History UsefulNotes / TonyBlair

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords anytime soon.[[note]]His longstanding failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former prime ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson, UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This created a problem in that it meant she could not appoint any ''subsequent'' prime minister to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him. It should be noted that Blair finally was appointed to the Garter on 31 December 2021, a full fourteen years after leaving office, and at the first opportunity after the death of the Queen's husband, Prince Philip.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between Harold Wilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the worst leader the Tory Party has ''ever'' had. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye after Labour kept reminding the public that he had served in Major's then still-profoundly-unpopular government. The fourth, David Cameron, was a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. The Iraq War's fallout turned Blair into a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson -- a progressive leader whose domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar an unpopular war]]. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, Brown continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the extant law that would prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and spent most of his time in the public eye thereafter advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject. However, once the Conservatives decisively won the 2019 general election with a program titled ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', ending all prospects of a second referendum, and officially achieved Britain's withdrawal on 31 January 2020, he was among the first pro-Remain politicians to urge his fellows to accept defeat and move on.

* For the fifth season of ''Series/TheCrown'', Blair will be played by Bertie Carvel.

Sir Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever KG]] (born May 6, 1953) is a British politician who served as the 51st [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster-Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}} (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}}, winning 418 out of 659 seats, the most seats won by one party in any election since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]]. He was first appointed as prime minister four days before his 44th birthday, becoming at the time the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, who was appointed the day after his 42nd birthday in 1812.

Sir Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair [[UsefulNotes/KnightFever KG]] (born May 6, 1953) is a British politician who served as [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster-Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}} (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}}, winning 418 out of 659 seats, the most seats won by one party in any election since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]]. He was first appointed as prime minister four days before his 44th birthday, becoming at the time the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, who was appointed the day after his 42nd birthday in 1812.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords anytime soon.[[note]]His longstanding failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former prime ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson, UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This created a problem in that in meant she could not appoint any ''subsequent'' prime minister to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him. It should be noted that Blair finally was appointed to the Garter on 31 December 2021, a full fourteen years after leaving office, and at the first opportunity after the death of the Queen's husband, Prince Philip.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between Harold Wilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon.[[note]]His failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former prime ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson, UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This, of course, means that she cannot appoint any ''subsequent'' prime minister to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him.[[/note]] [[note]] Blair finally was appointed to the Garter on 31 December 2021, a full fourteen years after leaving office. [[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between Harold Wilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon.[[note]]His failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former prime ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson, UsefulNotes/JamesCallaghan, and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This, of course, means that she cannot appoint any ''subsequent'' prime minister to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between Harold Wilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair (born May 6, 1953) is a British politician who served as [[UsefulNotes/TheMenOfDowningStreet Prime Minister of the United Kingdom]] from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster-Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}} (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}}, winning 418 out of 659 seats, the most seats won by one party in any election since [[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the Second World War]]. He was first appointed as prime minister four days before his 44th birthday, becoming at the time the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, who was appointed the day after his 42nd birthday in 1812.

Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair (born May 6, 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster-Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}} (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}} victory. He was first appointed as prime minister four days before his 44th birthday, becoming at the time the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, who was appointed the day after his 42nd birthday in 1812.

His enduring legacy is that he (and [[UsefulNotes/PeterMandelson Mandy]]) reinvented the traditionally blue-collar Labour Party into "New Labour", with middle-class cubicle monkeys as his base. Purists criticized him for this, but Blair was largely a product of his time. His soothing TV manner and propensity to dodge hard issues made him more reminiscent of an American President than PM -- a trend that continued with UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, and made life quite difficult for UsefulNotes/GordonBrown and UsefulNotes/TheresaMay, who tried to behave more traditionally.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. The Iraq War's fallout turned Blair into a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson -- a progressive leader whose domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by [[UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar an unpopular war]]. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the extant law that would prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and spent most of his time in the public eye thereafter advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject. However, once the Conservatives decisively won the 2019 general election with a program titled ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', ending all prospects of a second referendum, he was among the first pro-Remain politicians to urge his fellows to accept defeat and move on.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon.[[note]]His failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former Prime Ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This, of course, means that she cannot appoint any ''subsequent'' Prime Minister to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon.[[note]]His failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a traditional laurel for former Prime Ministers ever since they stopped being granted earldoms (UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson and UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher received life peerages) -- is widely believed to be borne of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the Princess Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This, of course, means that she cannot appoint any ''subsequent'' Prime Minister can be appointed to the Garter, either, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. The Iraq War's fallout turned Blair into a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson -- a progressive leader whose domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by [UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar an unpopular war]]. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the extant law that would prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and spent most of his time in the public eye thereafter advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject. However, once the Conservatives decisively won the 2019 general election with a program titled ''Get Brexit Done, Unleash Britain's Potential'', ending all prospects of a second referendum, he was among the first pro-Remain politicians to urge his fellows to accept defeat and move on.

Despite criticism (most notably for shifting the Labour Party massively to the right and for invading Iraq), he captained Labour through three consecutive victories, passing UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson for cumulative tenure of a PM from that party late in his second mandate, and left by own choice in 2007 after seeing off four opposition leaders before handing over to [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown the Chancellor]]. It goes without saying the switch from Captain Charisma to No-Flash Gordon has fueled several jokes. Blair currently acts as an international development consultant and, to significantly greater consternation, a UN peace envoy to the Middle East. His premiership also saw a military intervention which ended the UsefulNotes/SierraLeone Civil War -- and, to this day, Sierra Leone is just about the only country with an unequivocally positive view of him. (UsefulNotes/{{Kosovo}} is the other, due to his staunch support for the 1999 NATO intervention.)

His enduring legacy is that he (and [[UsefulNotes/PeterMandelson Mandy]]) reinvented the traditionally blue-collar Labour Party into "New Labour", with middle-class cubicle monkeys as his base. Purists criticized him for this, but Blair was merely a product of his time. His soothing TV manner and propensity to dodge hard issues made him more reminiscent of an American President than PM -- a trend that continued with UsefulNotes/DavidCameron, and made life quite difficult for the more traditional UsefulNotes/GordonBrown and UsefulNotes/TheresaMay.

Early in his premiership, Blair was noted for the election {{catchphrase}}s "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and "we have three priorities: education, education and education". These were widely parodied, [[MadLibsCatchPhrase Mad Libs-style]], in the media and to some extent have entered the British lexicon. True to his word, Blair criminalised more than 3,000 (not a typo) acts, one for almost every day New Labour was in power; most curious was criminalising "causing a nuclear explosion", as it is remarkably tricky to do this without committing at least one other crime.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was seen as a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. The Iraq War's fallout turned Blair into a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson -- a progressive leader whose domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by an unpopular war. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the legislation in place to prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and spent most of his time in the public eye thereafter advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject. However, once the Conservatives decisively won the 2019 general election, ending all prospects of a second referendum, he was among the first pro-Remain politicians to urge his fellows to accept defeat and move on.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon.[[note]]His failure to be appointed a Knight of the Garter -- a tradition among former Prime Ministers ever since they stopped being granted Earldoms -- is widely believed to be the result of the Queen's personal distaste for him (she's still bitter about the whole Diana affair), as membership of the Order is one of her few remaining personal prerogatives. This of course means that all ''subsequent'' Prime Ministers ''also'' cannot be appointed to the Garter, lest she be perceived as unduly prejudicial against him.[[/note]] Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

* ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' started out with two Blair parodies: ''Blairzone'', referencing his "Cool Britannia" attempts to be hip and with it, and "The Vicar of St. Albion's", referencing how some had compared his speech-giving style to that of a sanctimonious parish [[TheVicar vicar]] preaching a sermon. Perhaps unexpectedly, it was the second one that lasted and became very popular, with Cabinet members fulfilling corresponding roles (for instance, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown as the church treasurer) and foreign leaders being slotted into appropriate roles (e.g. American Presidents UsefulNotes/BillClinton and UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush were made into the leaders of odd evangelical sects the Church of the Seventh-Day Fornicators and the Church of the Latter Day Morons--or Morbombs during the Iraq War--respectively). "The Vicar of St. Albion's" got weird when Blair very publicly converted to Catholicism shortly after resigning as prime minister (especially since Blair kept his religion private while in office to ''avoid'' further mockery for being the Vicar of St. Albion's). ''Private Eye'' adapted pretty well: he now appears occasionally as the Rev. Imam Rabbi Sri Tony Blair, Chief Executive of super-ecumenical organization [[FunWithAcronyms Drawing All Faiths Together]].
* The Music/PetShopBoys AffectionateParody of UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush and Tony Blair -- "I'm with Stupid" -- reached number eight as a single on the UK charts. They also wrote "I Get Along" about his second firing of UsefulNotes/PeterMandelson ([[WordOfGod so they said]]). They also made the extremely creepy [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kx05kU5gZg "Integral"]] about New Labour's increasing tendency to introduce a surveillance society; the fandom sometimes count these three together as the Pet Shop Boys' "Blair Trilogy".

* Creator/TerryGilliam's ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'' has the character Tony (played by Creator/HeathLedger, Creator/JohnnyDepp and Creator/ColinFarrell) which is a parody of Tony Blair because of what Gilliam calls Blair's ability to say incredible and ridiculous things.

* ''Series/TheComicStripPresents'' episode "The Hunt for Tony Blair" frames the main events and controversies of Blair's premiership -- Iraq, Afghanistan, the shift from blue-collar, working-class, socialist "Old Labour" to middle-class Tory-lite "New Labour", the leadership feud with UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, etc. -- as a 1950s Creator/EalingStudios-style FilmNoir about Blair being on the run after being falsely (or not-so-falsely) accused of several murders.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

* The unnamed prime minister whose corpse is found in a cupboard in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Aliens of London", having been murdered by aliens, is meant to be Tony Blair.[[note]]The extra playing the corpse was hired on the understanding that he was a lookalike for Blair, but when he arrived on set the resemblance was found not to be as strong as hoped, so he's less visible than intended.[[/note]]

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was seen as a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. The Iraq War's fallout turned Blair into a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson -- a progressive leader whose domestic accomplishments were overshadowed by an unpopular war. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the legislation in place to prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and has spent most of his time in the public eye since then advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming prime minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was seen as a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion pro-Europeanism]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another pro-European like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the legislation in place to prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and has spent most of his time in the public eye since then advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. Many have likened him to a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson since both are relatively liberal leaders whose domestic accomplishments like expanding social services were overshadowed by an unpopular war. Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. Many commentators have likened him to a British version of US President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson since both are relatively liberal leaders whose domestic accomplishments like expanding social services were overshadowed by an unpopular war. Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible. With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

Despite criticism (most notably for shifting the Labour Party massively to the right and for invading Iraq), he captained Labour through three consecutive victories, passing UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson for cumulative tenure of a PM from that party late in his second mandate, and left by own choice in 2007 after seeing off four opposition leaders before handing over to [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown the Chancellor]]. It goes without saying the switch from Captain Charisma to No-Flash Gordon has fuelled several jokes. Blair currently acts as an international development consultant and, to significantly greater consternation, a UN peace envoy to the Middle East. His premiership also saw a military intervention which ended the UsefulNotes/SierraLeone Civil War -- and, to this day, Sierra Leone is just about the only country with an unequivocally positive view of him. (UsefulNotes/{{Kosovo}} is the other, due to his staunch support for the 1999 NATO intervention.)

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. (Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural president of the European Council -- a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon -- with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman van Rompuy, a former prime minister of UsefulNotes/{{Belgium}}. There were also persistent rumours that he, on behalf of Britain, might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible.) With Conservative PM UsefulNotes/BorisJohnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster-Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between UsefulNotes/{{Glasgow}} (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}} victory. He was first appointed as prime minister four days before his 44th birthday, becoming at the time the youngest PM since UsefulNotes/LordLiverpool, who was appointed the day after his 42nd birthday in 1812.

Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007. Perhaps unusually, Blair wasn't from the South but in fact started out in UsefulNotes/{{Scotland}} (he was born in Edinburgh[[note]]His ''ancestry'' is insanely complicated to explain, as his father was the bastard son of English actors adopted by a Glaswegian dockworker, and his mother was born in County Donegal to an Ulster Scots family, which had in recent generations shuttled between Glasgow (which was roughly where the family had migrated from centuries ago) and Ballyshannon several times. Whew.[[/note]]) and was educated in [[OopNorth the English North]] and Scotland. He became the Labour Party MP for Sedgefield in 1983 and party leader in 1994. In 1997, he steamrollered UsefulNotes/JohnMajor's Conservatives and won Labour's first election victory in 18 years in a {{landslide|Election}} victory.

Despite criticism (most notably for shifting the Labour Party massively to the right and for invading Iraq), he captained Labour through three consecutive victories, passing UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson for cumulative tenure of a PM from that party late in his second mandate, and left by own choice in 2007 after seeing off four opposition leaders before handing over to [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown the Chancellor]]. It goes without saying the switch from Captain Charisma to No-Flash Gordon has fuelled several jokes. Blair currently acts as a UN Peace Envoy to the Middle East, something that confuses just about everyone. His premiership also saw a military intervention which ended the UsefulNotes/SierraLeone Civil War -- and, to this day, Sierra Leone is just about the only country with an unequivocally positive view of him. (UsefulNotes/{{Kosovo}} is the other, due to his staunch support for the 1999 NATO intervention.)

Not afraid of media, Blair played [[AsHimself himself]] in ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' and a sketch with Creator/CatherineTate. Likely the only Prime Minister to have said ''"Am I bovvered?"''

In British Media he tends to get portrayed either as a lapdog of contemporary US President UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush, as the StraightMan to Bush, or as an insincere spin master. He had a habit, especially towards the end of his tenure, of pausing ... at the end of every sentence as if trying to make it easier, to cut out sound bites. The apex/nadir of his talking in slogans surely came in Northern Ireland, where he said "This is not the time for soundbites, but I feel the hand of history on my shoulder." It got so pronounced that ''Series/HaveIGotNewsForYou'' once played a minute-long speech by Tony, then played it again with "the extraneous material" removed, which is to say they played 25 seconds of silence.

Early in his premiership, Blair was noted for the election {{catchphrase}}s "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" and "we have three priorities: education, education and education". These were widely parodied, [[MadLibsCatchPhrase Mad Libs-style]], in the media and to some extent have entered the British lexicon. True to his word, Blair criminalized more than 3,000 (not a typo) acts, one for almost every day New Labour was in power; most curious was criminalizing "causing a nuclear explosion", as it is remarkably tricky to do this without committing at least one other crime.

"Teflon Tony" was also noted for his controversy-proof image, with scandals affecting his government seeming not to dent his own popularity. This made it all the bigger a contrast when [[TheWarOnTerror the Iraq War]] became the one issue he could never escape. In retrospect, some feel that Blair got lucky in facing a succession of terrible Conservative leaders after becoming Prime Minister,[[note]]The first, William Hague, struggled to put across a good public image and was really on a hiding onto nothing succeeding Major. The second, Iain Duncan Smith, is often regarded as the Tory Party's worst leader ever. The third, Michael Howard, didn't do too badly considering he took over from Duncan Smith's disastrous leadership only 18 months before his general election, but suffered in the public eye due to his association with Major's government. The fourth, David Cameron, was seen as a much more credible threat, but didn't really come into his own until Blair had left office.[[/note]] and that a more capable opposition leader would have held his feet to the fire over Iraq much more effectively. Blair's reputation has diminished still further with the Chilcot Report (which found that Blair lied to Parliament and to the British people regarding the information about Iraqi [=WMD=]s; Blair denies this), for which even subsequent Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn condemned him. Blair's staunch [[UsefulNotes/TheEuropeanUnion Europhilia]][[note]]He wanted the UK to join the Euro but intervention by [[UsefulNotes/GordonBrown Chancellor Brown]] prevented it, thus sparing the UK the economic fall-out from the Euro crisis; he renounced the UK opt-out from the Social Chapter and part of the UK budget rebate in exchange for, ultimately, very little; he waived a seven-year moratorium on immigration from new EU member states; he refused to allow a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty despite promising one in the 2005 election because he knew it would not pass, although, to be fair, his successor continued this policy.[[/note]] is widely seen as detrimental because it encouraged the conditions that led to the "Leave" result in the 2016 referendum on continued UK membership of the European Union.[[note]]Voters could dismiss economists' warnings about the risks of leaving the EU because many of them had ''also'' warned about the dangers of staying outside the Eurozone; they could also ignore the guarantees and opt-outs that Cameron had secured for the UK in his renegotiation because there was always the chance another Europhile like Blair could come in and just give them up again; they could ''also'' ignore the legislation in place to prevent further political integration without voter consent (the European Union Act 2011) because the previous government had enacted the Treaty of Lisbon without a public vote since it was touted as a "cleaning-up exercise" instead of fundamental change.[[/note]] Blair, for his part, strongly supported the "Remain" campaign during the referendum and has spent most of his time in the public eye since then advocating for a reversal of the result, becoming one of the earliest prominent figures to back what eventually became the movement for a second referendum on the subject.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. (Shortly after retiring he actively sought to become the inaugural President of the European Council - a position created by the Treaty of Lisbon - with the active support of his successor PM Brown, but other European leaders instead chose Herman von Rompuy. There were also persistent rumours that he - on behalf of Britain - might have been "rewarded" with a high-ranking position in the European Union had Britain voted to Remain in the referendum, which of course is now impossible.) With Conservative PM Boris Johnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

* The unnamed Prime Minister whose corpse is found in a cupboard in the ''Series/DoctorWho'' episode "Aliens of London", having been murdered by aliens, is meant to be Tony Blair.[[note]]The extra playing the corpse was hired on the understanding that he was a lookalike for Blair, but when he arrived on set the resemblance was found to not be as strong as hoped, so he's less visible than intended.[[/note]]
* Tony Blair is also made fun of as the predecessor of the fictional Prime Minister in ''Film/LoveActually''. Which resulted in Blair explaining to people that [[DontTryThisAtHome doing something like what the PM did in the movie would be a]] ''[[DontTryThisAtHome really bad idea]]''.

* The Prime Minister in the 2008 ''ComicStrip/DanDare'' miniseries is clearly based on him (confirmed by WordOfGod). He's a snivelling opportunist who sells Earth out to the [[BigBad Mekon]], so it's not exactly a favourable comparison. ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' ran a ''ComicStrip/DanDare'' parody in TheEighties where the Mekon represented UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher ("The Maggon") and Tony Blair was often accused of selling out Labour's principles to Thatcherism.

* Gary Callahan "The Smiler", the second {{President|Evil}} in the sixty-issue ''ComicBook/{{Transmetropolitan}}'' (not a bad run, considering that Creator/WarrenEllis' other works devote a meagre two punchlines to Thatcher), is believed to have been largely based on Tony Blair. Trademarks include a near-permanent grin and an obsession with control and media spin. The main characters quickly come to consider him worse than the previous President, who was based on UsefulNotes/RichardNixon.

* ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' started out with two Blair parodies: ''Blairzone'', referencing his "Cool Britannia" attempts to be hip and with it, and "The Vicar of St. Albion's", referencing how some had compared his speech-giving style to that of a sanctimonious parish [[TheVicar vicar]] preaching a sermon. Perhaps unexpectedly, it was the second one that lasted and became very popular, with Cabinet members fulfilling corresponding roles (for instance, UsefulNotes/GordonBrown as the church treasurer) and foreign leaders being slotted into appropriate roles (e.g. American Presidents UsefulNotes/BillClinton and UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush were made into the leaders of odd evangelical sects the Church of the Seventh-Day Fornicators and the Church of the Latter Day Morons--or Morbombs during the Iraq War--respectively). "The Vicar of St. Albion's" got weird when Blair very publicly converted to Catholicism shortly after resigning as Prime Minister (especially since Blair kept his religion private while in office to ''avoid'' further mockery for being the Vicar of St. Albion's). ''Magazine/PrivateEye'' adapted pretty well: he now appears occasionally as the Rev. Imam Rabbi Sri Tony Blair, Chief Executive of super-ecumenical organization [[FunWithAcronyms Drawing All Faiths Together]].

* Played by Robert Lindsay (better known for his role in ''Series/MyFamily'') in two ITV satires, ''A Very Social Secretary'' (about Blair's Home Secretary David Blunkett) and ''The Trial of Tony Blair'' (where Blair is charged with war crimes for sending Britain into Iraq).

* ''Series/TheComicStripPresents'' episode "The Hunt for Tony Blair" frames the main events and controversies of Blair's premiership -- Iraq, Afghanistan, the shift from blue-collar, working-class, socialist "Old Labour" to middle-class Tory-lite "New Labour", the leadership feud with UsefulNotes/GordonBrown, etc. -- as a 1950s Ealing Studios-style FilmNoir about Blair being on the run after being falsely (or not-so-falsely) accused of several murders.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. (There were persistent rumours that he sought a high-ranking position in the European Union, which of course is now impossible.) With Conservative PM Boris Johnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.

At the height of his popularity, he ended at #67 in ''Series/OneHundredGreatestBritons''. He is still living, though given both the Tories and a large chunk of Labour hate his guts, he's unlikely to be elevated to the Lords or even granted a knighthood anytime soon. With Conservative PM Boris Johnson's electoral victory in 2019, he has the distinction of being the only Labour leader to win a general election in the span of a half-century, between UsefulNotes/HaroldWilson in 1974 and ''at least'' the next general election in 2024.