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TONY BLAIR

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born May 6, 1953 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and lived for three years as a child in Australia. He played guitar in a college band called the Ugly Rumors and, after graduating from St. John's College, Oxford, worked as a bartender and insurance clerk before taking up the law.

Blair's father was also a barrister and the younger Blair later married another barrister named Cherie Booth. They have two sons.

Blair won a seat in parliament in 1983 from the northern coal mining region and quickly moved up through the ranks of the Labour Party to become, in 1994, its youngest leader ever.

He set out to move the party away from militant leftism, reduce its dependence on the trade unions and eliminate antiquated tenets proposing communist-type methods of production, distribution and ownership.

Blair became Britain's prime minister in 1997.

Liberal on education, welfare and technology, he is conservative on law and order and family values. By proposing such things as elimination of long-term welfare, an English bill of rights, an elected second chamber, a Welsh Assembly, a Scottish parliament and a resolution to the conflict in Northern Ireland, he has earned for himself the nickname "The Modernizer."

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