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Tony Blair at a party meeting in 2005.

Tony Blair (born 6th May 1953), as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007, perhaps earned a reputation as one of the most controversial holders of Britain's highest political office. Internationally, he was best known for supporting a much-opposed U.S.-led war in Iraq, the repercussions of which are ongoing in the Middle East and the wider world; domestically, his legacy included the abolition of socialism as the fundamental tenet of his ('New') Labour Party, and the introduction of the private sector into British health and education.

Current career

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair's experience as a prime minister might have made him an uncontroversial choice for a Middle East envoy, were he not also one of the main architects of the Iraq War. Immediately after leaving the office of British prime minister and resigning as Labour leader, Blair severed his final link with UK domestic politics by stepping down as Member of Parliament for Sedgefield, a constituency he represented in the British parliament from 1983 until his appointment as envoy in 2007.

Resignation and departure as prime minister

Resignation announcement

10th May 2007 marked the official announcement of the end of Blair's premiership, with a departure date set for the following 27th June. In a speech made in his Sedgefield constituency, Blair announced a timetable for leaving office, paving the way for his successor Gordon Brown after over ten years of power. In words that emphasised his domestic record more than his international influence, Blair credited his government with lowering crime, stabilising the economy and improving public services; he also emphasised that it had placed the UK at the forefront of fighting terrorism, tackling climate change and providing aid to troubled regions such as Africa. Often accused of having a fervently religious approach to wider issues, he also remained committed to the view that time would see his decision-making vindicated:

I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong, that's your call, but I did what I thought was right for our country.

An apology for his most-criticised activities was unforthcoming. In concluding, however, Blair admitted that he had made unspecified mistakes:

My apologies to you for the times I've fallen short. But good luck.

Final acts as prime minister

Tony Blair's final appearances as an international politician were at the 2007 Group of Eight (G8) summit held between some of the world's most economically powerful states, and a meeting of the European Council of European Union countries. These actions would be expected from a premiership often strongly focused on issues outside the UK's borders, though Blair's intention to bring the country closer to its European partners was not entirely fulfilled. Back in Britain, Blair's final days as prime minister saw his name rarely out of the national press: he called the media a "feral beast" while admitting his government's early desire to 'spin' stories may have aggravated this issue; and he strongly criticised the proposed academic boycott on Israeli universities in one of his final performances in the UK's lower house of parliament. As for the upper house, he reaffirmed his view that the House of Lords should remain appointed rather than elected.

Departure

27th June 2007 saw Tony Blair resign as prime minister of the United Kingdom; his final act in office was to appear for the usual weekly questions to the premier in the House of Commons, where political friends and foe alike paid tribute to some of his record, such as continuing the work towards long-term peace in Northern Ireland. Blair conceded that he had "never pretended to be a great House of Commons man", acknowledging the view that his tenure had seen moves to sideline Parliament; and he apologised for the dangers British troops faced in Iraq. His words of farewell underlined the finality of the event:

I wish everyone, friend or foe, well and that is that, the end.

External links

• The Blair Years 1997-2007 - BBC articles covering major events of Tony Blair's premiership, with analysis.

Gordon Brown (born 20th February 1951) is the current prime minister of the United Kingdom and leader of the governing Labour Party. He is also a Member of Parliament for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath in his native Scotland, and holds a PhD in politics from the University of Edinburgh.

Brown succeeded his political rival Tony Blair as prime minister in June 2007; much has been made of the differences between the two men, though Brown remains a supporter of the centre-left 'New' Labour ideology in which socialism plays no part. He is said to be slightly more left-wing than Blair, and slightly cooler towards the 'special relationship' between the UK and the USA. However, the two shared a similar outlook over the Iraq War, a conflict Brown supported, and on a more practical level, he has pledged to continue his predecessor's commitment to addressing climate change and international terrorism.

Prior to taking office as premier, Brown served for ten years as the UK's finance minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Those ten years since 'New' Labour was first elected in 1997 were often marked by behind-the-scenes feuding between the so-called 'Brownite' and 'Blairite' camps; in one memorable instance, an anonymous briefing declared Brown "psychologically flawed." More recently, documents appeared in the mass media suggesting that Blair had intended to remove Brown from the Treasury and offer him the post of foreign minister.

References

• Brown JG (1982) The Labour Party and political change in Scotland, 1918-1929: the politics of five elections. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh.

External links

• 10 Downing Street - official website for the UK prime minister's office
• Timeline: Blair vs Brown - details on the ups and downs of the Blair-Brown partnership, from the BBC

See also

• Chancellor of the Exchequer
• Tony Blair

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Red Dwarf is a science fiction situation comedy originally aired on British television by the BBC in 1988. By the final series in 1999, it gone from a cult television favourite to mainstream success, spawning several original novelisations and accompanying merchandise. Interest in Red Dawarf remains high, with a loyal fan base and continuing attempts to launch a movie version of the series.

Red Dwarf was created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, Manchester-based scriptwriting partners who worked under the pseudonym Grant Naylor. Their partnership lasted from the late 1970s, when they worked on several series together and wrote material for various comedians such as Jasper Carrott. During this time, they were attempting to get a sci-fi sitcom into production, with the central character the last human in the universe. In 1983, this saw the light of day on radio as Dave Hollins: Space Cadet, though Grant and Naylor continued to approach the BBC with a script made for television which took this basic idea and expanded it. This script, which was rejected by the BBC for three years, was called Red Dwarf, after the mining ship on which the central character would find himself almost alone.

The BBC rejected the script several times because it was felt that a sitcom with science-fiction elements would not work. Grant and Naylor kept submitting basically the same script through the producer Paul Jackson, who eventually convinced the corporation to commission six episodes. Red Dwarf aired five years after Dave Hollins was first broadcast.

The new programme had been considerably changed and expanded upon. Hollins became Dave Lister, a lazy and rather unkempt employee of the Jupiter Mining Corporation, who has the dubious honour of being the lowest-ranked crew member of the JMC's gigantic ship Red Dwarf, a vessel sent through the solar system on a mining expedition. His room-mate is Arnold Rimmer, a deeply competitive, throughly nasty incompentent who has reached the dizzying heights of second-lowest rank aboard the ship. Lister is punished for bringing aboard an unquarantined cat by being placed in suspended animation for eighteen months; however, while he and his cat are respectively sealed in stasis and the ship's hold, a radiation leak kills everyone else on board.

Having set up the idea of a ship the size of a city, Grant and Naylor now had Lister almost alone in the universe; three million years have passed before Red Dwarf's computer, the artificially-(un)intelligent Holly, was able to release him unharmed. Whereas Dave Hollins had only the ship's computer for company, Dave Lister was given two new companions: a hologram simulation of the long-dead Rimmer, and Cat, apparently the last of a race of feline humanoids that evolved from Lister's pet. With the crew reduced to dust (as Lister discovered, but not before accidentally eating some of their remains), these four characters would find themselves travelling through an empty universe; initially confined to the ship, the series moved towards comedy drama as more money flowed into the production team's coffers and more special effects and location filming was made possible.