blair's political career - a timeline
CBC News Online | March 22, 2006
1983:
Elected as Labour's MP for Sedgefield in County Durham, northeast England (which he still represents).
1984 to 1987:
Assistant spokesman on treasury. Aligns himself with reformers within the party, headed by leader Neil Kinnock.
1987:
Deputy spokesman for trade and industry.
October 1988:
Elected as shadow secretary of state for energy. Blair becomes more outspoken and urges party members to move to the political centre.
1989 to 1992:
Member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour party.
1992:
Promoted to shadow home secretary by new Labour Leader John Smith. Blair pledges that his party would be tough on crime.
July 1994:
After the death of Smith, the 41-year-old Blair is elected as the youngest leader of the party. Immediately, Blair begins chipping away at old Labour policies. He plays down the party's traditional ties to labour and trade unions. In a crucial vote, he removes Clause 4 in the party's constitution – a commitment to public ownership of industries. Blair christens the party New Labour.
Britain's new Prime Minister Tony Blair is hugged by his wife Cherie outside No. 10 Downing Street in London on May 2, 1997 (AP Photo/David Caulkin)
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May 1997:
Labour wins the general election by a landslide (419 of 659 seats). At 44, Tony Blair becomes the second-youngest British prime minister. Lord Liverpool was 42 in 1812 when he became PM. Labour policies include the promotion of a market economy, lower taxes, better education, elimination of long-term welfare, a Welsh Assembly, a Scottish Parliament and a European-centred outlook.
1997:
Soon after the election, Blair grants the Bank of England the right to set interest rates without consulting the government.
October 1997:
In a historic moment, Blair meets with Gerry Adams, the head of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).
April 1998:
Blair negotiates the Belfast Agreement ("The Good Friday Agreement") creating a power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland.
May 1998:
Blair holds a successful referendum to create a new assembly for London and establish the city's first direct elections for mayor.
1998/1999:
Britain, as part of a NATO deployment, joins in the Kosovo war, combating Serbian claims on the region. Britain keeps thousands of troops in the region as part of a peacekeeping force.
June 2001:
Labour wins another landslide general election (413 out of 659 seats), but with low voter turnout (59 per cent). Blair is the first Labour prime minister to win consecutive majority governments.
September 2001:
After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Blair emerges as the strongest ally of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, supporting its "war on terror." In October, British and American forces attack Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and weaken the al-Qaeda network.
September 2002:
Blair unveils an intelligence dossier claiming Iraq could deploy banned weapons within 45 minutes.
Early 2003:
Blair makes the rounds in Europe, arguing for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. His case focuses on Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction.
March 16, 2003:
Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush and Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar announce they will seek support for military action against Iraq. Over the next two days, Robin Cook, leader of the House of Commons, two junior ministers and four aides resign over Blair's Iraq policy.
March 19, 2003:
Britain sends 45,000 troops and joins the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" in an invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi regime is toppled after three weeks. British troops remain in Iraq.
July 18, 2003:
David Kelly, a biological warfare expert with the British Ministry of Defence, is found dead of an apparent suicide. Kelly was the unnamed source of a BBC report claiming the government had "sexed up" a dossier on illegal weapons in Iraq to boost public support for the invasion. In early July, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had exposed Kelly as the source of the BBC report.
Aug. 1, 2003:
Blair becomes the longest-sitting Labour PM in the U.K., surpassing Harold Wilson's term (1964 –1970).
August 2003:
An inquiry into Kelly's death and the circumstances leading up to it begins with Lord Hutton as the chair.
Jan. 28, 2004:
The Hutton Report determines that Kelly took his own life and BBC allegations the government enhanced a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were unfounded. BBC's chair, director-general, and the journalist who made the allegations, Andrew Gilligan, all resign.
February 2004:
The Hutton Report does not silence Blair's critics. Under growing pressure, Blair names a five-member panel to conduct an inquiry into pre-war intelligence, led by retired civil servant Lord Butler.
July 2004:
Butler's panel issues a report critical of mistaken claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It says the assertion that Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was unsubstantiated. The report found no evidence the intelligence had been manipulated by Blair and his aides.
April 5, 2005:
Blair calls an election for May 5, 2005.
April 28, 2005:
Releases a confidential memo from his attorney general from 2003 concerning the legality of going to war in Iraq. The memo shows that on March 7, 2003, Lord Goldsmith warned Blair that it would be safer to delay the war in Iraq until the UN Security Council authorized military action.
May 5, 2005:
Becomes the first leader of the Labour party to win three consecutive terms as prime minister. He returns to the office with a majority government but with a substantially reduced number of seats in Parliament. Labour secured 36 per cent of the vote, a record low for a winning party in the U.K.
March 2006:
Blair comes under renewed pressure to resign amid revelations that rich businesspeople who had secretly loaned millions of pounds to the Labour Party had been offered seats in the House of Lords, knighthoods or other titles.
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| IN HIS OWN WORDS: |
"I did not join the Labour party to protest. I joined it as a party of government and I will make sure that it is a party of government."
– Tony Blair to the Trade Union Congress, September 1995
"The question is: what do you leave behind? And what you can bequeath to this anxious world is the light of liberty."
– Tony Blair speaking to the U.S. Congress, July 18, 2003
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| BLAIR'S HEALTH: |
In October 2003, Blair received treatment for an irregular heartbeat. He felt ill one day and went to a hospital where he was diagnosed with supraventricular tachycardia – his heart was beating abnormally fast. He was given a small electric shock to return the heartbeat back to normal and returned home that night. Blair went to work the following day, keeping it low-key.
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