Just weeks after Mr Blair entered Downing Street, a review of university funding commissioned by the previous Tory government recommended introducing university-tuition fees.
David Cameron, the Tory leader, went from university into the party's research department and, apart from a few years studying the dark arts of public relations, has been in politics all his adult life.
Analysis of local by-elections by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher of Plymouth University suggests that there has been a 10% swing from Labour to Tory in the South and Midlands.