William Blair (judge) William Blair (judge) Sir William James Lynton Blair (born 31 March 1950) is a retired British judge. He was previously a Queen's Counsel, specialising in domestic and international banking and finance law. He is the elder brother of former British prime minister Tony Blair. Blair was born in Scotland to Leo Charles Lynton Blair, a barrister and later a lecturer in law, and Hazel Corscadden. Like his brother Tony, the future Prime Minister, he was educated at the independent Choristers School in Durham and Fettes College in Edinburgh, before studying Jurisprudence (Law) at Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1971 with
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom decision-making. Former ministers such as Clare Short and Chris Smith have criticised the lack of decision-making power in Cabinet. When she resigned, Short denounced "the centralisation of power into the hands of the Prime Minister and an increasingly small number of advisers". Graham Allen (a Government Whip during Tony Blair's first government) made the case in "The Last Prime Minister: Being Honest About the UK Presidency" (2003) that in fact the office of prime minister has presidential powers. However, the presidentialisation thesis has been extensively criticised as well. Keith Dowding, for example, argues that British Prime Ministers are already more