Please Note: Tom Bower is now no longer able to attend and so unfortunately this event has been cancelled.

When Tony Blair became prime minister in May 1997, he was the youngest person to hold that office since 1812. With a landslide majority, his approval rating was 93 percent, and he went on to become Labour’s longest-serving premier. During his first election campaign, Blair promised that ‘New Labour’ would modernise Britain, freeing it from special interests and government secrecy, and he vowed to give priority to social justice and equal opportunity for all.

With unprecedented access to Whitehall officials, military officers and politicians, Tom Bower explores the truth behind Blair’s claims of rebuilding schools, hospitals and welfare services, and examines why he opened the doors to mass immigration. He follows Blair’s trail since his resignation to Asia, the Middle East and America, where he has built an extraordinary commercial empire advising, he says, tycoons and tyrants.

He is joined by Bristol MP Thangham Debbonaire, Glen O’Hara and others to debate Blair’s legacy.

Speaker biography:

Tom Bower is an investigative historian, journalist and broadcaster. He is a former producer and reporter for BBC television and author of biographies of Robert Maxwell, Mohammed Fayed, Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, Conrad Black, Bernie Ecclestone and Simon Cowell. His investigation into corruption in English football, Broken Dreams, won the William Hill Sports Book of the Year.

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