Washington's Voz - Blair scores re-election hat trick, but Iraq shaves Labour majority

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Blair scores re-election hat trick,
but Iraq shaves Labour majority

eter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife Cherie listen to the speeches after he won his seat on May 6, 2005 in Newton Aycliffe, England

05/06/2005

British Prime Minister Tony Blair clinched a historic third straight term in office Friday, but with a significantly reduced majority for his Labour Party as voters angered by the Iraq war dealt him “a bloody nose”.
The outcome of Thursday’s general election called into question Blair’s stated intention to serve a full term before handing over the reins of power, most probably to his ambitious finance minister Gordon Brown.

With ballots counted in 541 out of 645 constituencies at 4:30 am (0330 GMT), Labour had won 328 seats in the House of Commons, ahead of Michael Howard’s Conservatives with 153 seats and the Liberal Democrats with 50 seats.

Scottish and Welsh nationalists and independents took the other seats.
A BBC-ITV exit poll forecast an eventual 66-seat majority, well down from Labour’s huge 167-seat majority in the June 2001 election, while Sky News television projected an 80-seat majority.

“To be re-elected for a third time is very special, so it’s a tremendous privilege and an honour,” Blair told a hall full of cheering supporters in his home district of Sedgefield, northeast England.

“Let’s make sure we use it for the good of our country and the people.”
But he conceded that his position has been weakened.
“It is clear that the British people wanted the return of the Labour Party, but with a reduced majority,” he said. “We have to respond that sensibly, wisely and responsibly.”

Michael Howard, cheered by his Tories’ strongest performance at the polls since Blair and Labour broke their 18-year run in power in May 1997, conceded defeat, but with a warning to the prime minister.
“I congratulate him (but) I believe that the time has now come for him to deliver on the things that really matter for the people of our country,” he told Conservative faithful.

Final results were not due in before late Friday, when Blair -- US President George W. Bush’s staunchest ally on the world stage -- will have already started putting together a new cabinet.
But his opponents wasted no time in savouring his setback.
“We have landed a good hard punch on Mr Blair’s nose,” said Alex Deane, chief of staff for Tim Collins, education spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw admitted on BBC television: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Iraq played a part in the reduction in votes (for Labour).”
Blair was keen to fight the election on Labour’s stewardship of the robust British economy and the need to press on with much-needed health and education reforms.

But Iraq returned to haunt him, especially when he was forced mid-way through the campaign to publish a secret memo from his attorney general that questioned the legality of invading Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Howard branded Blair a “liar”, a rare accusation for one British politician to make to another, while Liberal Democrats chief Charles Kennedy hoped to cash in on his party’s anti-war stance.

With the election out of the way, Blair will be turning his attention to the international stage, as Britain takes over the rotating EU presidency on July 1 and hosts the Group of Eight summit in Scotland on July 6-8.
But he faces yet another daunting challenge, as he has pledged to put the EU constitution, the subject of a closely-fought referendum in France on May 29, before the famously eurosceptic British public next year.
Longer term, the outcome of the election raises questions as to whether Blair will be able to make good on his desire, announced last year, to serve a full term if re-elected, and then resign.

“This is not good for Labour. This means Blair goes quickly,” probably two years into his maximum five-year term, professor Richard Sennett of the London School of Economics (LSE) told AFP.
Patrick Dunleavy, another LSE professor, added: “It perhaps suggests that people are happy with a Labour government, but unhappy with Tony Blair because of the Iraq war.”

Shortly after polling stations opened Thursday, two grenades -- described by police as “novelty-type grenades filled with black powder” -- went off outside the British consulate in New York City.
No one was injured, but the incident on the other side of the Atlantic prompted British police, themselves already on heightened terrorist alert, to bolster their presence in London and elsewhere.