British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been selected by our visitors and editorial oversight committee as PurePolitics.com's 2005 Person of the Year.
The Year 2005 was a year very historic year in the realm of U.S. politics and global international affairs.
During 2005 we encountered just some of the following events:
War on Iraq reached 2,000 American Causalities
Iraq holds democratic election
Hurricane Katrina Tragedy
London Transit Bombings
Selection of a new Chief Justice: Judge Roberts
Saddam Hussein is hauled into court
Bird Flu strains found
Guantanamo Bay
Deaths of Pope John Paul II, Rosa Parks, Richard Pryor and Peter Jennings
The Tsunamis in east Asia
Israel leaves the West Bank
Run-away bride Jennifer Wilbanks
Aruba tragedy of 18 year Natalee Holloway
Alan Greenspan retiring from Federal Reserve
Courthouse shootings in Atlanta
Terri Schiavo case
Cindy Sheehan-outspoken critic of the war
CIA- Valerie Plame scandal
Tom DeLay scandal
*The Right Honorable Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury and Minister for the Civil Service. He has led the Labour Party since July 1994, (following the death of John Smith in May of that year) and brought Labour into power with a landslide victory in the 1997 general election, replacing John Major as Prime Minister and ending 18 years of Conservative government. He is now the Labour Party's longest-serving Prime Minister, and the only person to have led the party to three consecutive general election victories.
Blair moved the Labour Party towards the centre of British politics, using the term "New Labour" to distinguish his policies of support for the market economy from the party's previous rigid adherence to nationalization. He has referred to his policy as "modern social democracy" and "the third way". Critics on the left feel that he has compromised the principles of the founders of the Labour party, and that the Blair government has moved too far to the right, placing insufficient emphasis on traditional Labour priorities such as the redistribution of wealth.
Since the advent of the War on Terror, a significant part of Blair's political agenda has been dominated by foreign affairs, particularly those concerning Iraq. Despite public protests, he supported many aspects of George W. Bush's foreign policy, sending British forces to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the subsequent peacekeeping operations and is known as one of the strongest foreign allies of the United States. In October 2004 Blair declared his intention to seek a third term but not a fourth.
The Labour party won a third term in government at the 2005 general election for the first time in its history, although its majority in the House of Commons was reduced to 66.
On February 6, 2005, Blair became the longest-serving Labour prime minister: his 2838th day in office moved him past the combined length of 7 years 9 months that comprised Harold Wilson's four terms during 1964 to 1966, 1966 to 1970, February to October 1974 and October 1974 to March 1976.
On July 6, 2005, it was formally announced that the 2012 Summer Olympics, the Games of the XXX Olympiad, were awarded to London as host city, as announced by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) during the extremely successful 117th IOC session in Singapore. The last minute surprise win by London over frontrunner Paris was said to have been decided by the presence of Tony Blair at the IOC session, even down to Irish IOC member Patrick Hickey saying "This is down to Tony Blair. If he hadn't come here I'd say that six to eight votes would have been lost and London would not be sitting here today winners".
On Thursday July 7, 2005, a series of four bomb explosions struck London's public transport system during the morning rush hour. At 08:50, three bombs exploded within one minute on three London Underground trains. A fourth bomb exploded on a bus at 09:47 in Tavistock Square. All four incidents are believed to have been suicide bombings. 56 people were confirmed dead, with 700 injured. The incident was the deadliest single act of terrorism in the United Kingdom since 270 died in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and it was the deadliest bombing in London since World War II.
Blair made a statement about that day's London bombings, saying that he believed it was "reasonably clear" that it was an act of terror, and that he hoped that the people of Britain could demonstrate that their will to overcome the events is greater than the terrorists' wish to cause destruction. He also said that his determination to "defend" the British way of life outweighed "extremist determination" to destroy it.
On July 21, 2005, a second series of explosions were reported in London, two weeks and some hours after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Four controlled explosions, of devices considerably less advanced than those of the previous attacks, were carried out at Shepherd's Bush, Warren Street and Oval underground stations, and on a bus in Shoreditch. Even though the attacks on the 21st were less severe than those on the 7th, Blair was reported to have said that the bombings in London today were intended "to scare people and to frighten them, to make them anxious and worried". He went on to say how the "police have done their very best, and the security services too, in the situation, and I think we have just got to react calmly and continue with our business as much as possible as normal".
In December 2005, the Prime Minister was presented with the "Statesman of the Decade" award by the East West Institute, a Transatlantic think tank that organizes an annual Security Conference in Brussels.
"We are proud to name Prime Minister Tony Blair as PurePolitics.com's 2005 Person of the Year," said Robert Ragsdale III, CEO of PurePolitics.com. "He follows in the footsteps of past heroic British Prime Ministers. History will someday look favorably upon Britain's true Statesmen. He is a leader who chooses democracy and freedom as his guide versus choosing political polls."
Official Site
10 Downing Street
*Background information provided from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Ariel Sharon polled second with Chief Justice John Roberts a close third out of eight finalists for the 2005 Person of the Year. The other five finalists were: Families of Hurricane Katrina, Peter Jennings, Pope John Paul II, Lance Armstrong and Rosa Parks.
To select nominees for the PurePolitics.com 2005 Person of the Year, we utilized our greatest asset -- our visitors. We conducted a comprehensive assessment, of the most searched-for people, the most frequently viewed photos and news articles in this year. The results of this comprehensive overview were compiled to create an initial master list of nominees. An editorial oversight committee, made up of PurePolitics.com employees who are experts in tracking and identifying user interests and trends, then reviewed the data collected and used it to determine the final list of 8 nominees.
