Blair and the law

Tony Blair was by profession a barrister, but his early entry to parliament prevented him, as it prevented Margaret Thatcher, from leaving more than modest footprints in the law, or emulating Asquith, the only other twentieth-century Prime Minister with a background in the Inns of Court. He specialised in employment litigation, and between 1977 and 1983, his years of practice, ten of the cases in which he appeared were of sufficient importance to be published in a series of law reports. His brief life in Chambers left him with two significant legacies, one professional, one personal. He found in the Temple both his first Lord Chancellor Derry Irvine and his wife Cherie (Booth). Blair, with his average secondclass degree from Oxford obtained a tenancy at the expense of Cherie with her brilliant first from LSE. This episode, reflective of the male public school ethos of the Bar at the time, did not impede her (she was elevated to Silk in the last year of the Major government) from enjoying a highly successful career at the Bar, but instilled in him no long-term ambition to achieve the same.

His labour law experience was responsible for his first major frontbench appointment under Neil Kinnock, shadowingMichael Howard, the Secretary of State: but later he displayed no particular appetite for engaging with legal issues, apart from voicing populist philosophy – ‘the rules of the game have changed’ – in the area of crime and punishment (in which he had no professional background) which appeared from time to time at odds with the public statements of his wife.