Trimdon Labour Club was a bar and local branch of

Sedgefield Sedgefield is a market town and civil parish in County Durham, England. It had a population of 5,211 as at the 2011 census. It has the only operating racecourse in County Durham. History Roman A Roman 'ladder settlement' was discovered by C ...

Labour Party in the village of

Trimdon Trimdon is a village in County Durham, in England, previously known as Tremeldon (1196) or Tremedon (1262).Eilert Ekwall,1959, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Placenames'' (4th edition), OUP, Oxford, p. 480; he cites taxation sources, ...

, County Durham in England. It opened in 1993, as a conversion of a former

Working Men's Club Working men's clubs are British private social clubs first created in the 19th century in industrial areas, particularly the North of England, Midlands, Scotland and South Wales Valleys, to provide recreation and education for working class me ...

. It was the local Labour Club of former British

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is n ...

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of th ...

, who lived in nearby

Trimdon Colliery Trimdon Colliery is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated a few miles to the west of Hartlepool, and a short distance to the north of Trimdon. Its most famous resident was the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair Sir Antho ...

History

Trimdon Labour Club opened in its former state as a

in 1919, serving beer to mineworkers from a barrel in a farmer's cottage. It fell into disrepair in the 1980s, before the local

Constituency Labour Party __NOTOC__ A constituency Labour Party (CLP) is an organisation of members of the British Labour Party who live in a particular parliamentary constituency. In England and Wales, CLP boundaries coincide with those for UK parliamentary constituen ...

took on the running of the club. It was opened in its repurposed state in 1993 by former

Labour Leader The ''Labour Leader'' was a British socialist newspaper published for almost one hundred years. It was later renamed ''New Leader'' and ''Socialist Leader'', before finally taking the name ''Labour Leader'' again. 19th century The origins of the ...

Neil Kinnock Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock (born 28 March 1942) is a British former politician. As a member of the Labour Party, he served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995, first for Bedwellty and then for Islwyn. He was the Leader o ...

, with the help of a £350 loan from Sedgefield Labour Party. A year later, in 1994, then-

Shadow Home Secretary In British politics, the Shadow Home Secretary (formally known as the Shadow Secretary of State for the Home Department) is the person within the shadow cabinet who shadows the Home Secretary; this effectively means scrutinising government poli ...

and MP for Sedgefield Tony Blair announced that he would stand to be Leader of the Labour Party. He succeeded, replacing John Smith, who had died suddenly of a heart attack.

Rise to fame

In 1997, Tony Blair became Prime Minister after a

landslide election A landslide victory is an election result in which the victorious candidate or party wins by an overwhelming margin. The term became popular in the 1800s to describe a victory in which the opposition is "buried", similar to the way in which a geol ...

, ending 18 years of

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization ...

rule. His victory speech came from the stage inside the club, sweeping the Labour Party into power and Blair into

Number 10 Downing Street 10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...

. The next year, Blair accompanied French Prime Minister

Lionel Jospin Lionel Robert Jospin (; born 12 July 1937) is a French politician who served as Prime Minister of France from 1997 to 2002. Jospin was First Secretary of the Socialist Party from 1995 to 1997 and the party's candidate for President of France in ...

for a pint of beer in the bar, and in 1999 a phone call was received from US President Bill Clinton, to which the barmaid asked customers: "Is Tony Blair in?" Blair's agent, John Burton asked who it was, and the barmaid replied that it was "someone called Clinton". Five years later, Clinton's successor

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

and First Lady

Laura Bush Laura Lane Welch Bush (''née'' Welch; born November 4, 1946) is an American teacher, librarian, memoirist and author who was First Lady of the United States from 2001 to 2009. Bush previously served as First Lady of Texas from 1995 to 2000. ...

called into the club on a visit to the UK with Blair and his wife

Cherie Cherie is an English female given name. It comes from the French ''chérie'', meaning ''darling'' (from the past participle of the verb ''chérir'', ''to cherish''). Notable people with the name or stage name include: * Cherie, one of the stage ...

. In June 2007, Blair announced his resignation from the same stage as his election victory speech 10 years earlier, to a crowd of local Labour supporters and anti-war protesters. He returned the next year to make a speech in support of

Gordon Brown James Gordon Brown (born 20 February 1951) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Labour Party from 2007 to 2010. He previously served as Chancellor of the Exchequer in Tony B ...

, who was elected Prime Minister after Blair's resignation.

Demise

In 2010, three years after Blair gave up his Sedgefield seat, Trimdon Labour Club closed, citing reasons including the increase in

satellite TV Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna commo ...

, the

smoking ban Smoking bans, or smoke-free laws, are public policies, including criminal laws and occupational safety and health regulations, that prohibit tobacco smoking in certain spaces. The spaces most commonly affected by smoking bans are indoor workp ...

and cheap supermarket alcohol, all of which reduced custom to the club. The decision was confirmed after the new Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer

George Osborne George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...

announced a hike in the rate of

VAT A value-added tax (VAT), known in some countries as a goods and services tax (GST), is a type of tax that is assessed incrementally. It is levied on the price of a product or service at each stage of production, distribution, or sale to the en ...

in that year's budget, making staying open unrealistic. The £350 loan from Sedgefield Labour Party was repaid, and the club's secretary Paul Trippet announced that the club would close on 22 July 2010. The former club is now a carpet shop.

References

{{Reflist, 40em Buildings and structures in County Durham Labour Party (UK) 1919 establishments in England 2010 disestablishments in England Working men's clubs Trimdon