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Other authors named Tony:
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Popularity: 2
Vote: | Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is... everyone now accepts that if there is a default by Saddam the international community must act to enforce its will. |
Popularity: 3
Vote: | However much I dislike the idea of abortion, you should not criminalize a woman who, in very difficult circumstances, makes that choice. |
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Vote: | I can only go one way. I've not got a reverse gear. |
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Vote: | I didn't come into politics to change the Labour Party. I came into politics to change the country. |
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Vote: | I feel like everyone else in this country today. I am utterly devastated. |
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Vote: | I may find Saddam Hussein's regime abhorrent - any normal person would - but the survival of it is in his hands. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | I obviously need to get to the gym. |
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Vote: | If there is one thing Britain should learn from the last 50 years, it is this: Europe can only get more important for us. |
Popularity: 5
Vote: | It is not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose. |
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Vote: | Labour is the party of law and order in Britain today. Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime. |
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Vote: | Mine is the first generation able to contemplate the possibility that we may live our entire lives without going to war or sending our children to war. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | Once his wife goes to sleep it takes a minor nuclear explosion to wake her. |
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Vote: | Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government and I will lead it as party of government. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | Power without principle is barren, but principle without power is futile. This is a party of government, and I will lead it as a party of government. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | The art of leadership is saying no, not yes. It is very easy to say yes. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | The City whizz-kids, with salaries only fractionally less than their greed, now seem not only morally dubious, but incompetent. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | The threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability - that threat is real. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | There is no meeting of minds, no point of understanding with such terror. Just a choice: Defeat it or be defeated by it. And defeat it we must. |
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Vote: | This is not a battle between the United States of America and terrorism, but between the free and democratic world and terrorism. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | We, therefore, here in Britain stand shoulder to shoulder with our American friends in this hour of tragedy, and we, like them, will not rest until this evil is driven from our world. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | When they try to intimidate us, we will not be intimidated... we will not be changed. When they try to divide our people our weaken our resolve, we will not be divided and our resolve will hold firm. We will show by our spirit and dignity... our values will long outlast theirs. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | You only require two things in life: your sanity and your wife. |
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Biography
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The Right Honourable Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair (born 6 May 1953) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He has led the Labour Party since the death of John Smith in 1994, and brought Labour into power with a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, replacing John Major as Prime Minister and ending 18 years of Conservative government. He is now the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, and the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories.
He moved the Labour Party towards the centre of British politics, using the term "New Labour" to distinguish his party's new support for privatised industries and market inducing reforms from its past belief in Fabian socialism. However, critics on the left feel that he has compromised its founders' principles, and that his government has moved too far to the right, placing insufficient emphasis on traditional Labour priorities such as the redistribution of wealth. Since the advent of the "War on Terror" his agenda has been dominated by foreign affairs and he has aligned himself closely with George W. Bush, sending British forces to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent occupation and conflict. His party won an unprecedented third term in the 2005 general election, but its majority in the House of Commons was reduced considerably to just 67. While Blair is not in any danger of losing a vote of no confidence, the falling Labour vote has renewed speculation about how long his leadership will continue.
Early and private life
Blair was born in Edinburgh in Scotland. His father Leo was a barrister and later a law lecturer who was active in the Conservative Party. Leo Blair had ambitions to stand for Parliament in Durham but was thwarted when he had a stroke when Blair was 11, an event which affected Blair deeply. He spent most of his childhood years in Durham. After attending the Durham Choristers School, Blair was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh (sometimes called the "Eton of Scotland"), where he met Charlie Falconer whom he would later make Lord Chancellor. Biographer John Rentoul said "All the teachers I spoke to ... said he was a complete pain in the backside, and they were very glad to see the back of him." After Fettes, he read law at St. John's College, Oxford. During his college years he also played guitar and sang for a rock band called Ugly Rumours. After graduating from Oxford, Blair enrolled as a pupil barrister and met his future wife, Cherie Booth, at the Chambers of Derry Irvine, also a future Lord Chancellor.
Blair married Booth on 29 March, 1980. They have three sons (Euan, Nicky, and Leo) and one daughter (Kathryn). Leo holds the distinction of being the first child officially born to a sitting Prime Minister in 150 years, since Francis Albert Rollo Russell was born to Lord John Russell on 11 July, 1849. While the Blairs have stated that they wish to shield their children from the media, they have not always been able to do so. Leo was the centre of a debate over the MMR vaccine when Tony Blair refused to say that his son had received the controversial treatment.
Euan Blair received widespread publicity after police found him "drunk and incapable" in Leicester Square, London while out celebrating the end of his GCSE exams in July 2000, shortly after his father had proposed on-the-spot fines for drunken and yobbish behaviour. Blair has twice lodged complaints about press stories concerning his children. However, the fact that the family have occasionally held photocalls together has led some to accuse him of exploitation, and such photographs have been used on Private Eye covers.
Blair is an Anglican of the High Church or Anglo-Catholic tendency, while his wife is Roman Catholic and his children are (according to Catholic doctrine) brought up in that faith. Blair has not sought to make a political issue of his faith, though biographers agree that his political beliefs have been profoundly influenced by it. One name often mentioned as a theological influence is the Scottish Christian philosopher John Macmurray. Some have suggested Tony Blair is the most devout Prime Minister since William Ewart Gladstone.
...(more on Wikipedia)
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This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Tony Blair".
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