Tony Blair was the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom for three successive parliamentary terms from 1997-2007. His Cabinet was reshuffled for each new parliament as well as changed during the three periods.
Contents |
After 18 years in opposition, Labour ousted the Tories in the May 1997 election with a 179-seat majority. The prime minister Tony Blair, who turned 44 just days after leading Labour to power, was the youngest prime minister of the 20th century.
Blair quickly wiped away memories of the troubled Labour governments led by Harold Wilson and James Callaghan as the economic recovery masterminded by John Major's Tories (who received little credit at the polls for this achievement) continued and unemployment continued to fall. While other developed countries, notably Japan, were hit by a financial crisis during Blair's first time in office, Britain's economy remained strong.
In September 2000, however, protests against fuel prices intensified across the country and the new Tory leader William Hague exploited the situation by pointing out to voters just how much fuel prices had risen under Labour. This sparked a brief Tory lead in the opinion polls - the first in eight years - but once the protests and consequent fuel shortages ended, Labour led the opinion polls once more. Blair was so confident of re-election that he called a general election for 3 May, but this was postponed until 7 June due to the foot and mouth crisis. This led to a brief crisis in the agricultural and tourism industries, but did little to shake a still-strong economy and the voters responded by re-electing Blair with an only slightly reduced majority.
Tory leader William Hague, whose party barely improved on their disastrous election result of 1997, stepped down after the election and was succeeded by Iain Duncan Smith.
Following the financial crisis in Japan at the end of the 1990s, there was a brief recession in other parts of the developed world including Germany,[1] Italy and France in the early years of the new decade, but once again Britain avoided recession and continued to enjoy a strong economy and low unemployment.[2]
By the time the next general election was on the horizon, Blair and Labour were looking well positioned for a record third successive term in government. Unemployment remained low and the economy remained strong with more than a decade of unbroken growth, and education and healthcare had changed for the better as a result of expenditure by Labour.
However, the Labour government had attracted controversy by sending British troops to fight in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001, and even more so 18 months later when it joined the American-led invasion of Iraq 18 months later - particularly when it emerged that the ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear weapons were never found and serious questions were raised about the issue of going to war. Although the dictatorship regimes in both of these countries were swiftly ended by British and American troops, the troops remained there and do so to this day.
Soon after the invasion of Iraq, Labour support in the opinion polls fell and the Tories actually drew level with them in at least one poll during 2003. However, this did little to end speculation about the future of their unpopular leader Iain Duncan-Smith and in October 2003 he was ousted from the leadership by Michael Howard, who stood unopposed for the leadership role and took control without a leadership contest.
The election on 5 May 2005 saw Labour win their historic third successive term in power, though their majority now stood at 66 seats - compared to 167 four years earlier - and they failed to gain any new seats. Blair had already declared that the new term in parliament would be his last.
Blair remained as prime minister and Labour Party leader for a further two years, stepping down on 24 June 2007 and being succeeded by chancellor Gordon Brown.
By this stage, Labour's days in government were starting to look numbered, and Blair's decision to step down was perhaps seen as a tactic of boosting Labour's chances of a fourth successive election win. David Cameron had been elected to the Tory leadership in December 2005, and since then the opinion polls had shown Labour lose the lead to the Tories and regain it several times.
These are the cabinets under Prime Minister Tony Blair (from May 1997 to June 2007).
Also attending Cabinet:
Also attending Cabinet:
Also attending Cabinet:
| Preceded by Major Ministry |
Government of the United Kingdom 1997-2007 |
Succeeded by Brown Ministry |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||