Highs and lows of Blair's rule

British Prime Minister Tony Blair will seek a third term at a May 5 general election, having won landslide victories in 1997 and 2001.

Here is a short chronology of the ups and downs during his eight years in power:

May 2, 1997: Landslide general election victory sweeps Mr Blair's Labour Party into power after 18 years in opposition.

May 6, 1997: Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown turns economic policy-making on its head by giving Britain's central bank, the Bank of England, the power to set interest rates. Economists credit the move as the single most important in securing eight years of solid growth that followed.

November 1997: Mr Blair's reputation for honesty takes a hit after it is revealed Formula One motor racing boss Bernie Ecclestone gave the Labour Party £1 million. The government later decided to exempt Formula One from a proposed ban on tobacco sponsorship. Labour gave the money back.

April 10, 1998: After tortuous negotiations, Mr Blair seals Northern Ireland's Good Friday peace deal designed to bring an end to 30 years of violence in the British province, although a huge bomb in Omagh later that year kills 29 people. The main paramilitary groups have essentially held to a ceasefire but a power-sharing government in Belfast remains mothballed.

December 23, 1998: Trade and Industry Secretary Peter Mandelson resigns after controversy over a home loan from fellow minister Geoffrey Robinson, who also quits the government. Mr Blair brought his close ally back into government but Mr Mandelson quit again after a scandal over a passport application of an Indian tycoon.

June 12, 1999: Nato peacekeeping troops take control of Kosovo after an 11-week bombing campaign against Yugoslavia aimed at halting brutal suppression of ethnic Albanians in the region. Mr Blair had taken a lead role in marshalling international opposition to then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

June 13, 1999: A collapse in Labour's core vote in elections for the European Parliament hands Mr Blair his first electoral defeat. The opposition Conservatives top the poll.

May 5, 2000: Maverick Ken Livingstone becomes London's first elected mayor, having quit the Labour Party. Mr Blair had said "Red Ken" would be a disaster but later welcomed him back into the party.

May 20, 2000: Mr Blair becomes a father for the fourth time, at the age of 47, as wife Cherie gives birth to Leo.

June 8, 2001: Mr Blair wins a second term as Prime Minister with a huge parliamentary majority despite the lowest voter turnout since World War I.

September 24, 2002: Britain publishes a dossier on Iraq that says Saddam Hussein could launch weapons of mass destruction at 45 minutes' notice. The dossier is later criticised for overplaying the certainty of intelligence. No such weapons have been found in Iraq.

March 18, 2003: Mr Blair wins key parliamentary vote over war in Iraq but 139 members of his own party defy him, saying the case for war had not been proved. Senior minister Robin Cook resigns in protest, others follow. Two years later, Mr Blair's public trust ratings are still mired as a result of the war.

June 9, 2003: Mr Brown rules out British adoption of the euro for the foreseeable future, dashing Mr Blair's long-held hopes of placing Britain "at the heart of the European Union".

October 19, 2003: Mr Blair receives electric shocks to regulate heart palpitations in the first health scare of his premiership.

January 28, 2004: An inquiry by judge Lord Hutton into the death of British weapons scientist David Kelly exonerates Mr Blair's government of deliberately distorting intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. Lord Hutton says a BBC report that the government "sexed up" intelligence on Iraqi weapons was unfounded. But weeks of public testimony raise many questions about how Mr Blair's acolytes acted in the run-up to war.

July 14, 2004: A separate inquiry by Lord Butler into the flawed intelligence on Iraq clears Mr Blair of misleading Britons but paints a damning picture of lax government procedures.

October 1, 2004: Mr Blair goes into hospital to correct recurrent heart palpitations but is soon back at work. A close friend and ally says Mr Blair considered standing down last year, although not for health reasons.