Rt Hon Tony Blair MP, born on 6 May 1953, and was elected leader of the Labour Party on 21 July 1994 as MP for Sedgefield. He entered Parliament in June 1983 at the age of 30. He was promoted to the Treasury front bench team in 1985 and in 1987 he became spokesperson on trade and industry with special responsibility for consumer affairs and the City. He was elected to the Shadow Cabinet in 1988, and was appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Energy. In the following year he was made Shadow Secretary of State for Employment, and forged a new industrial relations policy which ended Labour's support for the closed shop. Following the general election defeat in 1992, the late leader John Smith appointed him Shadow Home Secretary. He successfully wrested the law and order issue from the Conservatives. A strategy based on the slogan 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime' was Labour's key campaigning theme that year.

                                                       

In September 1992 he was elected to Labour's National Executive Committee, the ruling body of the party. He led, with John Prescott, the drive to turn Labour into a mass-membership party, and by 1997 Labour had more than 400,000 members. On his election as leader in 1994, he moved quickly to bring in the essential reforms of the party’s constitution and policies, notably replacing Clause IV which was overwhelmingly backed by the party at a special conference in April 1995.In 1996 Tony Blair presented to the party the draft manifesto new Labour, new life for Britain, which set out clearly what new Labour would offer in government. It was endorsed by Conference in October 1996, followed by a ballot of the whole membership, and won 95 per cent backing.
                                                         

On 1 May 1997 Tony Blair led the Labour Party to its biggest ever general election victory - the party had a majority of 179. On 7 June 2001 he led Labour to a second successive victory in a General Election, winning by another landslide. Labour won a majority of 167. On the steps of Downing Street the day after the election win he described the victory as 'a mandate for investment and reform.' As Leader of the Labour Party and Prime Minister, Tony Blair has given new direction to the country and begun to build a better Britain with the introduction of a National Minimum Wage, one million more jobs, smaller class sizes in primary schools, and the biggest ever sustained investment in the NHS. Before entering Parliament, he read law at St John's College, Oxford, he was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1976, and practiced as a barrister until 1983, specializing in employment and industrial law. He is married to Cherie Booth, who is a barrister and Queen's Counsel. They have three sons Euan, Nicky and Leo, and a daughter Kathryn.

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