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The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, who came to prominence in the 1980s. They are known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents... which was labelled as an example of alternative comedy. The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson, Jennifer Saunders and Alexei Sayle with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and others.

Early history[link]

Two double acts, Adrian Edmondson and Rik Mayall under the name "20th Century Coyote" and Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson ("The Outer Limits"), started performing at the newly opened Comedy Store in London in mid 1980, alongside compere Alexei Sayle who had been resident there since the Comedy Store opened in 1979. Concurrently Richardson searched for a venue to mount a play he had produced with Michael White. He planned to run The Comic Strip late at night after the play's performances. He sourced the Raymond Revue Bar in Soho, but realising it was unsuitable for a theatrical production and running out of enthusiasm for the play he decided to continue with the idea of a cabaret night. He persuaded the double acts and Sayle to move from the Comedy Store along with Arnold Brown, an older standup comic who did not fit so obviously into the alternative comedy scene. Sayle again resumed his compere duties and decided running order, with Richardson having behind the scenes control. Richardson put out an advert for female performers which was answered by French and Saunders.^[1]

Richardson prompted members to sign a contract to signify their attachment to the group. The Comic Strip opened in October 1980 and ran until 1981, when the troupe went on a national tour and then a tour of Australia. While the performers gained more exposure, actors such as Jack Nicholson and Robin Williams turned up to watch.

Richardson approached producer Mike Bolland, the newly appointed Channel Four youth and entertainment commissioning editor to propose a series of Comic Strip films for the channel. Bolland agreed to his proposal, his first commission for the station and Jeremy Isaacs quickly approved the budget.^[2] Richardson negotiated a deal with the channel for six self-contained half-hour films, using the group as actors rather than standup performers. Almost simultaneously, the BBC signed Edmondson, Mayall, Planer and Sayle to star in The Young Ones, a sitcom in the same anarchic style as the Comic Strip. Richardson was initially to have been involved (in the role of Mike, ultimately played by Christopher Ryan), but was not due to differences between him and the show's producer, Paul Jackson.

Television[link]

[edit] The Comic Strip Presents...

The Comic Strip Presents... debuted on 2 November 1982, the opening night of Channel 4. Each episode was prefixed by an animated lead-in consisting of the words "The Comic Strip Presents" accompanied by a soundtrack consisting of a drum machine and a Farfisa organ, together with a bomb labelled "Have a nice day", falling towards a map. In the early episodes the map was of a section of north Dorset and southern Wiltshire, centred on the town of Shaftesbury.

The first episode was "Five Go Mad in Dorset", a parody of The Famous Five. It was written by Peter Richardson and Pete Richens, who wrote most of the early episodes. "Five Go Mad..." drew anger from some viewers for the way it mercilessly satirised a children's classic, although the Enid Blyton estate had given permission for the broadcast. A meeting was called to discuss the group's future with Channel 4, after complaints from viewers.

The final episode of the first series was to have been a spoof chat show called "Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon" (referred to as "An Evening with Eddie Monsoon" by some sources). It was never produced, as it was considered too vulgar even for the "alternative" Channel 4, not to mention possibly libellous. The script – which, uniquely for the Comic Strip, was written as a collaboration by the entire cast – was later published, along with the rest of the series, in book form.

A second series of seven episodes followed in 1983-84, including "Five Go Mad On Mescalin", a sequel to the first episode, and the newly-written "Eddie Monsoon – A Life?", a spoof documentary on the life and times of the title character, an obscene, drunken television host (played by Adrian Edmondson). Michael White, the theatre impresario and Rocky Horror Show producer who had been brought in by Richardson as executive producer on the series, appeared in this episode as Monsoon's producer, who had been responsible for axing Eddie's television comeback show – called Back to Normal with Eddie Monsoon. The reasons given for the cancellation (e.g. "the things you said about Burt Reynolds") are presumably the same problems that led to the real "Back to Normal..." being dropped by Channel 4. (The name Eddie Monsoon – a corruption of "Edmondson" – was later used by Jennifer Saunders, Adrian Edmondson's wife, for her character in Absolutely Fabulous.)

Two one-off episodes were aired on Channel 4 over Christmas 1985, reflecting the tight schedules of the group. 'Consuela' was a French and Saunders-led pastiche of the Alfred Hitchcock film 'Rebecca', with French's eponymous crazed housekeeper taking centre stage. The second episode, 'Private Enterprise', was the tale of a music business rip off, where Peter Richardson steals a studio recording session tape and passes the results off as his own work.

The group made two feature films - The Supergrass (1985) and Eat the Rich (1987) - as well as three one-off Comic Strip Presents... episodes which were the next to be screened on Channel 4. The first of these, "The Bullshitters", was a parody of television spy and detective shows such as The Professionals. It was not broadcast under the Comic Strip name, partly because of the original group only Richardson appears (he is the only performer to appear in every single episode), and partly because co-star and co-writer Keith Allen did not want to be so closely associated with the group.

The third series was broadcast in 1988, and some episodes had longer running times, mostly around 50 minutes. Five of the six episodes (all except "Funseekers") were given a limited theatrical release. They included "The Strike", which won the Golden Rose of Montreux; "More Bad News", a sequel to "Bad News Tour" showing the band reforming after five years to play at Castle Donington; and "Mr. Jolly Lives Next Door", written by Mayall and Edmondson in the violent style of their sitcoms Filthy Rich and Catflap and Bottom, which featured Peter Cook as a psychotic contract killer (the eponymous Mr. Jolly) and Nicholas Parsons. Peter Richardson and Pete Richens only contributed one episode to the third series, allowing cast members such as Planer and Sayle to get their ideas on screen.

By now the show had proved a hit, and several notable stars appeared in later productions, including Leslie Phillips, Miranda Richardson, Lionel Jeffries, Nicholas Parsons, Peter Capaldi, Kate Bush, Richard Vernon, Ruby Wax, Graham Crowden, Paul McCartney, Ozzy Osbourne, Lemmy, Elvis Costello, and Benjamin Zephaniah (as a Rastafarian police van driver) and several musical acts, particularly from the Bad News series which was also aided by Queen guitarist Brian May, such as Def Leppard and Marillion.

BBC and after[link]

In 1990, the series transferred to BBC2. By now, all the regulars (with the exception of Peter Richardson) had become more famous for their own shows, and more recurring performers such as Gary Beadle, Phil Cornwell, Steve O'Donnell, Mark Caven, Sara Stockbridge and Doon Mackichan were brought in. Rik Mayall was contracted to ITV's The New Statesman, and was only able to appear in two of the BBC productions ("GLC", and the Comic Relief special "Red Nose of Courage"). Richardson and Richens took over the bulk of the writing again, and Richardson also took over as director, having previously directed the two feature films, as well as The Strike. The six-part 1990 series was followed by three individual specials in 1992, and a final six episodes in 1993.

Return to Channel 4[link]

In 1998 the original team reunited and returned to Channel 4 for a one-off special, Four Men In A Car. This was followed in 2000 by a sequel, Four Men In A Plane. After another long hiatus, another 60-minute one-off, "Sex Actually", was made in 2005. It starred Sheridan Smith (Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps) and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake) alongside several of the regular cast members. Four Men in a Car was notable for being the first broadcast on either television or radio, to involve Rik Mayall since his quad bike accident. Permission was thus given by Mayall's family to show the special.

Peter Richardson, who has built his career as a writer-director with the TV series Stella Street and films such as Churchill: The Hollywood Years, has not ruled out the possibility of a whole new series of The Comic Strip Presents... featuring younger cast members.^[3]

In June 2011, a casting call went out for a new hour-long episode, starring most of the original team.^[4] This was followed by an announcement that the Comic Strip was to produce a one-off special entitled The Hunt for Tony Blair, starring Stephen Mangan as Blair and Robbie Coltrane as Inspector Hutton. The one-off show included Jennifer Saunders as Margaret Thatcher as well as Harry Enfield, Rik Mayall and a host of others.^[5]

The next Comic Strip will be a sequel to "Five Go Mad In Dorset". "Five Go To Rehab", featuring the entire original cast (Ade Edmonson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders, Peter Richardson) is set to film in the first weeks of July 2012, in and around Totnes. Richardson is writing and directing the film. The film showcases the characters thirty years on trying to recapture their youth. The film will be part of Channel 4's 30th anniversary schedule in November 2012.^[6]

Video and DVD releases[link]

In 1986 Virgin Video released various episodes of the programme dating between 1982-4, which have now become rare. The 1988 series was released on video the same year by Palace Video, each episode having its own video. The only existing episode of the BBC series on video is "GLC", which Polygram Video released with "The Strike" in 1994. When the Virgin and Palace Video videos went out of print in 1990, the rights were transferred to Polygram Video. After three years all the Channel 4 episodes of The Comic Strip were released on video.

Eat the Rich (1987) has not been released on DVD in the UK. Eat the Rich is available as a Region 1 (American) DVD and a Region 2 (German) DVD.

A nine-disc Region 2 DVD set, The Comic Strip Presents: The Complete Collection was released in July 2005 (and re-released in August 2007). This included all the Channel 4 and BBC episodes (finally canonising The Bullshitters as a Comic Strip episode) plus The Supergrass across eight discs, but not Eat the Rich (due to rights issues), and was released too early to include ...Sex Actually. The ninth disc includes a retrospective documentary from 2005, Julien Temple's 1981 film The Comic Strip (which retroactively lays a strong claim to being the actual first 'episode'), and the two Comic Strip episodes of the 1998 documentary series First On Four. Across the new and archive documentaries are featured interviews with every single key Comic Strip member.

The DVD set contains new, slightly shorter, re-edited versions of 'South Atlantic Raiders' (both parts) and 'Four Men In A Car', in addition to featuring the 90-minute re-edit of 'The Supergrass' (the original VHS release having been almost 20 minutes longer). The DVD re-editing was a deliberate creative decision, with the work undertaken by Peter Richardson himself alongside editor Geoff Hogg, though the decision was a controversial one with fans of the series.

As of May 1, 2012, the entire "Comic Strip Presents" series is available on Netflix's streaming service in the U.S. The show is split into eight seasons.

List of Comic Strip episodes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Peter Richardson TV
• BBC Comedy Guide - The Comic Strip Presents...
• British Film Institute Screen Online
• An unofficial Comic Strip Presents Website
• The Comic Strip at the Internet Movie Database
• Article on the Comic Strip club with photos

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2012)

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A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions.

Traditionally, throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, these were published in newspapers, with horizontal strips printed in black-and-white in daily newspapers, while Sunday newspapers offered longer sequences in special color comics sections. There were more than 200 different comic strips and daily cartoon panels in American newspapers alone each day for most of the 20th century, for a total of at least 7,300,000 episodes.^[1]

Strips are written and drawn by a comics artist or cartoonist. As the name implies, comic strips can be humorous (for example, "gag-a-day" strips such as Blondie, Bringing Up Father, Marmaduke and Pearls Before Swine).

Starting in the early 1930s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories, as seen in Popeye, Captain Easy, Buck Rogers, Tarzan and The Adventures of Tintin. Soap-opera continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity in the 1940s. All are called, generically, comic strips, though cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that "sequential art" would be a better name.^[2]

In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines, with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages or more. Comic strips have appeared in American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life and also on the front covers of magazines, such as the Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement.

History[link]

Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry. Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in 18th-century England, where some of the first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth's 18th century English cartoons include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress, and single panels.

The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the later Middle Ages, sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in the miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips.

In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884.^[3]

Newspapers[link]

The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in the late 19th century.^[4] The Yellow Kid is usually credited as the first. However, the art form combining words and pictures evolved gradually, and there are many examples of proto-comic strips.

The Swiss teacher, author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de M. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the USA in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, the German painter, author and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created the strip Max and Moritz, about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"); in one, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill and consumed by a flock of geese. Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks, who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897. Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip.^[5]

Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of the first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer, it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to the characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate, ran until 1979.

In America, the great popularity of comics sprang from the newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst. The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal's first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced the nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal.^[6] The history of this newspaper rivalry and the raid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon.^[7]

The longest running American comic strips are:

• 1. Katzenjammer Kids (1897-present)
• 2. Gasoline Alley (1918-present)
• 3. Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (1919-present)
• 4. Thimble Theater/Popeye (1919-present)
• 5. Little Orphan Annie (1924-2010)^[8]

Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips. Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated; a syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. A few newspaper strips are exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year.^[9]

In the United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for a single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters' Mother Goose and Grimm.

During the 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high.^[10] As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced.

The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards, clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun's Linda White recalled, "I followed the adventures of Winnie Winkle, Moon Mullins and Dondi, and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn’t miss it.)"^[11]

Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for the reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at the Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page."^[12] Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out."^[13][14]

Cartoon panels[link]

Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets. Jimmy Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and the second panel revealing the truth of the situation.^[5]

Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high.^[15] Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by the year 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip.^[15]

NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with a two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks, but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier.^[5]

In Flanders, the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero.^[16] They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders.^[17] In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color.

Sunday comics[link]

Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips, such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie, filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page. Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried a secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper, such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board, both drawn by Gene Ahern.

During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at a size of 17" × 37".^[18] In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home, drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page.

Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune, or with one strip on a tabloid page, as in the Chicago Daily News. When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II, because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971.

Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers.

Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating a wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model: cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery.^[19][20]

Underground comic strips[link]

The decade of the 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers, which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated.^[21] Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode, Dan O'Neill, Gilbert Shelton and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy, National Lampoon and Pete Millar's CARtoons. Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books.

Webcomic[link]

Webcomics, also known as online comics and internet comics, are comics that are available to read on the Internet. Many are exclusively published online, while some are published in print but maintain a web archive for either commercial or artistic reasons. Two of the most popular are Penny Arcade, focused primarily on video gaming, and User Friendly, which bases its humor on the Internet and other computer-user issues. The majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, include an email address in each strip.

Conventions and genres[link]

Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse, the characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley.

The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom, Prince Valiant, Dick Tracy, Mary Worth, Modesty Blaise and Tarzan. Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books, for example Superman, Batman and The Amazing Spider-Man.

A number of strips have featured animals ('funny animals') as main characters. Some are non-verbal (Marmaduke, The Angriest Dog in the World), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, (Garfield, Snoopy in Peanuts), and some can converse with humans (Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, Mutts, Citizen Dog, Buckles, Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine and Pooch Cafe). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck. Gary Larson's The Far Side was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens, chickens, cows, worms, amoebas and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal and fantasy characters, he does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur. Bob Thaves's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved the way for some of these strips as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms — as animals, vegetables, and minerals.^[5]

Social and political influence[link]

The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Doonesbury. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era. At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm the members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire.

During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst, whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism, and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all the strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s.

Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and The Boondocks, may be printed on the editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal. Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics, and Tank McNamara often appears on the sports page because of its subject matter.

Publicity and recognition[link]

The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival.^{[citation needed]} The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts the history of London.

The Reuben, named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg, is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS).

Today's strip artists, with the help of the NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which is considered to be in decline due to fewer markets (today few strips are published in newspapers outside the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, mainly because of the smaller interest there, with translated versions of popular strips - particularly in Spanish - are primarily read over the internet) and ever-shrinking newspaper space. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie, held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield’s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie’s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams (Dilbert) traded strips with Bil Keane (The Family Circus). Even the United States Postal Service got into the act, issuing a series of commemorative stamps marking the comic-strip centennial in 1996.

While the Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, for one artist to take over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy), and Terry and The Pirates, started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder.

A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed the feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens, drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style.^[5]

Issues in U.S. newspaper comic strips[link]

As newspapers change, the changes have affected comic strips.

Size[link]

In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received a full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competence between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920's, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II, the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during the fifties and sixties made Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. Daily strips have suffered as well, in 1910 the strips had an unlimited amount of panels, covering the entire width page, while by 1930 most "dailies" had four or five panels covering six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper, by 1958 those four panels would be narrower, and those would have half of the space a 1910 daily strip had, and around 1998 most strips would have three panels only (with a few exceptions), or even two or one on an occasional basis, apart from strips being smaller, as most papers became slightly narrower. While most cartoonist decided to follow the tide, some cartoonists have complained about this, with Pogo ending in 1975 as a form of protest from its creators against the practice. Since then Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson has written extensively on the issue, arguing that size reduction and dropped panels reduce both the potential and freedom of a cartoonist. After a lengthy battle with his syndicator, Watterson won the privilege of making half page-sized Sunday strips where he could arrange the panels any way he liked. Many newspaper publishers and a few cartoonists objected to this, and some papers continued to print Calvin and Hobbes at small sizes. Opus won that same privilege years after Calvin and Hobbes ended, while Wiley Miller circumvented further downsizings by making his Non Sequitur Sunday strip available only in an extremely vertical (near-page-long) arrangement. Few newspapers still run half-page strips, as with Prince Valiant and Hagar the Horrible in the front page of the Reading Eagle Sunday comics section. Actually Universal Uclick and United Media practically have no half-page comics, with the remaining strips from both syndicates in this format are published only as "thirds", "fourths" and "sixths" (also called "third tabs").

Format[link]

In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during the mid-to-late 80's and 1990's respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels.

With the success of The Gumps during the 1920s, it became commonplace for strips (comedy- and adventure-laden alike) to have lengthy stories spanning weeks or months. The "Monarch of Medioka" story in Floyd Gottfredson's Mickey Mouse comic strip ran from September 8, 1937 to May 2, 1938. Between the 1960s and the late 1980s, as television news relegated newspaper reading to an occasional basis rather than daily, syndicators were abandoning long stories and urging cartoonists to switch to simple daily gags, or week-long "storylines" (with six consecutive (mostly unrelated) strips following a same subject), with longer storylines being used mainly on adventure-based and dramatic strips. Strips begun during the mid-1980s or after (such as Get Fuzzy, Over the Hedge, Monty, and others) are known for their heavy use of storylines, lasting between one and three weeks in most cases.

The writing style of comic strips changed as well after the war. With an increase in the number of college-educated readers, there was a shift away from slapstick comedy and towards more cerebral humor. Slapstick and visual gags became more confined to Sunday strips, because as Garfield creator Jim Davis put it, "Children are more likely to read Sunday strips than dailies."

Second author[link]

Many older strips are no longer drawn by the original cartoonist, who has either died or retired. Such strips are known as "zombie strips". A cartoonist, paid by the syndicate, or sometimes a relative of the original cartoonist continues writing the strip, a tradition that became commonplace in the early half of the 20th century. Hägar the Horrible and Frank and Ernest are both drawn by the sons of the creators. Some strips which are still in affiliation with the original creator are produced by small teams or entire companies, such as Jim Davis' Garfield, however there is some debate if these strips fall in this category.

This act is commonly criticized by, primarily modern, cartoonists including Watterson and Pearls Before Swine's Stephan Pastis. The issue was in fact addressed in six consecutive Pearls strips in 2005.^[23] Charles Schulz, of Peanuts fame, requested that his strip not be continued by another cartoonist after his death. He also rejected the idea of hiring an inker or letterer, comparing it to a golfer hiring a man to make his putts. Schulz's family has honored his wishes and refused numerous proposals by syndicators to continue Peanuts with a new author.

The problems cited with attaining a second cartoonist state that the second cartoonist is generally less funny or compelling than the creator, and that the new cartoonist does not have the same style of writing or understand the characters as well. Also, some claim that continuing such strips, while a part of American folklore, stops newer cartoonists from breaking through. Most ended strips now run on newspapers as reruns, most notably Peanuts and Lynn Johnston's For Better or for Worse.

Assistants[link]

Since the consolidation of newspaper comics by the first quarter of the 20th century, most cartoonists have used a group of assistants (with usually one of them credited). However, quite a few cartoonists (e.g.: George Herriman and Charles Schulz, among others) have done their strips almost completely by themselves; often criticizing the use of assistants for the same reasons most have about their editors hiring anyone else to continue their work after their retirement.

Censorship[link]

Starting in the late 1940s, the national syndicates which distributed newspaper comic strips subjected them to very strict censorship. Li'l Abner was censored in September 1947 and was pulled from papers by Scripps-Howard. The controversy, as reported in Time, centered on Capp's portrayal of the U.S. Senate. Said Edward Leech of Scripps, "We don't think it is good editing or sound citizenship to picture the Senate as an assemblage of freaks and crooks... boobs and undesirables."^[24]

Because historically comics have been considered mostly for children, they have a significantly more rigid censorship code than other media. Stephan Pastis has lamented that the "unwritten" censorship code is still "stuck somewhere in the 1950s." Generally, comics are not allowed to include such words as "damn", "sucks", "screwed" and "hell", although there have been exceptions such as the September 22, 2010 Mother Goose and Grimm in which an elderly man says, "This nursing home food sucks," and a pair of Pearls Before Swine comics from January, 2011 with a character named Ned using the word "crappy".^[25][26][27] Naked backsides and shooting guns cannot be shown, according to Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams.^[28] Such comic strip taboos were detailed in Dave Breger's book But That's Unprintable (Bantam, 1955).

Many issues such as sex, narcotics and terrorism cannot or can very rarely be openly discussed in strips, although there are exceptions, usually for satire, as in Bloom County. This led some cartoonists to resort to double entendre or dialogue children do not understand, as in Greg Evans' Luann. Young cartoonists have claimed commonplace words, images and issues should be allowed in the comics. Some of the taboo words and topics are mentioned daily on television and other forms of visual media. Web comics and comics distributed primarily to college newspapers are much freer in this respect.

See also[link]

Comics portal

• Biblia pauperum
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
• Comics Studies
• List of British comic strips
• List of cartoonists
• List of newspaper comic strips
• Military humor comic strips

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Blackbeard, Bill, ed. The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. (1977) Smithsonian Institution Press/Harry N. Abrams
• Castelli, Alfredo. Here We Are Again
• Gordon, Ian. Comic Strips and Consumer Culture (1998) Smithsonian Institution Press
• Goulart, Ron. Encyclopedia of American Comics
• Goulart, Ron. The Funnies
• Goulart, Ron. The Adventurous Decade
• Horn, Maurice. The World Encyclopedia of Comics. (1976) Chelsea House, (1982) Avon.
• Horn, Maurice. The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons
• Horn, Maurice. 100 Years of American Newspaper Comics
• Koenigsberg, Moses. King News, Moses Koenigsberg
• Mott, Frank Luther. American Journalism
• Robbins, Trina. A Century of Women Cartoonists
• Robbins, Trina and Yronwode, Cat. Women and the Comics
• Robinson, Jerry. The Comics
• Sheridan, Martin. Comics And Their Creators
• Tebbell. The Compact History of the American Newspaper
• Strickler, Dave. Syndicated Comic Strips and Artists
• Walker, Brian (2004). The Comics: Before 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-4970-9. 
• Walker, Brian (2002). The Comics: After 1945. Harry N. Abrams. ISBN 0-8109-3481-7. 
• Watson, Elmo Scott. A History of Newspaper Syndicates in the United States, Elmo Scott Watson
• Waugh, Coulton. The Comics

External links[link]

• National Cartoonists Society
• Leiffer, Paul, and Hames Ware, eds. The Comic Strip Project. WebCitation archive.
• Comic Art Collection at the University of Missouri
• Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum at The Ohio State University

v t e Comics: Genres & Themes Formats Comic book minicomic Comic strip Comic strip formats Daily strip Sunday comics Sunday strip Topper Digital comics Graphic novel Mobile comic Motion comics Trade paperback Webcomic Hypercomics Infinite canvas Sprite comic Creators Category:Comics artists Category:Comics writers Female comics creators list By country American Australian Canadian Cuban Japanese Ages Golden Age Silver Age Bronze Age Modern Age Events Genres Adult comics Alternative comics Autobiographical comics Bad girl art Crime comics Fantasy comics Funny animal Good girl art Horror comics Romance comics Science fiction comics Superhero comics Teen humor comics Underground comix War comics Western comics Tropes Superhero Supervillain Portal

The Comics Journal, often abbreviated TCJ, is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels.^[1] Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing reviews of the products of the mainstream comics industry, the magazine promotes the view that comics are a fine art meriting broader cultural respect, and thus should be evaluated with higher critical standards.^[2][3][4]

History[link]

In 1976, Gary Groth and Michael Catron acquired The Nostalgia Journal, a small competitor of the newspaper adzine The Buyer's Guide for Comics Fandom. At the time, Groth and Catron were already publishing Sounds Fine, a similarly formatted adzine for record collectors that they had started after producing Rock 'N Roll Expo '75, held during the July 4th weekend in 1975 in Washington, D.C.^{[citation needed]}

The publication was relaunched as The New Nostalgia Journal with issue #27 (July 1976), and with issue #32 (January 1977), it became The Comics Journal ("a quality publication for the serious comics fan"). Issue #37 (December 1977) adopted a magazine format.^{[citation needed]}

In addition to lengthy interviews with comics industry figures, the Journal has always published criticism—and received it in turn.^[2] Starting in the early 2000s, the Journal published a series of annual specials combining its usual critical format with extended samples of comics from specially selected contributors.

With issue #300 (November 2009), The Comics Journal ceased its semi-monthly print publication.^[5] TCJ shifted from an eight-times a year publishing schedule to a larger, more elaborate, semi-annual format supported by a new website.^[6][7]

Lawsuits[link]

Over the years The Journal has been involved in a handful of lawsuits.^[2] Artist Rich Buckler attempted legal action for a review that called him a plagiarist while printing his panels next to earlier and quite similar Jack Kirby art.^{[8][9][10][11]} A Groth interview with science fiction writer Harlan Ellison sparked a lawsuit by writer Michael Fleisher, over an informal discussion of Fleisher's work and temperament.^[12] Co-defendants Groth and Ellison won the case, but emerged from the suit estranged.^[13][14][15]

The Comics Journal Library: The Writers (2006) reprinted the Ellison interview with the cover blurb "Harlan Ellison: Famous Comics Dilettante", for which in part, Ellison shortly thereafter filed suit against the Journal, Groth and Thompson.^[16]

The Journal has on occasion published, as cover features, lengthy court transcripts of comics-related civil suits. Notable instances include the Fleisher suit^[15][17] and Marv Wolfman's failed suit against Marvel Comics over ownership of the character Blade.^[18][19]

Content[link]

The Journal features critical essays, articles on comics history and lengthy interviews, conducted by Gary Groth and others. Noteworthy interviews include Gil Kane in #38, Steve Gerber in #41, Harlan Ellison in #53, Dennis O'Neil in #64, Robert Crumb in #113, and Charles M. Schulz in #200.^{[citation needed]}

Staff members and regular contributors[link]

Gary Groth has been the Journal's publisher and nominal editor for almost all of its existence. Staff members and regular contributors have included Kim Thompson, Greg Stump, Eric Millikin, Eric Reynolds, Ng Suat Tong, R. Fiore, R.C. Harvey, Kenneth Smith, Don Phelps, Robert Boyd, Tom Heintjes, Michael Dean, Tom Spurgeon, Robert Rodi, Gene Phillips, Marilyn Bethke, Cat Yronwode, Heidi MacDonald, Lee Wochner, Arn Saba, Ted White, Bob Levin, Carter Scholz, and Noah Berlatsky. Guest contributors have included Dave Sim and Trina Robbins.

Managing editors[link]

• Carol Sobocinski, 198?
• Greg S. Baisden, 1988–1989
• Robert Boyd, 198?-1990
• Helena Harvilicz, 1990–1992
• Frank Young, 1992–1994
• Tom Spurgeon, 1994-1999 (also executive editor 1998-1999)
• Eric Evans and Darren Hick, 1999–2001
• Anne Elizabeth Moore, 2001–2002
• Milo George, 2002–2004
• Dirk Deppey, 2004–2006
• Michael Dean, 2006–2011 (Last managing editor)

Online editors[link]

• Kristy Valenti, 2010–2011
• Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler, 2011-present

Top 100 Comics list[link]

The Journal published a 20th-century comics canon in its 210th issue (February 1999). To compile the list, eight contributors and editors made eight separate top 100 (or fewer than 100 for some) lists of American works. These eight lists were then informally combined, and tweaked into an ordered list.^[20]

Awards[link]

See also[link]

	Comics portal
	United States portal

• List of Comics Journal interview subjects — provides issue numbers with interview subjects.

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Groth, Gary (editor), Spurgeon, Tom (executive editor). The Comics Journal #210. Fantagraphics Books, February 1999. ISSN 0194-7869
• Dean, Mike; Moore, Elizabeth Anne. "Timeline". The Comics Journal #235 (July 2001), p. 82.
• Dean, Mike. "The Comics Journal Examines Its Own Navel," The Comics Journal #235 (July 2001).
• Groth, Gary, and Robert Fiore, eds. The New Comics: Interviews from the Pages of The Comics Journal. New York : Berkley, 1988. ISBN 0-425-11366-3.
• Complete collection of The Comics Journal and The Nostalgia Journal held by the Michigan State University Comic Art Collection.

External links[link]

• Official website
• TCJ Covers, Contents and Mastheads at The Comics Reporter
• History of The Nostalgia Journal

Mike DeStefano (November 29, 1966^[1][2][3][4] – March 6, 2011) was an American stand-up comedian. He used material from his heroin addiction, which began at age 15, and his recovery in brutally honest, profanity-laced routines. He also was a drug counselor to others.

Career[link]

His first gig was in Florida and convinced him there was something to live for, and he had options outside of taking his own life. His second gig was at a Narcotics Anonymous convention in Atlanta, Georgia, where he stepped before the microphone after a rained-out pool party and started ranting about drugs.^[5]

A regular at clubs in New York and around the country, DeStefano gained popularity after appearing on television on Comedy Central’s Live at Gotham. He also appeared on Late Night With Conan O'Brien, Showtime's Whiteboyz in the Hood and other radio and television shows, and at popular comedy festivals, most notably US Comedy Arts Festival and Montreal's Just for Laughs festival. In 2010, he competed in the seventh season of NBC's Last Comic Standing and finished in fourth place.^[5][6]

On October 9, 2010 DeStefano appeared with Jim Norton, Rich Vos and Robert Kelly in the Comedy Central stand-up special "Comics Anonymous"; all four comedians appearing in the special were former addicts who had been clean and sober for 10 years or more. DeStefano was also an executive producer on the special, which was dedicated to their friend, comedian Greg Giraldo, who had died of a drug overdose the months before.

Death[link]

On March 6, 2011, Mike DeStefano died as a result of a heart attack. His death came hours after filming a video for funnyordie.com. DeStefano's funeral was held three days later on March 9 as well as March 10 at the Schuyler Hill Funeral Home in New York.

Unfinished Projects[link]

DeStefano's death came just days before he was scheduled to perform his one-man show, A Cherry Tree in the Bronx, in New York. He had just finished a run of shows titled Drugs, Disease and Death: A Comedy, which was largely based on being HIV positive, his past drug addiction and his wife Fran's death several years ago after her drug addiction and affliction with AIDS.^[6][7]

Discography[link]

• 2010: OK Karma - released on Stand Up! Records comedy label

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mike DeStefano official website
• Mike DeStefano MySpace
• Mike DeStefano Facebook
• Mike DeStefano Twitter
• Mike DeStefano at the Internet Movie Database

The Right Honourable Tony Blair
Blair at the World Economic Forum (2009)
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
In office 2 May 1997 – 27 June 2007
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Deputy	John Prescott
Preceded by	John Major
Succeeded by	Gordon Brown
Leader of the Opposition
In office 21 July 1994 – 2 May 1997
Monarch	Elizabeth II
Prime Minister	John Major
Preceded by	Margaret Beckett
Succeeded by	John Major
Leader of the Labour Party
In office 21 July 1994 – 24 June 2007
Deputy	John Prescott
Preceded by	Margaret Beckett
Succeeded by	Gordon Brown
Shadow Home Secretary
In office 24 July 1992 – 24 October 1994
Leader	John Smith
Preceded by	Roy Hattersley
Succeeded by	Jack Straw
Shadow Secretary of State for Employment
In office 2 November 1989 – 24 July 1992
Leader	Neil Kinnock
Preceded by	Michael Meacher
Succeeded by	Frank Dobson
Shadow Secretary of State for Energy
In office 7 June 1988 – 2 November 1989
Leader	Neil Kinnock
Preceded by	John Prescott
Succeeded by	Frank Dobson
Member of Parliament for Sedgefield
In office 9 June 1983 – 27 June 2007
Preceded by	Constituency established
Succeeded by	Phil Wilson
Majority	18,449 (44.5%)
Personal details
Born	Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (1953-05-06) 6 May 1953 (age 59) Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Political party	Labour
Spouse(s)	Cherie Booth (1980–present)
Children	Euan Nicky Kathryn Leo
Alma mater	St John's College, Oxford Inns of Court School of Law
Religion	Roman Catholicism
Signature
Website	Tony Blair Office

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953)^[1] is a British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He resigned from all of these positions in June 2007.

Blair was elected Leader of the Labour Party in the leadership election of July 1994, following the sudden death of his predecessor, John Smith. Under his leadership, the party used the phrases "New Labour" and "New Socialism" to define its policy, and moved away from its support of state socialism since the 1960s and created a new version of the ethical socialism that was last pursued by Clement Attlee.^[2] Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism.^[3] Blair subsequently led Labour to a landslide victory in the 1997 general election. At 43 years old, he became the youngest Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812. In the first years of the New Labour government, Blair's government implemented a number of 1997 manifesto pledges, introducing the minimum wage, Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information Act, and carrying out devolution, establishing the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Blair's role as Prime Minister was particularly visible in foreign and security policy, including in Northern Ireland, where he was involved in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. From the start of the War on Terror in 2001, Blair strongly supported the foreign policy of US President George W. Bush, notably by participating in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair is the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, the only person to have led the Labour Party to three consecutive general election victories, and the only Labour Prime Minister to serve consecutive terms more than one of which was at least four years long.

He was succeeded as Leader of the Labour Party on 24 June 2007 and as Prime Minister on 27 June 2007 by Gordon Brown.^[4] On the day he resigned as Prime Minister, he was appointed the official Envoy of the Quartet on the Middle East. In May 2008, Blair launched his Tony Blair Faith Foundation.^[5] This was followed in July 2009 by the launching of the Faith and Globalisation Initiative with Yale University in the US, Durham University in the UK and the National University of Singapore in Asia to deliver a postgraduate programme in partnership with the Foundation.^[6][7]

Background and family life[link]

Blair was born in Edinburgh, Scotland^[8] on 6 May 1953,^[1] the second son of Leo and Hazel Blair (née Corscadden). Leo Blair, the illegitimate^[9] son of two English actors, had been adopted as a baby by Glasgow shipyard worker James Blair and his wife, Mary. Hazel Corscadden was the daughter of George Corscadden, a butcher and Orangeman who moved to Glasgow in 1916 but returned to (and later died in) Ballyshannon in 1923, where his wife, Sarah Margaret (née Lipsett), gave birth to Blair's mother, Hazel, above her family's grocery shop.^[10][11] George Corscadden was from a family of Protestant farmers in County Donegal, Ireland,^[12] who descended from Ulster-Scots settlers who took their family name from Garscadden,^{[citation needed]} now part of Glasgow.

Life as a child[link]

Blair has one elder brother, Sir William Blair, a High Court judge, and a younger sister, Sarah. Blair spent the first 19 months of his life at the family home in Paisley Terrace in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh. During this period, his father worked as a junior tax inspector whilst also studying for a law degree from the University of Edinburgh.^[8] In the 1950s, his family spent three and a half years in Adelaide, Australia, where his father was a lecturer in law at the University of Adelaide.^[13] The Blairs lived close to the university, in the suburb of Dulwich. The family returned to the UK in the late 1950s, living for a time with Hazel Blair's stepfather, William McClay, and her mother at their home in Stepps, near Glasgow. He spent the remainder of his childhood in Durham, England, where his father lectured at Durham University.^{[citation needed]}

Education[link]

After attending The Chorister School in Durham from 1961 to 1966,^[14] Blair boarded at Fettes College, a prestigious independent school in Edinburgh, during which time he met Charlie Falconer (a pupil at the rival Edinburgh Academy), whom he later appointed Lord Chancellor. He reportedly modelled himself on Mick Jagger.^[15] His teachers were unimpressed with him, his biographer John Rentoul, reported that "All the teachers I spoke to when researching the book said he was a complete pain in the backside and they were very glad to see the back of him."^[16] Blair was arrested at Fettes, having been mistaken for a burglar as he climbed into his dormitory using a ladder after having been out late.^[17]

Tony Blair's wife, Cherie Booth, QC.

After Fettes, Blair spent a year in London, where he attempted to find fame as a rock music promoter before reading jurisprudence at St John's College, Oxford.^[18] As a student, he played guitar and sang in a rock band called Ugly Rumours. During this time, he dated future American Psycho director Mary Harron.^[19]

He was influenced by fellow student and Anglican priest Peter Thomson, who awakened within Blair a deep concern for religious faith and left-wing politics. While Blair was at Oxford, his mother Hazel died of cancer, which greatly affected him. After graduating from Oxford in 1975 with a Second Class Honours BA in Jurisprudence, Blair became a member of Lincoln's Inn, enrolled as a pupil barrister, and met his future wife, Cherie Booth (daughter of the actor Tony Booth) at the law chambers founded by Derry Irvine (who was to be Blair's first Lord Chancellor), 11 King's Bench Walk Chambers. He appears in a number of reported cases, for example as in Nethermere (St Neots) Ltd v Gardiner^[20] where he represented employers unsuccessfully in an attempt to deny female factory workers holiday pay.

Marriage and children[link]

Blair married Cherie Booth, a Roman Catholic and future Queen's Counsel, on 29 March 1980.^[21] They have four children: Euan, Nicholas, Kathryn, and Leo.^[22][23] Leo, delivered by the Royal Surgeon/Gynaecologist Marcus Setchell, was the first legitimate child born to a serving Prime Minister in over 150 years—since Francis Russell was born to Lord John Russell on 11 July 1849.^[24] Blair was criticised when it was discovered that one child had received private tuition from staff at Westminster School.^[25] All four children have Irish passports, by virtue of Blair's mother Hazel.^[26] The family's primary residence is in Connaught Square, and the Blairs own eight other residences.^[27]

Personal health[link]

Blair suffered from chest pains on Sunday 19 October 2003 and underwent a cardioversion at Hammersmith Hospital.^[28]

Religious faith[link]

In an interview with Michael Parkinson broadcast on ITV1 on 4 March 2006, Blair referred to the role of his Christian faith in his decision to go to war in Iraq, stating that he had prayed about the issue, and saying that God would judge him for his decision: "I think if you have faith about these things, you realise that judgement is made by other people ... and if you believe in God, it's made by God as well."^[29]

A longer exploration of his faith can be found in an interview with Third Way Magazine. There he says that "I was brought up as [a Christian], but I was not in any real sense a practising one until I went to Oxford. There was an Australian priest at the same college as me who got me interested again. In a sense, it was a rediscovery of religion as something living, that was about the world around me rather than some sort of special one-to-one relationship with a remote Being on high. Suddenly I began to see its social relevance. I began to make sense of the world".^[30]

At one point Alastair Campbell, Blair's director of strategy and communications, intervened in an interview, preventing the Prime Minister from answering a question about his Christianity, explaining, "We don't do God".^[31]

Cherie Blair's friend and "spiritual guru" Carole Caplin is credited with introducing her and her husband to various New Age symbols and beliefs, including "magic pendants" known as "BioElectric Shields".^[32] The most controversial of the Blairs' New Age practices occurred when on holiday in Mexico. The couple, wearing only bathing costumes, took part in a rebirthing procedure, which involved smearing mud and fruit over each others' bodies while sitting in a steam bath.^[33]

Later on, Blair questioned the Pope's attitude towards homosexuality, arguing that religious leaders must start "rethinking" the issue.^[34] He was later rebuked by Vincent Nichols, the new archbishop of Westminster, who said that Catholic thinking was 'rather different' from the kind promoted by the former prime minister.^[35]

On 22 December 2007, it was disclosed that Blair, who in 1996, had been reprimanded by Cardinal Basil Hume for receiving Holy Communion at Mass despite not being a Catholic, in contravention of canon law,^[36] had converted to the Catholic faith, and that it was "a private matter".^[37][38] He had informed Pope Benedict XVI on 23 June 2007 that he wanted to become a Catholic. The Pope and his advisors criticised some of Blair's political actions, but followed up with a reportedly unprecedented red-carpet welcome, which included Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, who would be responsible for Blair's Catholic instruction.^[39]

On 14 January 2009, Blair, upon a visit to the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., described, in the guest book, his home as being 'Jerusalem'.^[40] This was followed shortly after, on the occasion of his addressing of the National Prayer Breakfast, by his discussion of the issue of religion in the world and the Middle East peace process in his address and how he spends so much of his time in the Holy Land and in the Holy City. He reported his Palestinian guide as bemoaning the fate of his nation looking to heaven and saying “Moses, Jesus, Mohammed: why did they all have to come here?" For Blair the Holy City is "a good place to reflect on religion: a source of so much inspiration; an excuse for so much evil."^[41]

According to Alastair Campbell's diary, Blair often read the Bible before taking any important decisions. He states that Blair had a "wobble" and considered changing his mind on the eve of the bombing of Iraq in 1998.^[42]

Early political career[link]

Blair joined the Labour Party shortly after graduating from Oxford in 1975. During the early 1980s, he was involved in Labour politics in Hackney South and Shoreditch, where he aligned himself with the "soft left" of the party. In 1982 Blair was selected as the Labour candidate in the safe Conservative seat of Beaconsfield, where there was a forthcoming by-election. Although Blair lost the Beaconsfield by-election (the only election he lost in his 25-year political career) and he lost 10% of the vote, he acquired a profile within the party. In contrast to his later centrism, Blair made it clear in a letter he wrote to Labour leader Michael Foot in July 1982, that he had "come to Socialism through Marxism" and considered himself on the left. The letter was eventually published in June 2006.^[43]

In 1983, Blair found the newly created constituency of Sedgefield, a notionally safe Labour seat near where he had grown up in Durham. The branch had not made a nomination, and Blair visited them. Several sitting MPs displaced by boundary changes were interested in securing selection to fight the seat. With the crucial support of John Burton, Blair won their endorsement; at the last minute, he was added to the short list and won the selection over Les Huckfield. Burton later became Blair's agent and one of his most trusted and longest-standing allies.

Blair's election literature in the 1983 UK general election endorsed left-wing policies that Labour advocated in the early 1980s. He called for Britain to leave the EEC, though he had told his selection conference that he personally favoured continuing membership. He also supported unilateral nuclear disarmament as a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Blair was helped on the campaign trail by soap opera actress Pat Phoenix, his father-in-law's girlfriend. Blair was elected as MP for Sedgefield despite the party's landslide defeat in the general election.

In his maiden speech in the House of Commons on 6 July 1983, Blair stated, "I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral. It stands for cooperation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality."^[44][45] The Labour Party is declared in its constitution to be a democratic socialist party^[46] rather than a social democratic party; Blair himself organised this declaration of Labour to be a socialist party when he dealt with the change to the party's Clause IV in their constitution.

Once elected, Blair's political ascent was rapid. He received his first front-bench appointment in 1984 as assistant Treasury spokesman. In May 1985, he appeared on BBC's Question Time, arguing that the Conservative Government's Public Order White Paper was a threat to civil liberties.^[47] Blair demanded an inquiry into the Bank of England's decision to rescue the collapsed Johnson Matthey Bank in October 1985 and embarrassed the government by finding a EEC report critical of British economic policy that had been countersigned by a member of the Conservative government.^{[citation needed]} By this time, Blair was aligned with the reforming tendencies in the party (headed by leader Neil Kinnock) and was promoted after the 1987 election to the shadow Trade and Industry team as spokesman on the City of London. In 1987, he stood for election to the Shadow Cabinet, receiving 71 votes.^[48]

Blair became Shadow Home Secretary under John Smith. John Smith died suddenly in 1994 of a heart attack. Blair beat John Prescott and Margaret Beckett in the subsequent leadership election and became Leader of the Opposition. As is customary for the holder of that office, Blair was appointed a Privy Councillor.

Leader of the Labour Party[link]

Blair announced at the end of his speech at the 1994 Labour Party conference that he intended to replace Clause IV of the party's constitution with a new statement of aims and values. This involved the deletion of the party's stated commitment to "the common ownership of the means of production and exchange", which was widely interpreted as referring to wholesale nationalisation.^[49] At a special conference in April 1995, the clause was replaced by a statement that the party is 'democratic socialist'.^[49]

He inherited the Labour leadership at a time when the party was ascendant over the Tories in the opinion polls since the Tory government's reputation for monetary excellence was left in tatters by the Black Wednesday economic disaster of September 1992. Blair's election as leader saw Labour support surge higher still^[50] in spite of the continuing economic recovery and fall in unemployment that the Conservative government (led by John Major) had overseen since the end of the 1990–92 recession.^[51]

At the 1996 Labour Party conference, Blair stated that his three top priorities on coming to office were "education, education, and education".^[52]

Aided by the unpopularity of John Major's Conservative government (itself deeply divided over the European Union), "New Labour" won a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, ending 18 years of Conservative Party government, with the heaviest Conservative defeat since 1832.^[53]

During Smith's leadership of the Labour Party, there were discussions with Paddy Ashdown, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, about forming a coalition government if the next general election resulted in a hung parliament. After Blair became leader, these talks continued – despite virtually every opinion poll since late 1992 having shown Labour with enough support to form a majority. However, the scale of the Labour victory meant that there was ultimately never any need for a coalition.^[54]

Prime Minister[link]

Blair became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom on 2 May 1997, serving concurrently as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Labour Party. The 43-year old Blair became the youngest person to become Prime Minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, at the age of 42.^[55] With victories in 1997, 2001, and 2005, Blair was the Labour Party's longest-serving prime minister, the only person to lead the party to three consecutive general election victories.

Northern Ireland[link]

Blair addressing a crowd in Armagh in 1998.

His contribution towards assisting the Northern Ireland Peace Process by helping to negotiate the Good Friday Agreement (after 30 years of conflict) was widely recognised.^[56][57] Following the Omagh Bombing on 15 August 1998, by members of the Real IRA opposed to the peace process, which killed 29 people and wounded hundreds, Blair visited the County Tyrone town and met with victims at Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast.^[58]

Military intervention and the War on Terror[link]

In his first six years in office Blair ordered British troops into battle five times, more than any other prime minister in British history. This included Iraq in both 1998 and 2003; Kosovo (1999); Sierra Leone (2000) and Afghanistan (2001).^[59]

The Kosovo War, which Blair had advocated on moral grounds, was initially a failure when it relied soly on air strikes; the threat of a ground offensive would convince Serbia's Slobodan Milošević to withdraw. Blair had been a major advocate for a ground offensive, which Bill Clinton was reluctant to do, and would order that 50,000 soldiers - most of the available British Army - should be made ready for action.^[60] The following year, the limited Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone would swiftly swing the tide against the rebel forces; before deployment, the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone had been on the verge of collapse.^[61] Palliser had been intended as an evacuation mission but Brigadier David Richards (now General Sir) was able to convince Blair to allow him to expand the role; at the time, Richards' action was not known and Blair was assumed to be behind it.^[62] Blair also ordered Operation Barras, a highly successful SAS/Parachute Regiment strike to rescue hostages from a Sierra Leone rebel group.^[63] Historian Andrew Marr has argued that the success of ground attacks, real and threatened, over air strikes alone would be influential on how Blair planned the Iraq War, and that the success of the first three wars Blair fought "played to his sense of himself as a moral war leader".^[64] When asked in 2010 if the success of Palliser may have "embolden[ed] British politicians" to think of military action as a policy option, General Sir David Richards would admit there "might be something in that".^[62]

From the start of the War on Terror in 2001, Blair strongly supported the foreign policy of George W. Bush, participating in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan and 2003 invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Iraq was particularly controversial, as it attracted widespread public opposition and 139 of Blair's MPs opposed it.^[65] As a result, he faced criticism over the policy itself and the circumstances in which it was decided upon. Alastair Campbell described Blair's statement that the intelligence on WMDs was "beyond doubt" as his "assessment of the assessment that was given to him."^[66] In 2009, Blair stated that he would have supported removing Saddam Hussein from power even in the face of proof that he had no such weapons.^[67] Playwright Harold Pinter and former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad accused Blair of war crimes.^[68][69] Testifying before the Iraq Inquiry on 29 January 2010, Blair said Saddam was a "monster and I believe he threatened not just the region but the world."^[70] Blair said that British and American attitude towards Saddam Hussein had "changed dramatically" after 11 September attacks. Blair denied that he would have supported the invasion of Iraq even if he had thought Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He said he believed the world was safer as a result of the invasion.^[71] He also said that there was "no real difference between wanting regime change and wanting Iraq to disarm: regime change was US policy because Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations."^[72]

Relationship with Parliament[link]

One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to replace the then twice-weekly 15-minute sessions of Prime Minister's Questions held on Tuesdays and Thursdays with a single 30-minute session on Wednesdays. In addition to PMQs, Blair held monthly press conferences at which he fielded questions from journalists^[73][74] and – from 2002 – broke precedent by agreeing to give evidence twice yearly before the most senior Commons select committee, The Liaison Committee.^[75] Blair was sometimes perceived as paying insufficient attention both to the views of his own Cabinet colleagues and to those of the House of Commons.^[76] His style was sometimes criticised as not that of a prime minister and head of government, which he was, but of a president and head of state—which he was not.^[77] Blair was accused of excessive reliance on spin.^[78] He is the first British Prime Minister to have been formally questioned by police, though not under caution, while still in office.^[79]

Events prior to resignation[link]

As the casualties of the Iraq War mounted, Blair was accused of misleading Parliament,^[80][81] and his popularity dropped dramatically.^[82][83] The Labour party's overall majority in the 2005 general election was reduced to 66. As a combined result of the Blair-Brown pact, Iraq war and low approval ratings, pressure built up within the Labour party for Blair to resign.^[84][85] On 7 September 2006, Blair publicly stated he would step down as party leader by the time of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference held 10–13 September 2007,^[86] having promised to serve a full term during the previous general election campaign. On 10 May 2007, during a speech at the Trimdon Labour Club, Blair announced his intention to resign as both Labour Party leader and Prime Minister. At a special party conference in Manchester on 24 June 2007, he formally handed over the leadership of the Labour Party to Gordon Brown, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer.^[4] Blair tendered his resignation on 27 June 2007 and his successor, Gordon Brown assumed office the same afternoon. He also resigned his seat in the House of Commons in the traditional form of accepting the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds to which he was appointed by Gordon Brown in one of the latter's last acts as Chancellor of the Exchequer.^[87] The resulting Sedgefield by-election was won by Labour's candidate, Phil Wilson. Blair decided not to issue a list of Resignation Honours, making him the first Prime Minister of the modern era not to do so.^[88]

Policies[link]

In 2001, Blair said, "We are a left of centre party, pursuing economic prosperity and social justice as partners and not as opposites".^[89] Blair has rarely applied such labels to himself, but he promised before the 1997 election that New Labour would govern "from the radical centre", and according to one lifelong Labour Party member, has always described himself as a social democrat.^[90] However, Labour Party backbenchers and other left wing critics typically place Blair to the right of centre.^[91] A YouGov opinion poll in 2005 also found that a small majority of British voters, including many New Labour supporters, place Blair on the right of the political spectrum.^[92][93] The Financial Times on the other hand has argued that Blair is not conservative, but instead a populist.^[94] The new Clause IV of the Labour Party's constitution defines the party as "Democratic Socialist".

Critics and admirers tend to agree that Blair's electoral success was based on his ability to occupy the centre ground and appeal to voters across the political spectrum, to the extent that he has been fundamentally at odds with traditional Labour Party values.^[95] Some left wing critics have argued that Blair has overseen the final stage of a long term shift of the Labour Party to the right, and that very little now remains of a Labour Left.^[96][97] There is also evidence that Blair's long term dominance of the centre has forced his Conservative opponents to shift a long distance to the left, in order to challenge his hegemony there.^[98][99]

Blair has raised taxes (but did not increase income tax for high-earners^{[citation needed]}); introduced a minimum wage and some new employment rights (while keeping Margaret Thatcher's anti-trade union legislation^{[citation needed]}); introduced significant constitutional reforms; promoted new rights for gay people in the Civil Partnership Act 2004; and signed treaties integrating Britain more closely with the EU. He introduced substantial market-based reforms in the education and health sectors; introduced student tuition fees; sought to reduce certain categories of welfare payments, and introduced tough anti-terrorism and identity card legislation.^{[citation needed]} Under Blair's government the amount of new legislation increased^[100] which attracted criticism.^[101] Blair increased police powers by adding to the number of arrestable offences, compulsory DNA recording and the use of dispersal orders.^[102]

Environmental record[link]

Blair has criticised other governments for not doing enough to solve global climate change. In a 1997 visit to the United States, he made a comment on "great industrialised nations" that fail to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Again in 2003, Blair went before the United States Congress and said that climate change "cannot be ignored", insisting "we need to go beyond even Kyoto."^[103] His record at home tends to say something different. Blair and his party have promised a 20% reduction in carbon dioxide^[104] but during his term the emissions rose. The Labour Party also claimed that by 2010 10% of the energy would come from renewable resources but in fact only 3% currently does.^[105]

In 2000 Blair "flagged up" 100 million euros for green policies and urged environmentalists and businesses to work together.^[106]

Foreign policy[link]

Relationship with the United States[link]

Tony Blair and George W. Bush shake hands after their press conference in the East Room of the White House on 12 November 2004.

Along with enjoying a close relationship with Bill Clinton, Blair formed a strong political alliance with George W. Bush, particularly in the area of foreign policy. At one point, Nelson Mandela described Blair as "the U.S. foreign minister".^[107] Blair has also often openly been referred to as "Bush's poodle".^[108] Kendall Myers, a senior analyst at the State Department, reportedly said that he felt "a little ashamed" of Bush's treatment of the Prime Minister and that his attempts to influence US policy were typically ignored: "It was a done deal from the beginning, it was a one-sided relationship that was entered into with open eyes... There was nothing, no payback, no sense of reciprocity".^[109]

For his part, Bush lauded Blair and the UK. In his post-11 September speech, for example, he stated that "America has no truer friend than Great Britain".^[110]

The alliance between Bush and Blair seriously damaged Blair's standing in the eyes of many British people.^[111] Blair argued it is in Britain's interest to "protect and strengthen the bond" with the United States regardless of who is in the White House.^[112] However, a perception of one-sided compromising personal and political closeness led to serious discussion of the term "Poodle-ism" in the UK media, to describe the "Special Relationship" of the UK government and Prime Minister with the US White House and President.^[113] A revealing conversation between Bush and Blair, with the former addressing the latter as "Yo [or Yeah], Blair" was recorded when they did not know a microphone was live at the G8 conference in Russia in 2006.^[114]

Middle East policy and links with Israel[link]

According to comments in the book, Blair, written by Anthony Seldon, Blair had a deep feeling for Israel, born in part from his faith.^[115] Blair has been a long time member of the pro-Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel.^[116]

In 1994, Blair met Michael Levy, later Lord Levy, a pop music mogul and fundraiser.^[117] Blair and Levy became close friends and tennis partners.

During his first visit to Israel, Blair thought the Israelis bugged him in his car. He also went on to claim that the Israeli prime minister was merely an "armour-plated bullshitter".^[118]

Levy ran the Labour Leader's Office Fund to finance Blair's campaign before the 1997 General Election and raised £12m towards Labour’s landslide victory, Levy was rewarded with a peerage, and in 2002, Blair appointed Levy as his personal envoy to the Middle East. Levy praised Blair for his 'solid and committed support of the State of Israel'.^[119][120] Tam Dalyell, while Father of the House of Commons, suggested in 2003 that Blair's foreign policy decisions were unduly influenced by a cabal of Jewish advisers, including Levy and Peter Mandelson.^[121]

Blair, on coming to office, had been 'cool towards the right-wing Netanyahu government'.^[122] After the election in 1999 of Ehud Barak, with whom Blair forged a close relationship, he became much more sympathetic to Israel.^[122] From 2001 Blair also built up a relationship with Barak's successor, Ariel Sharon, and responded positively to Arafat, whom he had met thirteen times since becoming prime minister and regarded as essential to future negotiations.^[122] In 2004, 50 former diplomats, including ambassadors to Baghdad and Tel Aviv, stated they had 'watched with deepening concern' at Britain following the US into war in Iraq in 2003. They criticised Blair's support for the Road map for peace which included the retaining of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.^[123]

In 2006 Blair was criticised for his failure to immediately call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The Observer newspaper claimed that at a cabinet meeting before Blair left for a summit with Bush on 28 July 2006, a significant number of ministers pressured Blair to publicly criticise Israel over the scale of deaths and destruction in Lebanon.^[124] Blair was criticised for his solid stance alongside US President George W. Bush on Middle East policy.^[125]

In March 2010 the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments revealed that 14 months after resigning as Prime Minister, Blair had served as a paid business consultant to an oil firm with interests in Iraq.^[126] The news raised concerns that he had profited financially from contacts he made during the Iraq war.^[127]

Relationship with media[link]

Rupert Murdoch[link]

Blair was reported to have been supported by Rupert Murdoch, the founder of the News Corporation organisation.^[128] In 1995, while leader of the Opposition, Blair disclosed in the Commons register of interests that he was a guest of Murdoch when he flew to meet him in Hayman Island.^[129] In 2011 Blair became Godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch's children. Apparently Blair was 'robed in white for the ceremony' ^[130]

Contacts with UK media proprietors[link]

A Cabinet Office freedom of information response, released the day after Blair handed over power to Gordon Brown, documents Blair having various official phone calls and meetings with Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation and Richard Desmond of Northern and Shell Media.^[131]

The response includes contacts "clearly of an official nature" in the specified period, but excludes contacts "not clearly of an official nature."^[132] No details were given of the subjects discussed. In the period between September 2002 and April 2005, Blair and Murdoch are documented speaking 6 times; three times in the 9 days before the Iraq war, including the eve of the 20 March US and UK invasion, and on 29 January, 25 April and 3 October 2004. Between January 2003 and February 2004, Blair had three meetings with Richard Desmond; on 29 January and 3 September 2003 and 23 February 2004.^[133][134]

The information was disclosed after a three and a half year battle by the Liberal Democrats' Lord Avebury.^[131] Lord Avebury's initial October 2003 information request was dismissed by then leader of the Lords, Baroness Amos.^[131] A following complaint was rejected, with Downing Street claiming the information compromised free and frank discussions, while Cabinet Office claimed releasing the timing of the PM's contacts with individuals is undesirable, as it might lead to the content of the discussions being disclosed.^[131] While awaiting a following appeal from Lord Avebury, the cabinet office announced that it would release the information. Lord Avebury said: "The public can now scrutinise the timing of his (Murdoch's) contacts with the former Prime Minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world."^[131]

Blair appeared before the Leveson Inquiry on Monday 28 May 2012.^[135] During his appearance, a Protester, later named as David Lawley-Wakelin, got into the court-room and claimed he was guilty of war crimes before being dragged out.^[136]

Media portrayal[link]

Blair is acknowledged by most^[who?] to be a highly skilful media performer who comes over as charismatic, informal, and articulate.^{[citation needed]} A few months after becoming Prime Minister he gave a tribute to Diana, Princess of Wales on the morning of her death in August 1997, in which he famously described her as "the People's Princess".^[137][138]

After taking office in 1997, Blair gave particular prominence to his press secretary, who became known as the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (the two roles have since been separated). Blair's first PMOS was Alastair Campbell, who served in that role from May 1997 to 8 June 2001, after which he served as the Prime Minister's Director of Communications and Strategy until his resignation on 29 August 2003 in the aftermath of the Hutton Inquiry.^{[citation needed]}

Relationship with Labour Party[link]

Blair's apparent refusal to set a date for his departure was criticised by the British press and Members of Parliament. It has been reported that a number of cabinet ministers believed that Blair's timely departure from office would be required to be able to win a fourth election.^[139] Some ministers viewed Blair's announcement of policy initiatives in September 2006 as an attempt to draw attention away from these issues.^[139]

Blair forged friendships with several conservative European leaders, including Silvio Berlusconi of Italy,^[140] Angela Merkel of Germany^[141] and more recently Nicolas Sarkozy of France.^[142]

Gordon Brown[link]

After the death of John Smith in 1994, Blair and his close colleague Gordon Brown (they shared an office at the House of Commons) were both seen as possible candidates for the party leadership. They agreed not to stand against each other, it is said, as part of a supposed Blair-Brown pact. Brown, who considered himself the senior of the two, understood that Blair would give way to him: opinion polls soon indicated, however, that Blair appeared to enjoy greater support among voters.^[143] Their relationship in power became so turbulent that (it was reported) the deputy prime minister, John Prescott, often had to act as "marriage guidance counsellor".^[144]

During the 2010 election campaign Blair publicly endorsed Gordon Brown's leadership, praising the way he had handled the financial crisis.^[145]

Post-Prime Ministerial career[link]

Diplomacy[link]

On 27 June 2007, Blair officially resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after ten years in office, and he was officially confirmed as Middle East envoy for the United Nations, European Union, United States, and Russia.^[146] Blair originally indicated that he would retain his parliamentary seat after his resignation as Prime Minister came into effect; however, on being confirmed for the Middle East role he resigned from the Commons by taking up an office of profit.^[87] President George W. Bush had preliminary talks with Blair to ask him to take up the envoy role. White House sources stated that "both Israel and the Palestinians had signed up to the proposal".^[147][148] In May 2008, Blair announced a new plan for peace and for Palestinian rights, based heavily on the ideas of the Peace Valley plan.^[149]

During the first nine days of the 2008–2009 Israel-Gaza conflict, Blair was allegedly spotted at the opening of the Armani store at Knightsbridge. Aides said he had been in phone contact with other world leaders since the fighting began.^[150]

Private sector[link]

In January 2008, it was confirmed that Blair would be joining investment bank JPMorgan Chase in a "senior advisory capacity"^[151] and that he would advise Zurich Financial Services on climate change. Some sources have claimed that his role at JP Morgan will pay more than $1m a year.^[151] This additional salary will contribute to annual earnings of over £7m.^[152]