Yo, Blair Yo, Blair "Yo, Blair, what are you doing?" was an informal greeting reportedly made by United States President George W. Bush to British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations (G8) in St Petersburg, Russia, on 17 July 2006. The quote gained wide popularity across the media. Although the greeting was popularized as "Yo, Blair", American media outlets such as "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post" transcribed it as "Yeah, Blair", while several British journalists, including Simon Hoggart and John Rentoul, have characterised the "Yo, Blair" transcript as a "myth": In
Yo, Blair lower middle class British slang as a "declaration of admiration... to the softer sex by the sterner". From the late 20th century, it frequently appeared in hip hop music and became associated with African American Vernacular English. Former British government minister Denis MacShane observed that "Yo, Blair" was the American equivalent of "wotcher, mate" and that metaphorically Bush and Blair had been addressing each other using the French informal "tu" ("you"), as opposed to the more formal "vous". Former British Foreign Secretary and NATO Secretary-General Peter Carrington reflected, "Iraq, and more recently Lebanon, have totally sidelined us. We have far