Tony Blair is Scottish, is he not ?

By Ian Stewart

Know how the *nglish are always trying to lumber us with TB Liar, who, due to circumstances totally outwith his control, happened to be born in Scotland ? Well, if he is a Scot, logically that would mean that a sheep born in a stable is actually a horse . . . Let's look at the facts.

Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was born on 6th May 1953 in the Queen Mary Maternity Home in Lauriston Place, Edinburgh, Scotland.

His late mother Hazel's (ms : Corscadden) family were from County Donegal, Ireland.

His father, Leo Charles Lynton Blair was born August 1923 in Filey, Yorkshire, England and, in 1953, was a junior tax inspector studying for a law degree at Edinburgh University.

Leo was the illegitimate son of two English travelling entertainers, Charles Parsons and Mary Augusta Ridgway Bridson [Stage names : Jimmy Lynton and Celia Ridgeway] who met whilst on tour in England.

A combination of the social stigma of having a child out of wedlock and their hectic lifestyles prompted Leo's parents to give him up.

Leo was initially fostered out to, and subsequently adopted by, a couple from Govan, Glasgow, a James and Mary Blair (whose surname Leo took).

Young Tony Blair only lived in the Willowbrae area of Edinburgh (at 5 Paisley Terrace) with his parents, and his older brother Bill, until he was 19 months old as, in late 1954, the Blairs sold their house in Edinburgh and the family emigrated to Australia, where Leo had been offered a lecturing job in Adelaide.

The family stayed in Australia for the next three and a half years.

On their return from Australia, Leo and his family settled in Durham, England where Leo lectured in Law at Durham University.

In 1983, Tony Blair was elected as the Member of Parliament for the newly created constituency of Sedgefield in County Durham, the voters of which (at time of writing) he still represents.

Education :
Chorister School, Durham
Fettes College, Edinburgh
University of Oxford

So is he Scottish ?

Yes, it's true that the first nineteen months of his life were spent in Edinburgh. But he then spent twice as long in Australia before being brought back, at the age of five, to England by his parents. Where, apart from a period between 1966 and 1971, when he boarded at Fettes, he's lived ever since. His father was English born of English parents and his mother was Irish.

The answer, in the patois of that area of Glasgow in which his English father was raised,

'Scottish ? That yin ? Nae effin chance !'

Unfortunately we can't disown James Gordon Brown in the same way !
He was born in Giffnock, Renfrewshire and brought up in Kirkcaldy in Fife.