Tony Blair

A cathedral is an odd place for a coming-out party. But not, as it turns out, if you're a former prime minister of Britain and you're preparing to tell the world that God was one of your senior advisors during your 10 years in power. Speaking one recent evening under the lofty Byzantine vaults of Westminster Cathedral, Tony Blair ended his self-imposed silence on the subject, declaring that his faith has formed the essential backdrop to much of his political life.

ALTHOUGH HE IS yoked to President Bush in their common Iraq policy and lame-duck status, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has more in common with former President Clinton.

With its armed forces severely strained by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, Britain must commit itself to major new defense expenditures if it intends to remain one of the world's premier military powers, Prime Minister Tony Blair said Friday. The growing toll on the British military in the anti-terrorism fight, with reports of troops occasionally running low on ammunition, struggling with jammed weapons and going for weeks without hot meals, has put the nation at a crossroads.

An aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair was arrested Friday in an investigation into whether political honors, such as seats in the House of Lords and knighthoods, were traded for cash. Ruth Turner, Blair's director of government relations, was questioned on suspicion of being involved in the illegal sale of honors and perverting the course of justice, police said.

The British media fought off court-ordered censorship Tuesday to report allegations that the Labor government was advised to doctor its account of events surrounding the alleged trading of peerages for campaign loans.

It is a painful testimony to just how long the ongoing war in Iraq has been with us that filmmakers are now returning to the topic for sequels, sidebars and further inquiries. It was while shooting footage for "Gunner Palace" in 2003 that filmmaker Michael Tucker videotaped a raid on a Baghdad house suspected as part of a plot against British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

THE TIMES' RECORD in nominating our favorite 1990s political rock stars for new jobs is, admittedly, not so good. In years past, we have tried without success to get Bill Clinton hired as secretary-general of the United Nations and Bono installed as head of the World Bank. But that's not stopping us from suggesting a new career for another youthful, soon-to-be-jobless statesman: Tony Blair.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, who upended the old politics of liberalism and conservatism in Britain and pushed for an "ethical" foreign policy, said Thursday that he would step down June 27 after more than a decade in power. Blair, 54, one of Britain's longest-serving prime ministers, rescued the Labor Party from the electoral backwaters in 1997 on a wave of national optimism, only to see it founder over an unpopular war in Iraq.

Gordon Brown launched his drive to become Britain's next prime minister Friday, conceding that "mistakes have been made" in the war in Iraq and predicting that "the emphasis will shift" over the next several months. Brown's opening speech was designed to draw a line between him and Prime Minister Tony Blair, his closest political ally but also his greatest rival. The 56-year-old treasury secretary sought to bask in their joint achievements at the head of the decade-old Labor government.

HISTORY WILL forever link Tony Blair, the outgoing British prime minister, with George W. Bush against a backdrop of carnage in Iraq. That is, in one sense, as it should be. For all of Blair's brilliant success in reshaping and reviving the Labor Party, the failure in Iraq looms as his most consequential decision.