Prime Minister of the United Kingdom seats than the opposition in a general election. Since 1722, most Prime Ministers have been members of the Commons; since 1902, all have had a seat there. Like other members, they are elected initially to represent only a constituency. Former Prime Minister Tony Blair, for example, represented Sedgefield in County Durham from 1983 to 2007. He became Prime Minister because in 1994 he was elected Labour Party leader and then led the party to victory in the 1997 general election, winning 418 seats compared to 165 for the Conservatives and gaining a majority in the House of Commons. Neither the
Premiership of Tony Blair "The British Presidency: Tony Blair and the Politics of Public Leadership". Foley uses Blair’s premiership as a case study to further the ‘presidentialisation thesis’, which is a model used to study the growing power of the British Prime Minister at the behest of the Cabinet, and the Parliament. According to Foley, centralisation of power under Blair, and his broader conduct in office points to the cementing of presidential tendencies in British politics. He writes: “The British Prime Minister has evolved, and is evolving away from what a Prime Minister used to do and used to be… Blair’s premiership represents another