From hero to zero

[Castro]

Who knew this guy would turn into the coward and war criminal that he now is?

 

TEN years after soaring into office a political rock star, Tony Blair yesterday flamed out, the Iraq war's biggest casualty.

 

The wave of euphoria that swept Britain's youngest prime minister in nearly 200 years to power has ebbed away: three elections later, most of his countrymen have simply had enough of him.

 

Troops he sent to war are dying in distant lands for reasons difficult to explain, and political opponents he once routed easily are rising again.

 

His decade in power will be remembered for his media-savvy transformation of British politics.

 

But any and all domestic victories lie in the shade of his backing of 2003's US-led invasion of Iraq.

 

The conflict has so far claimed 146 British troops, and the public backlash has seen the Labour Party slump in the polls.

 

Mr Blair, 54, had to admit his departure could help reverse his party's and successor's fortunes.

 

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born on May 6, 1953, in Edinburgh, the Scottish capital. He spent most of his childhood in the northern English city of Durham, studied law at Oxford University, and became a barrister.

 

He went into politics in his 20s, and in 1983 was elected to parliament. He rose rapidly through the ranks as Labour sought to rebound from bitter internal conflict and a series of disastrous defeats at Margaret Thatcher's hands.

 

In 1994, leader John Smith died unexpectedly. Mr Blair, then only 41, succeeded him, having struck a deal with now finance minister and heir apparent Gordon Brown not to run.

 

In 1997, Mr Blair became Britain's youngest PM in 185 years in what was seen as a fresh start after 18 years of Conservative rule.

 

Charismatic, he seemed refreshingly in touch then.

 

He captured the public mood after the death of Diana, calling her "the people's princess". But war, scandals and what some have seen as cynical spin-doctoring have changed all that.

 

Once a youthful, photogenic asset in wooing the apathetic, women and the young, he increasingly became seen as a liability.

 

Mr Blair's brand of social and economic policies is a far cry from the party's Left-wing socialist roots.

 

Many denounced his cutting of Labour's strong - some would say crippling - links to unions to promote a free-market, business-friendly 'New Labour' more characteristic of the Tories.

 

Domestically, he introduced some of the biggest changes in Britain's make-up for centuries, as Scotland and Wales voted for their own devolved administrations and the previously unelected House of Lords was partly reformed.

 

Mr Blair signed the Good Friday peace deal in Northern Ireland, largely ending decades of sectarian violence.

 

Spending on public services such as health and education was increased and reforms introduced over union objections. The Bank of England was allowed to set interest rates independently, winning the markets' confidence.

 

Britain enjoyed its longest economic expansion since the industrial revolution. House prices quadrupled; unemployment fell; hospital waiting lists shrank; child poverty dropped; school results improved. The capital especially thrived.

 

In 1999, Mr Blair and Bill Clinton led NATO in driving Serbian forces out of Kosovo. After the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, Mr Blair declared he stood "shoulder to shoulder" with America.

 

But when it became clear he intended to join George W Bush in war in Iraq, hundreds of thousands marched in protest.

 

Defiant, he sent 45,000 troops, Britain's biggest deployment in 50 years, justifying it by saying Iraq had illegal weapons. They turned out not to exist.

 

One of his darkest hours came with the suicide of a government scientist, David Kelly, named as the source of a report that the Government had hyped intelligence to sell the war.

 

Yet he managed to win a third term in 2005, the first Labour leader to do so.

 

In July 2005, Islamist suicide bombers struck London, killing 52, in what they called a response to Mr Blair's foreign policy.

 

In December, he became the first serving British PM to be questioned by police in a criminal inquiry over claims that Labour had offered seats in the Lords to wealthy party donors.

 

But it is the violence uncapped in Iraq that is likely to eclipse all.

 

Mr Blair's close alliance with the US against strong opposition - cartoonists portrayed him as Mr Bush's poodle - saw his authority at home and as a statesman abroad crumble.

 

And now his Tory opponents are energised by a youthful leader, David Cameron, who resembles no one so much as a young Tony Blair.

AFP, Reuters