re:sailor blair wins - but loses
Mr sailor, your brain is too cluttered with insults to see reality:
Pressure mounts for Blair to resign soon By James Button London May 9, 2005
British Prime Minister Tony Blair is defying a campaign among backbench Labour MPs to force him to step down within a year, and plans to stay until July 2008, according to a report in The Observer.
Mr Blair's likely successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, is bound to resist such a late departure - only a year before the next election - and reports of tension between the two men over ministerial appointments were widespread yesterday.
Recriminations over the election result have broken out in both parties, with Conservative Party co-chairman Lord Saatchi writing in The Telegraph that the Tories "did not raise the horizons of the British and tell them with sufficient optimism, excitement and passion what should be".
More than 20 Labour MPs told newspapers it was nearly time for Mr Blair to resign. In comments typical of the group, former health secretary Frank Dobson said the Prime Minister was an "electoral liability" who would have to go sooner rather than later.
Anne Campbell, a Blair supporter who lost her Cambridge seat to the Liberal Democrats despite voting against the war, told The Observer: "There were quite a lot of people saying to me, 'If Gordon Brown were prime minister I would vote Labour'." But Blair critic and former minister Peter Kilfoyle said the Prime Minister should be allowed to retire with dignity, not be pushed out by kneejerk hostility. AdvertisementAdvertisement
Calling for "a period of sombre reflection on all sides", Mr Kilfoyle told The Guardian that Mr Blair "wants to get his legislation through and does not want to go down ignominiously but in style".
Dissident MPs are expected to express their views about the leadership at tomorrow's meeting of the parliamentary party, where Mr Blair will also face intense pressure to drop his proposal for controversial identity cards to fight illegal immigration and terrorism, a key policy in Labour's election manifesto.
MPs close to Mr Brown said Mr Blair might step down after a likely referendum on the European Constitution a year from now, after the Labour Party conference in the British autumn or even after the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July.
Mr Blair has brought his ally, former home secretary David Blunkett, back into the cabinet as Work and Pensions Secretary.
But The Independent reported that Mr Blair's plan to give Mr Blunkett control of local government was rejected by Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who holds that job.
The final result gave Labour 36 per cent of the vote - the lowest share for a governing party in modern British history - and 355 seats. The Conservatives won 33 per cent, gaining a national swing of only 0.6 per cent, and 197 seats while the Liberal Democrats won 23 per cent of the vote - up from 19 per cent in 2001 - and 62 seats. Labour's majority is 66 seats.
