Speaking to supporters at Trimdon Labour Club in his Sedgefield constituency, he said he will step down in just over a month and admitted he had made mistakes.

But despite the announcement being carefully timed to come less than 48 hours after resumption of Northern Ireland's power-sharing Executive, widely regarded as his greatest political achievement, he gave it the briefest of mentions. Instead he focused on investment in schools and public services.

"Today, I announce my decision to stand down from the leadership of the Labour Party. The party will now select a new leader," he said.

"On the 27th of June I will tender my resignation from the office of Prime Minister to the Queen. I have been Prime Minister of this country for just over 10 years. In this job, in the world today, I think that is long enough for me, but more especially for the country."

Mr Blair will continue as Prime Minister for another seven weeks and will represent Britain at forthcoming G8 and European Union summits.

He added: "Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down. Hand on heart I did what I thought was right. I may have been wrong - that is your call. I did what I thought was right.

"Britain is not a follower today. Britain is a leader. It gets the essential characteristic of today's world - it is inter-dependent.

A figure of ridicule: Oh, how we will miss him

Tony Blair has been the easiest of targets for the satirists. Here, some of the leading lampooners explain what he meant to them. Interviews by Andy Dykes, Lisa Williams and Yolanda Bobeldijk

Dave Brown, Cartoonist, The Independent

I won't be sad to see the back of Blair. I detest the man and what he's done. But he's great to draw. You put all that bile, hatred and angst into drawing. Blair's legacy is Iraq. It could have almost been Northern Ireland but Iraq just overshadows everything.

He's easy to draw as a recognisable type. But you've got to do something that suggests he has this split personality. The one staring, glinting eye and the one closed, slightly wrinkled eye. As a cartoonist you can introduce these little elements over time.

There's one I did a couple of years ago at Christmas. It's just the shape of a Christmas tree. There's one single bauble that works as his glinting eye and a row of fairy lights that look like the teeth. That's Blair. You don't need any other features. Once you get people used to your depiction you can get on with the comment.

At first he was this young guy, fairly bland looking, but you pick up on things to help you say what you want to say. Once they are recognisable you stop worrying about realistic representation.

Blair has some interesting gestures that you can put into cartoons. If you draw him standing at a lectern he does this thing with his hands where he moves them one way and then switches them back the other way. Of course politicians are taught to do that but I don't know what it means.

I'm not looking forward to drawing more of Gordon Brown. I've been drawing him as long as I've been drawing Tony. Maybe as PM there'll be something more, but is there much to explore?

James Larkin, Actor who played Blair in the Channel 4 drama The Government Inspector

I approached the role not thinking about him, but thinking about the character that had been written. If I tried to play him as he is, with all the mannerisms and the voice, people would have seen it as an impression or an impersonation of him, rather than an acting role.

Michael Sheen, who played him in The Queen, did a great job. But he took on some of Blair's gestures and it made me wonder how similar to Blair he was acting. Instead, I tried to portray some of his personality traits, such as his energy. He has always had an extraordinary amount of energy, which I am quite jealous of. Blair's biographer said he liked my portrayal.

It is hard to say what his legacy will be. His character traits are apparent and will be remembered. He will be remembered as a determined person. I would play Tony Blair again. It was good fun.

John Morrison, Author of Anthony Blair: Captain of School, a comic novel

I think we all gave Tony Blair the benefit of the doubt when he went to war in Afghanistan. I supported a lot of the things he was trying to do. But when we went to war in Iraq I gave it a lot of thought and wanted to write about it. It struck me that Westminster is like an old-fashioned boys' school. The idea of writing a book about Westminister in this style seemed obvious.

Because Blair is a public school boy he fitted in well to what I was trying to do. Blair is so polite and eager to please. People who know him think my depcition was spot on.

I think the war in Iraq can be his only legacy. This man has thousands of deaths on his conscience, in my view, and he can't get round that.

Jon Culshaw, Impressionist and comedian

It didn't take long before Tony Blair became instantly recognisable to the audience. With Blair, people knew very soon that he was playing off his youth, off this earnest [adopts Blair voice] "things can only get better, wrinkled forehead, anxious earlobes" sort of approach.

At the start he was simply portrayed as a schoolboy. He was then portrayed as a sort of flouncing prime minister who liked feta cheese and Paul Smith suits. Then it was the Machiavellian Prime Minister with the red eyes. But he always had the earnest pointy finger and the cool prime minister bald spot. His body language and movements were pointy and jerky, like a little pigeon. I extend and stretch those characteristics when I play him.

My favourite form of his speech was where he was being very emphatic. He would always pinch his thumb and forefinger together in a very soft point. It was never a deliberate point. He really did want to create that people's prime minister, that softer image.

There'll be two chapters to his legacy. There's the "things can only get better" for the first five years and in the second half it was the actions behind the words. People were asking when is it going to get better? Then, of course, Iraq.

Robert Bathurst, Actor who plays the PM in BBC sitcom My Dad's The Prime Minister

I didn't watch Tony Blair specifically when I took the part in My Dad's The Prime Minister. It wasn't really about him; it was more about family life. It was a funny character who was running the country but couldn't rule his own family in Downing Street. But I did have a snoop around in Parliament before the show. For Whipping it Up [the stage play in which Bathurst plays a government whip] I do it more often than I did for My Dad's the Prime Minister. It's worth it to see how politicians actually behave.

The other day I was on the public bench in the House of Commons watching Prime Minister's Questions. Tony Blair is a masterful parliamentarian. Kenneth Clarke's face was creased with admiration when Blair was speaking, rather more than when David Cameron was speaking.

He completely stiffed the Tories in the Iraq debate. They had absolutely no leg to stand on. It was a masterful trick. I don't know what Blair's legacy will be, obviously Iraq will be part of it.

Alison Jackson, Film-maker

I'm making a film about Blair so I'm a bit surrounded at the moment. In some senses Blair was right for now because he was a perfect master of TV and we live in a TV world. He does that very well. It doesn't matter what he's saying; he knows how to get a captive audience.

He has directed and destroyed politics. We've always wondered if politicians were telling the truth and now there's no doubt that often they aren't.

There is no glory in Tony Blair's decade. There he is trying to go down in the history books and hoping people will forget how disappointing he was. But even in leaving he's managed to make a mess. He was always there for famous moments: Diana moments, Queen Mother moments, war. But there's this trail of horror that's left behind him.

The film I'm making, Tony Blair, Rock Star, was based on research we did into his gap year. When he did play his first rock concert, the drums fell apart and everything went wrong and everyone booed and walked out. Then when he managed a band he hired the Albert Hall but no one had ever heard of them so nobody came. He had all these fabulous ideas that came to nothing.

I suspect maybe in a couple of years he'll go into business, or after-dinner speaking. For now he's going to enjoy the pinnacle of his after-stardom. But his legacy will be Iraq and lies.

Jonathan Cullen, Actor who played Blair in Feelgood and Why We Went to War

When I first played Blair in Feelgood, I would start doing the wool-winding hand action and the audience would laugh straight away.

They were ready to laugh at him. But when I returned to the part, after 9/11, the audience had changed. They didn't want to see him as a figure of fun any more. I didn't prepare for the role. People want to see the characteristics that you remember when you don't look closely: the tone of sincerity, the pauses and the heavy emphases.

This is what you do when people in the pub ask you to "Do Blair". It can easily turn into Julian Clary though.

But when I did Why We Went to War, it had to be different. It was his parliamentary side. I had to fight the impulse to play him how I saw him and play his corner for him instead. Like most liberals, I was pleased when he came to power. But I became disenchanted when it turned out he was a Christian Democrat.

Alistair Beaton, Writer of stage plays Feelgood and Follow My Leader, and television programmes A Very Social Secretary and The Trial of Tony Blair

Tony Blair is worthy of satire. David Cameron is such an insubstantial figure you could write a three-minute sketch about him but no more. Blair is complex and contradictory, which makes him elusive and an interesting subject to satirise. He came into power on a great wave of hope and expectation. Then there was this strange curve from a man who always put his finger in the wind to give people what they wanted to the politician who started taking us to war.

He will be remembered for the disaster that is Iraq. It was a hopeless mission and its effects will go on a long time.

What is interesting about satire is moments such as yesterday, when I picked up the paper to read that Blair wants to set up an interfaith forum. I included this idea in The Trial of Tony Blair, written a year ago, and now it has come to life. It shows his delusional vanity, that he thinks he can improve understanding between religions when he has done so much to undermine relations between them.

I'm tempted to say I'm relieved he's going so I can move on. But I have a sneaky suspicion he'll find a well-paid and important international job and I'll need to take a shot at him once again.

Matt Buck, Cartoonist

It has got easier to draw Tony Blair in recent years, as there are more issues with which to characterise him. A cartoon always reveals something of a person that he or she actually wants to hide. With Tony Blair it's definitely his teeth. When he first appeared [in my cartoons] he had this sort of cheesy grin but over time his teeth got more battered and disorganised. It's a metaphor for something that seemed to look ok, but in fact wasn't quite so appealing.

I will always remember Tony Blair's face when he got off an aeroplane somewhere in the Far East, there were lots of cameras and it was just after the news that David Kelly was found dead. He looked utterly in shock and guilty. At the time, I didn't use that image for my drawing. I drew the white tent on the hill where David Kelly was found. I thought that was a better drawing. I may have been wrong.