csua.org/u/bz7 -> www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/05/08/british.election.main/index.html
LONDON, England -- Labour MPs have begun to call on Tony Blair to quit Do wning Street long before he completes a full third term at Number 10. Speculation has been mounting that Blair would face pressure to step down as prime minister since he won Thursday's election with a significantly reduced parliamentary majority. Blair has said he would serve a full third term but not take the Labour P arty into another election. Thursday's victory marked the first time a L abour leader had won a third straight election. However, more than a dozen Labour MPs have told British media that Blair should go sooner rather than later and urged a swift handover to heir ap parent and finance minister Gordon Brown. "Anyone on the streets knows we were not elected because Tony Blair was p opular this time around," former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told the B BC. "The question Tony Blair should be reflecting on this weekend is ... whet her now might be a better time to let a new leader in who could then ach ieve the unity we need if we are going to go forward," said Cook, who qu it the Cabinet over Blair's support for war in Iraq. London MP John Austin told The Sunday Times newspaper: "He was a liabilit y and not an asset in this election. Blai r was a negative factor on the doorstep, time and time and time again." Labour left-winger Jeremy Corbyn, a fierce critic of Blair's decision to go to war in Iraq, predicted the prime minister could be out of Downing Street within a year. "I think he might well decide that the end of the G-8 presidency is the t ime to go," Corbyn told Channel 4 "I don't think he would want to go in the middle of it." Britain's one-year presidency of the Group of Eight major industrialized countries concludes at the end of 2005. Other MPs suggested Blair might want to step down after a UK referendum o n the European Union constitution expected to be held next spring -- or even after the French referendum on the EU charter later this month. "In many ways I think the French electorate will decide the timing becaus e if the French vote 'no' then there will be really no rational reason f or him to stay on," said former Labour health secretary Frank Dobson. Writing in The Mail on Sunday, actress and former minister Glenda Jackson , a north London MP and vocal critic of the Iraq war, said: "The people have spoken. But Blair shows few signs of being ready to leave his job soon. A Downing Street spokesman declined to comment on the reports, other than to point to Blair's statement last September in which he said that if r e-elected he would serve a full third term. "There has been no change," the spokesman told UK's Press Association. The Observer newspaper reported that within Blair's private circle, the t imetable being discussed would involve him triggering a party leadership contest in July 2008 and remaining as prime minister while the successi on is resolved, allowing the new leader to take over that autumn. Labour communications chief Alastair Campbell dismissed calls Sunday for Blair to step aside. "He has said he is going to stay for a full term and I think it is absolu tely right that he does that," Campbell told the BBC. "What is more, you look at the papers and there is a sense that parts of the media, they just pile it on and pile it on because they just do, it is what they do. "But some of the people quoted in the papers today -- you could have got them to say 'Blair must go' any day of the week." Brown, Blair's chancellor of the exchequer, is seen as his likely heir. "There is going to have to be another leader in place when the next elect ion comes and you would have to put your money on Gordon," Campbell said . "I think Gordon has shown both in his management of the economy but also in the vision that he has for the country and the values that he holds, he is a formidable political figure." Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell, who retained her portfolio in Blair's Cab inet reshuffle after the election, said: "If I were putting my money on who will be the next leader of the Labour Party, the next prime minister once Tony Blair stands down, as he has indicated he will, then I expect the next leader to be Gordon Brown, yes." This material may not be publishe d, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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