Tony Blair was the leader of the British Workers' Party from 1994 to 2007 and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007.
Childhood and youth
Tony Blair was born to Leo and Hazel Blair and raised in Durham.
His father was a well-known lawyer who ran for parliament from the Tory party in 1963, but after a stroke on the eve of election day, he became dumb and had to give up his political ambitions.
After graduation, he attended Fett College in Edinburgh, where he became interested in rock music and became a fan of Mick Jagger. He left the Fettes and attended St. John's College, Oxford, International Law School. After graduating in 1975, he went to work at the 'Lincoln'S Inn'.
Political career
He entered the world of politics by joining the Labor Party, and already in 1982 he was nominated as a party candidate in Beaconsfield County. Despite losing his first election, he won the election as early as 1983 with a seat in Parliament from Sedgefield County.
In 1987, he became chairman of the trade and industry committee.
In 1988, he was named Shadow Secretary of the Department of Energy. The shadow cabinet is an alternative cabinet made up of opposition representatives who closely monitor Politics and control government action.
Later, when Neil Kinnock, the leader of the opposition, resigned in 1992, Blair was named Shadow Home Secretary.
In 1994, John Smith died unexpectedly of a heart attack and Blair was elected leader of the opposition and was also appointed to the Privy Council.
After his election as leader of the Labor Party in Parliament, he proposed a series of reforms related to taxation, penal and administrative codes, and education.
The unpopularity of conservative leader John Major after several scandals proved to be beneficial to Blair. In the 1997 general election, the Labor Party won a crushing victory over the Conservatives, and on May 2, 1997, he was sworn in as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
As prime minister, he raised taxes, set a minimum wage, made changes to the labor code, and freed sex minorities. His policy has always been aimed at strengthening Britain's integration with the European Union.
In the health and education sectors, he has also undertaken numerous reforms, abolished many categories of welfare payments, introduced strong counter-terrorism measures and empowered the police, and has taken a number of initiatives to reduce poverty and increase the number of social services in the UK. Poverty has declined significantly, and the general health of the population has also improved during his tenure.
During its tenure, the United Kingdom participated in five major military campaigns:
1) 1998, when Britain joined the United States to attack Iraq due to the latter's inability to fulfill the UN arms reduction mandate, 2) 1999, war in Kosovo, 3) 2000, Sierra Leone Civil War,
4) 2001, after 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA declared "war on terrorism" and Great Britain joined the USA by sending troops to Afghanistan
5) 2003, when the US invaded Iraq, Great Britain also fully supported its ally.
His foreign policy, especially towards the United States, was heavily criticized and his popularity began to decline. However, his participation in the settlement of the Northern Ireland peace process was highly appreciated.
On June 7, 2001, he won a landslide victory in the general election and was re-elected Prime Minister for the second time. For a third term, he was re-elected on May 5, 2005, but on June 27, 2007, he handed over the leadership of the Labor Party to Gordon Brown. On the day of his retirement, he was appointed Special Envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia.
In 2007, he founded the Tony Blair Athletic Foundation with a mission to increase children's participation in sports activities, especially in the North East of England, where a large proportion of children are socially isolated, and to promote overall health and childhood obesity prevention.
Since retirement, he has devoted much of his time to charity, as well as to overseeing the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, a nonprofit he founded to promote understanding and tolerance among people of different faiths.
Personal life
On March 29, 1980, Blair married Cherie Booth. From this marriage, he has four children.
In 2010, his memoir, A Journey, was published, one of the best-selling autobiographies of all time.
