Author Description

Admired in the U.S., and grudgingly respected in the EU, Tony Blair seems to bounce back from any crisis or scandal with aplomb. Having rebranded the Labour Party, he took Britain into a war in Iraq, provoking hostility both at home and abroad; yet he sailed through to win a historic third term in office. He has since bagged the Olympics for London and steadied the country after the 2005 London bombings. Biographer Francis Beckett and Guardian correspondent David Hencke have produced the most revealing portrait yet of a man whose enormous charm conceals a driving ambition, an almost messianic conviction that he is right, and above all, a remarkable ability to survive.