Season 6 of The Crown introduces former Prime Minister Tony Blair, but there was quite a bit of history made by Blair after the events depicted in The Crown. The Crown season 6 ends with the events of 2005, years before some of the former PM’s more controversial actions came to light. The Crown closes without elaborating on what happened to the Royal Family in the 18 years between the show’s finale and the present day, but the story of Tony Blair is no less intriguing than that of the Royals.
Though The Crown paints a flattering portrait of Blair as a widely beloved Prime Minister, the real Blair’s legacy is far more complicated. Since 2005, he has seen a dramatic downturn in public opinion, resigned from office, and even been accused of war crimes. The version seen in The Crown is a far cry from what happened to him in reality, both during the events of the series and after.
The Crown’s Series Ending Explained
The Crown season 6 represented the end of an era, highlighting Queen Elizabeth II’s feelings of obsolescence, yet continuing to do her duty.
Tony Blair Resigned As Prime Minister In 2007
A string of scandals left him with no choice but to step down.
After 10 years in office, Tony Blair announced that he would be resigning from the roles of Prime Minister and Labour leader on June 27, 2007. Though there were many factors leading up to Blair’s resignation, the main cause of his downfall was the Iraq War. Though the British public was overwhelmingly against joining the war, Blair sent British forces to join the invasion in 2003, leading to a massive downturn in the Prime Minister’s popularity. Blair’s public never forgave him for bringing the country into what many felt was an unjust and prolonged war.
The Iraq War was not the sole cause of Blair’s fall from grace, however. There was also quite a bit of controversy over an alleged deal made between Blair and Gordon Brown in the 1990s, in which Brown supposedly stepped aside and agreed to let Blair lead the Labour Party. In exchange, Blair appointed him Chancellor of the Exchequer and gave Brown unprecedented power over domestic affairs. While both Blair and Brown denied it, the damage was done.
Further damage was done when Blair was roundly criticized for not calling for a ceasefire in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. The negative public opinion and mounting pressure added up, leading him to announce his resignation as both Prime Minister and as leader of the Labour Party in 2006, with an agreement that he’d step down by the fall of 2007. He ceded his office to Gordon Brown in 2007.
Tony Blair’s Career Since Being PM: The Middle East, UK Political Return & More
Blair’s career has been a mixed bag since his resignation.
After his resignation, Blair was appointed as special envoy to the Middle East, representing the quartet of the U.S., the EU, the UN, and Russia. During this time, it was hoped that Blair would be able to improve relations between Israel and Palestine. Though he did announce an initiative for Palestinian rights in 2008, he ultimately left the role in 2015 without seeing his plan come to much success. In 2017, he announced a return to politics, hoping to impede Brexit and prevent the Labour Party from becoming too leftist. However, he also announced that he would not be pursuing a seat in Parliament.
Also in 2017, Blair founded the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, a non-profit aimed at strengthening moderate politics in what he felt was an overly polarized political climate. During its formation and since, he maintained that the purpose of the Institute was not to form a new party. He also worked as a consultant on political and economic trends, serving as a senior advisor at JPMorgan Chase and as an advisor to the Kazakhstan government.
Tony Blair Has Become More Controversial Since The Years Of The Crown Season 6
A damning 2016 report stirred up tensions again.
Early in his tenure as Prime Minister, Tony Blair was very popular, and The Crown reflects this. Unfortunately for Blair, public opinions about him became increasingly negative after the Iraq War, and the years following his resignation saw little improvement of his reputation. In 2016, Sir John Chilcot, a civil servant, released the Chilcot Report, the result of a seven-year inquiry into the British government’s handling of the Iraq War. His report ultimately found that Blair had not exhausted every possible attempt at a peaceful resolution before deciding to send British troops into Iraq. This confirmed the suspicions of many British citizens, and the outrage over Blair’s foreign policy was re-ignited.
Blair’s actions in the Iraq War branded him as a war criminal in the eyes of many, with the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission concluding that he and former U.S. President George Bush were both guilty of crimes against humanity for declaring war prematurely. Though the High Court in London ultimately ruled that Blair’s actions were not in violation of any UK law, the damage to his legacy was done. At the time of his re-entry to UK politics, a poll found that over a third of respondents believed Blair to be a war criminal.
How Accurate The Crown’s Version Of Tony Blair Is
The Crown’s portrayal is mostly true, but a significant oversimplification of the real Blair.
The Crown season 6 portrays Blair as a wildly popular Prime Minister with radical plans for modernization, many of which cause friction between himself and the Queen. Episode 6, “Ruritania,” deals heavily with this tension. In the aftermath of Queen Elizabeth’s speech on Princess Diana’s death, the Queen asks Blair for his advice on improving PR only to find that his ideas are more radical than she would like. This is largely true to life, as one of Blair’s goals was to modernize the monarchy, and Queen Elizabeth’s commitment to tradition made her hesitate to embrace his ideas. Blair’s unfortunate speech at the Women’s Institute depicted in The Crown season 6, which ended with him being heckled by the crowd, also happened in real life in 2000.
However, liberties were definitely taken with Blair’s portrayal. The show likely dramatized the tension between Blair and the Queen, perhaps hoping to play off popular rumors that Blair was the Queen’s least favorite PM. While The Crown portrays Blair as the young radical opposing the Queen’s traditional ethos, this is a simplification. Blair may be radical compared to the Queen, but his career is best characterized by a moderate approach; since his resignation, he has been vocal about his fears that the Labour Party is veering too far leftward. This oversimplification may be a blessing for the real Blair, though, whose current public opinion is less flattering than his character’s.
