Blair was born in Edinburgh and studied law at Oxford University to become a barrister. He joined the labour party in 1975 and successfully gained a seat in Sedgefield in 1983. Tony Blair was considered as new age Labour’s golden boy and beat John Major in the elections. He won a landslide majority in 1997 by gaining 63.6% of the seats in the House of Commons. He was the youngest Prime Minister since 1812 and had three consecutive terms in office, making him the Labour party’s longest serving Prime Minister.
Tony Blair wished to bring about major constitutional change; he did this through reforming of the House of Lords; bringing about the devolution of Scotland and Wales; the introduction of civil partnership in 2004; he implemented the human rights act of 1998; the freedom of information act in 2005 after delaying it for 4 years.
Gordon Brown who was closely affiliated with Blair and was his chancellor of the Exchequer allowed the Bank of England to autonomously set the UK base rate of interest.
This increased popularity for the labour government with the public as they held to a 1992 treaty with the Bank of England and remained within the previous government’s budget.
Blair gained popularity with the British public by deciding against adopting the Euro. The issue of whether or not to join the Euro was obviously considered incredibly important by the British public and the move to the Euro was strongly opposed by a large majority of the British people, the media, and the other political parties.
⦁ Blair gave his press secretary Alistair Campbell the power to give orders to civil servants, a power usually reserved for ministers. Campbell was a political appointee and Blair’s official spokesman, but he was paid under the title of civil servant.
⦁ Blair’s government had notably strong female aides, such as Anji Hunter and Sally Morgan.
⦁ Devolved the government and created the Scottish Parliament and