Tony Blair/Timelines

1983: Elected as Labour MP for Sedgefield.

1984 to 1987: Assistant spokesman on treasury. Aligns himself with reformers within the party, headed by leader Neil Kinnock.

1987: Deputy spokesman for trade and industry.

October 1988: Elected as shadow secretary of state for energy.

1989 to 1992: Member of the National Executive Committee of the Labour party.

1992: Promoted to shadow home secretary by new Labour Leader John Smith. Blair pledges that his party would be tough on crime.

12 May, 1994 John Smith dies of a heart attack. 31 May, 1994 Tony Blair and and Gordon Brown meet at Granita restaurant in Islington and reportedly agree a deal about the leadership of the Labour Party.

1 June, 1994 Gordon Brown rules himself out of leadership race.

21 July, 1994 Tony Blair beats John Prescott and Margaret Beckett to become leader of the Labour Party.

October, 1994 Blair makes his first party conference speech as leader.

April, 1995 The Labour Party backs rewriting of Clause IV.

March, 1997 The Sun newspaper announces that it will back Blair at the general election.

1 May 1997: Labour wins the general election by a landslide (419 of 659 seats). At 44, Tony Blair becomes the second-youngest British prime minister.

Blair's Chancellor, Gordon Brown grants the Bank of England the freedom to set interest rates without consulting the government.

June Britain signs up to the European Unions Social Chapter

August Tony Blair reflects the mood of the nation on the death of Princess Diana calling her "the people's princess."

September A referendum in Scotland backs devolution; a referendum in Wales follows a week later.

October Gordon Brown rules out entry before 1999 to Economic and Monetary Union saying five key economic tests have not been met.

Blair meets with Gerry Adams, the head of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

April 1998: Blair negotiates the Belfast Agreement ("The Good Friday Agreement") creating a power-sharing assembly in Northern Ireland.

May 1998: Referendum to create a new assembly for London and establish direct elections for mayor.

1998/1999: Britain, as part of a NATO deployment, joins in the Kosovo war. Britain keeps thousands of troops in the region as part of a peacekeeping force.

4 May, 2000 Ken Livingstone wins inaugural London Mayor election.

20 May, 2000 Leo Blair arrives the first child born to a sitting PM for more than 150 years.

June 2001: Labour wins another landslide general election (413 out of 659 seats), but with low voter turnout (59 per cent).

September 2001: After the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S., Blair emerges as the strongest ally of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration, supporting its "war on terror." In October, British and American forces attack Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban and weaken the al-Qaeda network.

13 September, 2001 Iain Duncan Smith beats Ken Clarke to replace William Hague as Conservative Party leader.

September 2002: Blair unveils an intelligence dossier claiming Iraq could deploy banned weapons within 45 minutes.

Early 2003: Blair argues for the overthrow of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. His case focuses on Saddam's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. On 15 February, An estimated million people march through London to oppose war with Iraq.

March 16, 2003: Blair, U.S. President George W. Bush and Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar announce they will seek support for military action against Iraq.

March 19, 2003: Britain sends 45,000 troops and joins the U.S.-led "coalition of the willing" invasion of Iraq. The Iraqi regime is toppled after three weeks. British troops remain in Iraq.

July 2003: David Kelly, a biological warfare expert with the British Ministry of Defence, is found dead of an apparent suicide. Kelly was the unnamed source of a BBC report claiming the government had "sexed up" a dossier on illegal weapons in Iraq to boost public support for the invasion. In early July, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon had exposed Kelly as the source of the BBC report.

August 2003: An inquiry into Kelly's death and the circumstances leading up to it begins, led by Lord Hutton.

Jan. 28, 2004: The Hutton Report determines that Kelly took his own life and BBC allegations the government enhanced a report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were unfounded. BBC's chair, director-general, and the journalist who made the allegations, Andrew Gilligan resign.

February 2004: Blair names a five-member panel to conduct an inquiry into pre-war intelligence, led by retired civil servant Lord Butler.

July 2004: Butler's report criticises claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It says the assertion that Iraq could use weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes was unsubstantiated. The report found no evidence the intelligence had been manipulated by Blair and his aides.

April 5, 2005: Blair calls an election for May 5, 2005.

May 5, 2005: Becomes the first leader of the Labour party to win three consecutive terms as prime minister. He returns to office with a majority government but with much fewer seats in Parliament.