Blair's gesture politics

    A foreign reporter and an ethnic minority representative at the opening ceremony of the 5th session of the 10th National People's Congress (NPC).

    In his youth, Tony Blair's rebellious streak often landed him in trouble. He was almost expelled from school for persistent rule-breaking and was once arrested as he tried to climb into his dormitory through a window.

    The future Prime Minister remained equally impish when at Oxford - as this extraordinary picture of him making a lewd hand gesture demonstrates.

    A photograph of Tony Blair as a long-haired, boater-wearing student was reproduced in a number of newspapers with focus on his less than prime ministerial hand gesture.

    The shaggy-haired undergraduate from St John's College, Oxford University -- dressed in a blue blazer, white shirt with enormous collars and a straw hat perched at a jaunty angle -- has been seen before but only from the waist up.

    BBC's "Newsight" programme has now unearthed the original and published it in full, complete with the then 21-year-old Blair's universally understood right-hand gesture around his groin area.

    Although the photo has been published before, Mr Blair's hand gesture was digitally removed from it by the press agency which supplied it, out of respect for the Prime Minister.

    A "Newsnight" reporter found the snap of the apparently well-oiled college archery club in 1975 while researching a student photograph of Conservative leader David Cameron.

    On Blair's photo, the Daily Express wondered: "So, Tony... is that where you learnt gesture politics?"