csua.org/u/byy -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050505/wl_uk_afp/britainvotelabour
Tony Blair looked to have made history by becoming the first Labour P arty leader to win three straight terms in office. Yet this latest victo ry could herald his imminent exit.
Blair, who turns 52 on Friday, has led Labour to a majority of 66, down f rom the 167 seen in the last general election in 2001, the BBC exit poll said. Pundits have predicted that Blair, who has already pledged to step down a t the end of a third term in office, could hand over power much sooner t o his ambitious Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, if the fallou t over Iraq looks to have fatally undermined his popularity. The man once known as "Teflon Tony" because criticism rarely stuck to him endured a torrid election campaign over allegations he misled the count ry about his reasons for joining the US-led war in Iraq in March 2003. Repeated opinion polls during the campaign showed considerable hostility towards Blair, even among professed Labour supporters, largely due to th e Iraq war, which millions of Britons opposed. Brown has never made a secret of his desire to take the top job, and if t he premier begins to resemble a lame duck incumbent, Brown's supporters in the Labour Party could act to remove Blair. Whatever happens, Labour's fortunes in recent years owe massive amounts t o Blair. It was his political master stroke that rescued the party from oblivion a decade ago, and put the formerly all-powerful Conservatives on the rope s The key was reforming the ideologically leftist Labour Party with a fresh pragmatic brand of centrist economic and social policies that captured the ground from the Conservatives. Since the party's first landslide victory in 1997, followed by another in 2001, the Blair government has set about changing the political landsca pe of Britain. Under constitutional reforms, Scotland and Wales have voted for devolutio n and set up their own political bodies.
Afghanistan , as well as brokered a peace agreement in Northern Ireland and launched a major development plan for Africa. Though part of Britain's educated elite, following private school with a law degree at Oxford University, Blair is a different breed of politicia n Blair, who at the age of 30 won the seat of Sedgefield, northeast England , in the 1983 election, rose quickly through the ranks to become party l eader in 1994, with his party still in opposition. So, in 1997 when he was only 43, Blair became not only the youngest prime minister since Lord Liverpool in 1812, but also set himself apart by ne ver having served as a cabinet minister, or even as a junior minister. Much like a US president, Blair is known to prefer working with his advis ors -- he has a record 20 of them -- to formulate policies while reachin g out to voters directly with his great powers of persuasion.
The infor mation contained in the AFP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of Agenc e France Presse.
|
http://csua.com/feed/