| | '''Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair''', (born May 6, 1953) is a former [[Prime Minister]] of the [[United Kingdom]]. The [[Labour Party]]'s longest-serving Prime Minister, he served from May 2, 1997 to June 27, 2007, succeeding the Conservative Party's [[John Major]] and preceding [[Gordon Brown]]. Blair is also the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve more than one full consecutive term. Over the protest of the Old Left he abandoned most of the leftover leftist ideas in the Labour Party, endorsed the market solutions promulgated by [[Conservative Party]] Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] in the 1980s, and, as a close ally of the United States under [[Bill Clinton]] and [[George W. Bush]], he strongly endorsed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. | | '''Anthony Charles Lynton "Tony" Blair''', (born May 6, 1953) is a former [[Prime Minister]] of the [[United Kingdom]]. The [[Labour Party]]'s longest-serving Prime Minister, he served from May 2, 1997 to June 27, 2007, succeeding the Conservative Party's [[John Major]] and preceding [[Gordon Brown]]. Blair is also the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve more than one full consecutive term. Over the protest of the Old Left he abandoned most of the leftover leftist ideas in the Labour Party, endorsed the market solutions promulgated by [[Conservative Party]] Prime Minister [[Margaret Thatcher]] in the 1980s, and, as a close ally of the United States under [[Bill Clinton]] and [[George W. Bush]], he strongly endorsed the invasion of Iraq in 2003. |