BLAIR, TONY

(Anthony Charles Lynton Blair), 1953–, British politician, b. Edinburgh. An Oxford-educated lawyer, he was first elected to Parliament in 1983 as the Labour party candidate from a district in northern England. Articulate and telegenic, Blair rose quickly in the party organization. He was chosen as Labour's leader after the death (1994) of John Smith, and endeavored to reposition the party as a moderate center-left alternative to the Conservatives.

In 1997, when Blair led Labour to power for the first time since 1979, he became the youngest prime minister since William Pitt the younger (1783). He moved quickly to implement a "third way" program, reducing Labour's traditional reliance on state action to address social problems; to establish elected representative bodies in Scotland and Wales; to negotiate peace in Northern Ireland; and to cooperate politically with the third-party Liberal Democrats. Internationally, Blair has worked to improve ties with other European Union nations while moving slowly on monetary union and adoption of the euro; in his first term, he also was an outspoken proponent of the use of NATO forces in the Kosovo crisis. Blair's critics, however, have charged that he is more style than substance. Despite a lack of enthusiasm for Blair's leadership style, which many regard as arrogant, voters again gave him and Labour a resounding victory at the polls in 2001, making him the first Labour prime minister to win to consecutive terms in office.

Following the Sept., 2001, attacks by terrorists in the United States, Blair gave America highly visible support, including the use of British military forces, in its retaliation against Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden. He also strongly supported the Bush administration in its insistence that Iraq readmit UN weapons inspectors and disarm or face military action and, despite opposition in Britain and the Labour party to war with Iraq, committed British troops to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. After the invasion, when biological and chemical weapons were not readily found in Iraq, he and his government were criticized for having exaggerated the threat that Iraq represented.

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright© 2004, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products N.V. All rights reserved.

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