Henry John "Harry" Patch (17 June 1898 – 25 July 2009), known in his latter years as "the Last Fighting Tommy", was a British supercentenarian, briefly the oldest man in Europe, and the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the First World War. Patch was, with Claude Choules and Florence Green, one of the last three surviving British veterans of the First World War and, along with Frank Buckles and John Babcock, one of the last five veterans worldwide.

At the time of his death, aged 111 years, 38 days, Patch was the verified third-oldest man in the world, the oldest man in Europe and the 69th oldest man.

Patch was born in the village of Combe Down, near Bath, Somerset, England. He appears in the 1901 Census as a two-year-old boy along with his stonemason father William John, mother Elizabeth Ann (née Morris), and older brothers George Frederick and William Thomas at a house called "Fonthill". The family are recorded at the same address "Fonthill Cottage" in the 1911 census. His elder brothers are recorded as a carpenter and banker mason respectively. Patch left school in 1913, and started work as an apprentice plumber in Bath.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) 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. Critics of Blair claim that "New Labour" did not adhere to socialism as claimed, and that it effectively advocated capitalism. 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.