27th June 2007 is going to be heralding an end to an era in the UK…
An era that began in July 1994 when Tony Blair became the leader of the Labour party which then lead to him becoming the Prime Minister of the UK in the 1997 General election

I was too young to vote in those days (I was a mere 16 years old), but the result was very surprising. 12 years of Conservative party rule had come to an end. “Blairism” had begun… the theme tune Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream was being played everywhere, and was genuinely being believed.
And I think things did indeed get better in Blair’s first term. There was a good balance of old Labour and New “Blairite” Labour.

Because they had won by such a large majority, it was inevitable that they would win the election 4 years later (in 2001), allowing blair to serve a 2nd term. This time I will always remember for the Stealth Taxes which Gordon Brown, the Chancellor used to make it seem like Labour weren’t increasing taxes, as they’d promises to do. The 2nd term was also dogged by the war in Iraq (2002), and after this there were fears that Labour would not win in 2005. They still had enough support, and with help from the Hutton Inquiry Labour was still in power after the 2005 election.

On 10th May 2007, Tony Blair announced that he would be standing down on 27th June as Party Leader, and election of a new leader began. Gordon Brown won without any competition within days as nobody else in the party could drum up enough support to mount a leadership campaign.

Why am I blogging about this you may ask?
Well… I’ll tell you one thing, that’s not what I’ll be looking forward to on 27th June. Released on that same day is the final part of the Die Hard series:

Live Free or Die Hard

I hope Tony departs with a bang!