[an error occurred while processing this directive]
BBC News
watch One-Minute World News
Last Updated: Thursday, 10 May 2007, 14:36 GMT 15:36 UK
Blair's resignation speech in full
Tony Blair
Mr Blair gave his speech to a crowd of people in Sedgefield
Tony Blair has announced his plans to step down as Labour leader and prime minister.

He paid tribute to his wife Cherie and election agent John Burton before delivering his formal address at his Sedgefield constituency. Here is his speech in full.






Great country



I have never quite put it like this before.





All of that was curiously symbolised in its politics.

You stood for individual aspiration and getting on in life or social compassion and helping others. You were liberal in your values or conservative.

You believed in the power of the state or the efforts of the individual. Spending more money on the public realm was the answer or it was the problem.

None of it made sense to me. It was 20th Century ideology in a world approaching a new millennium.

Of course people want the best for themselves and their families, but in an age where human capital is a nation's greatest asset, they also know it is just and sensible to extend opportunities, to develop the potential to succeed, for all - not an elite at the top.

People are, today, open-minded about race and sexuality, averse to prejudice and yet deeply and rightly conservative with a small 'c' when it comes to good manners, respect for others, treating people courteously.

They acknowledge the need for the state and the responsibility of the individual.

Living standards

They know spending money on our public services matters and that it is not enough. How they are run and organised matters too.

So 1997 was a moment for a new beginning, for sweeping away all the detritus of the past.

Expectations were so high, too high - too high in a way for either of us.

Now in 2007, you can easily point to the challenges, the things that are wrong, the grievances that fester.

But go back to 1997. Think back. No, really, think back. Think about your own living standards then in May 1997 and now.

Visit your local school, any of them round here, or anywhere in modern Britain.

Ask when you last had to wait a year or more on a hospital waiting list, or heard of pensioners freezing to death in the winter, unable to heat their homes.

Tony Blair
The room at Sedgefield was filled with Blair's most ardent supporters

There is only one government since 1945 that can say all of the following: 'More jobs, fewer unemployed, better health and education results, lower crime and economic growth in every quarter,' - this one.

But I don't need a statistic. There is something bigger than what can be measured in waiting lists or GSCE results or the latest crime or jobs figures.

Look at our economy - at ease with globalisation, London the world's financial centre. Visit our great cities and compare them with 10 years ago.

No country attracts overseas investment like we do.

Think about the culture of Britain in 2007. I don't just mean our arts that are thriving. I mean our values, the minimum wage, paid holidays as a right, amongst the best maternity pay and leave in Europe, equality for gay people.

Or look at the debates that reverberate round the world today - the global movement to support Africa in its struggle against poverty, climate change, the fight against terrorism.

Britain is not a follower. It is a leader. It gets the essential characteristic of today's world - its interdependence.

This is a country today that for all its faults, for all the myriad of unresolved problems and fresh challenges, is comfortable in the 21st Century, at home in its own skin, able not just to be proud of its past but confident of its future.







Ultimate obligation






It means doing what you genuinely believe to be right.

Your duty is to act according to your conviction.

Tony Blair
Mr Blair was given the warmest of welcomes in his constituency


Doubt, hesitation, reflection, consideration and re-consideration, these are all the good companions of proper decision-making. But the ultimate obligation is to decide.





Global terrorism




So Afghanistan and then Iraq - the latter, bitterly controversial.







Great expectations not fulfilled in every part, for sure.




High hopes










Has China's housing bubble burst?
How the world's oldest clove tree defied an empire
Why Royal Ballet principal Sergei Polunin quit


Americas Africa Europe Middle East South Asia Asia Pacific