Blair: The reckoning
With Tony Blair set to announce his departure we look his decade in office.
In Tony Blair
There's no one left
- By Andrew Stephen
- 21 May 2007
Andrew Stephen on how politics has shifted rightwards
Blair: my part in his make-over
- By Molly Dineen
- 07 May 2007
I was asked to do his 1997 election broadcast precisely because my films are natural. The project was then hamstrung by people trying to create an image that would please the focus groups
A Blair-sized hole
- By Martin Bright
- 07 May 2007
As the Prime Minister prepares to depart these shores with his interfaith foundation, it may not be as easy as Gordon Brown might think to fill his shoes.
Revealed: the Iraq deceit
- By Chris Ames
- 07 May 2007
Evidence that Blair exaggerated Iraq's nuclear plans may prove the most damaging.
Luck and The Thing
- By Geoff Mulgan
- 07 May 2007
As he bows out, Tony Blair may reflect that, helped by good fortune, he has left his country a more decent place, one closer to social democracy.
Iraq and the apocalypse
- By David Hare
- 07 May 2007
Why did a gifted prime minister embark on a course which people far stupider had consistently warned him could not work? David Hare on a tragic paradox
A man without history
- By David Marquand
- 07 May 2007
The Third Way was not an ideology, but a classy fudge that the Prime Minister soon abandoned for Messianic belligerence
His legacy? We are a society in pieces
- By Suzanne Moore
- 07 May 2007
Ten years ago, we saw ourselves reflected by Blair as young and energetic. Now we are broken down, isolated and anxious. The "remoralisation" of society never happened: he leaves behind a country in fragments.
“I’ve no memories of anything before him”
- By Sarah O'Connor
- 07 May 2007
Sarah O'Connor was 12 when Tony Blair was first elected prime minister. Here she recounts what it was like to grow up with him
Tony, the NS and me
- 07 May 2007
The New Statesman has always had a close, if fraught, relationship with Labour. Here, three former editors with widely divergent political styles give a personal perspective on the years leading to the 1997 victory and the realities of power
Blair Special
Exclusive artwork interpretations
of the blair era.
New Statesman Leaders from the Blair years
How Blair can spare himself humiliation and go with dignity
- 11 September 2006
It's the manner of the transition that counts
The men in grey suits must do their duty
- 27 March 2006
Blair has to be persuaded to stand down. The announcement should take place this spring, with a leadership contest in the summer
Oh, what a foolish war
- 20 March 2006
Saddam may be on trial, but there is now, thanks to Blair and Bush, no better time to be a dictator and abuser of human rights
How Blair backed a loser
- 16 May 2005
Tony Blair's insistence he was right about invading Iraq looked increasingly absurd as the death toll mounted
Gordon works. Don't let Tony wreck it
- 24 May 2004
How Blair's government came to look febrile and incompetent
Blair's triumph will be a nine-day wonder
- 02 February 2004
How Hutton provided the prime minister with an opportunity to exit
Leave the stage, Mr Blair, you're in the way
- 05 January 2004
If Iraq posed a threat where is the evidence of clandestine laboratories?
Better Brown's obsessions than Blair's
- 06 October 2003
Blair's lack of mission and focus echoed a characteristically English mood but then he went to war with Iraq
Also in Tony Blair
How was Blair for you?
- 07 May 2007
We asked David Hare, Geoff Mulgan, David Marquand, Suzanne Moore, John Gray and many more to give us their verdicts on Tony Blair and now it's your turn. What do you think his achievements have been in the past decade, what were his failures and, overall, is Britain a happier place? Let us know what you think
Research by Sam Alexandroni and Sarah O'Connor
Maggie's boy
- By John Gray
- 07 May 2007
"You were the future, once," David Cameron famously taunted Tony Blair - but, in our final assessment, John Gray argues that new Labour failed to extricate itself from the Thatcher past
Blair-kus
- 07 May 2007
Has Tony Blair's reign been an aesthetic golden age or a triumph of style over substance? The NS's favourite artists, musicians and writers commemorate him here in an ancient Japanese verse form, the "Blair-ku".
Blair: The artist's impression
- 03 May 2007
What better way to sum up the Blair era than to ask some of our top artists to illustrate their feelings about the past decade? So here we present Ralph Steadman, Peter Kennard, Robert Del Naja and Stanley Donwood exclusively offering their interpretations.


