- published: 02 Oct 2008
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Ian Warwick Blair, Baron Blair of Boughton, QPM (born 19 March 1953) is a retired British police policeman who held the position of commissioner of police of the metropolis from 2005 to 2008 and was the highest ranking officer within the Metropolitan Police Service.
On 2 October 2008 Blair announced that he would officially step down from the post on 1 December after disagreements with Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London. He was succeeded by Sir Paul Stephenson on 28 January 2009.
Blair was born in Chester to Jim and Sheila in 1953. His father spent most of his career working for Lever Brothers, eventually rising to manage the dock at Port Sunlight in Merseyside. His mother was from Sheffield and her father had made a living as a steel merchant until he suffered major losses in the Great Depression in the 1930s. Both Blair and his brother, six years his senior, were sent to independent school at the expense of one of their father's brothers, who was a successful doctor. Blair's brother, Sandy, left school early to work for a solicitors' firm.