Tony Blair’s son has offered advice to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s two children on how to survive life in Downing Street.
Euan Blair, 41, spent much of his early years in the most famous house in the UK and has now offered his wisdom to Sir Keir’s own youngsters.Â
Famously, the oldest son of the former Prime Minister was apprehended for being drunk while celebrating his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) results. This incident caused significant embarrassment for his father as his son had to spend the night in a police cell.
Now he is the chief executive of his apprenticeship company Multiverse and last year was named as the 337th richest person in Britain.
Speaking to Newsnight, Mr Blair advised the Prime Minister’s children to ‘focus on what is normal’ while growing up behind the famous black door.
The son mentioned, “I believe the most important thing is to try to maintain a sense of normalcy, even though it may seem quite challenging or even ridiculous given the circumstances.”
He added, “The key is to focus on what’s familiar once you step through that door and into the family apartment. It truly felt like an ordinary home, not that different from how our lives had always been.”
‘And the more you can do that, especially, you know, through pretty formative and and often challenging teenage years, the better.’
Euan Blair, son of former Prime Minister Tony Blair advised Keir Starmer’s children to ‘focus on what is normal’ behind the doors of Number 10
Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Lady Victoria Starmer outside 10 Downing Street in December last year
The Prime Minister and his wife Victoria have tried to shield their teenage children from the public eye by keeping them out of photographs and never naming them in public.
But the stress of juggling politics with family life came to a head with the Starmer family during the election when the Prime Minister accepted the offer of a penthouse to allow his teenage son to study for his GCSEs.
The PM insisted his teenager needed somewhere to study in peace while the family were under close scrutiny during the run-up to the election.
The property is reported to have been an £18million penthouse in the Covent Garden area of London, owned by Labour’s Lord Alli. Â
Tony Blair’s children have now all grown up and are following different paths in their respective careers.
Euan now lives with his venture capitalist wife Suzanne Ashman and their two children in a five-storey townhouse in London bought for £22million in 2022. Â
Multiverse – which Euan set up with his friend Sophie Adelman eight years ago – uses software to match apprentices with corporate giants such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Pfizer and Net-a-Porter where they can learn while being paid.
The firm is one of the world’s fastest-growing tech firms after being valued at £1.4billion in 2022 – making Euan’s estimated 25 per cent stake worth £350million.
Euan was educated at the Catholic state-funded boys’ school London Oratory, where he became deputy head boy.
Euan told the children to ‘focus on what’s normal when you go behind that door’. Pictured Larry the cat entering Number 10
Euan Blair married venture capitalist Suzanne Ashman in Buckinghamshire in September 2013
But his teenage years are best known for when he was arrested aged 16 for being drunk and incapable in London’s Leicester Square in July 2000.
He was found by police officers vomiting on the pavement and an ambulance was called, but paramedics decided he did not need to go to hospital.
Euan was instead taken to a police station where he initially gave his name as Euan John, provided an old address and told officers he was 18.
He was kept in a cell at Charing Cross police station but later released without charge in the early hours of the following morning and driven home.
Tony said in a speech later that day that being a father was tougher than being prime minister and ‘sometimes you don’t always succeed’.
Euan went on to study ancient history at the University of Bristol before completing a master’s in international relations at Yale in the US.
He then got onto the graduate scheme at the investment bank Morgan Stanley, before deciding to set up Multiverse in 2016.
Multiverse – previously known as White Hat – was originally formed to help youngsters get into corporate jobs without going through the traditional university route.
Prime Minister Tony Blair accompanied by his family (left to right) Euan, Kathryn, Cherie, Nicky and (front row) Leo on the steps of 10 Downing Street as they leave for the final time in 2007
Now the company is looking to move away from apprenticeships and focus on ‘upskilling’, which trains workers in areas such as coding.
Despite his privileged upbringing, Euan has previously said higher education taught him ‘nothing,’ criticising ‘a system that was obsessed with using academics, with all the latent biases and problems inherent in that, to select people.’
Sir Tony’s second oldest child Nicky Blair studied history at Oxford University before doing some teaching in an inner-city school and launching a video game company.
The 39-year-old later became a successful football agent after co-founding Magnitude Brazil Sports, based in Rio de Janeiro.
His biggest known deal was when he collected 10 per cent from the £6.7million transfer of Mexican star Hector Herrera from CF Pachuca to FC Porto in 2013.
Nicky married divorce lawyer Alexandra Bevir, and in 2018 they bought a house in North London for £2.75million.
Tony Blair’s only daughter Kathryn, 37, has gone into law like her parents, and is now a successful family law barrister.
Tony Blair’s children (from left) Nicky, Kathryn, Euan and Leo at Windsor Castle in June 2022
She graduated from King’s College London and was called to Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London, and the same one which Tony and Blair joined in the Seventies.Â
Cherie bought a London property for Kathryn in 2014 for £1.2 million, and in 2022 it was revealed this has been sold for £1.9 million – an increase of 58 per cent in eight years.
The youngest child Leo, 24, who was the first child born to a serving Prime Minister in over 150 years in 2000, is said to be ‘musically gifted’ and interested in politics.
The Oxford University student has been pictured at major events with Cherie, and Tony revealed in 2017 that he is a Labour party member, having joined when Jeremy Corbyn was leader.
