NYT : Britain’s Political Season Gets Under Way

Britain’s Political Season Gets Under Way

by ALAN COWELL | September 1, 2006

LONDON, Sept. 1 — After a summer of grumbles about Tony Blair, Britain’s political season got under way today to a familiar libretto: the prime minister said he would not be quitting any time soon, while his adversaries within his own party said he should.

In an interview published in The Times of London, Mr. Blair castigated his foes and told them to stop “obsessing” about the likely duration of his tenure and “in the meantime get on with the business of government.” His remarks drew renewed protests from Labor legislators and labor unionists urging Mr. Blair to set a timetable for his departure. Bookmakers William Hill shortened the odds on Mr. Blair’s resigning in 2007.

The timing of Mr. Blair’s remarks was significant. Later this month, he faces the annual conference of his Labor Party, now in its ninth year of office and showing some of the third-term fatigue to which British administrations have often been heir. The divisions have deepened particularly over Mr. Blair’s close alliance with President Bush in dealings with the Muslim world, and what has been depicted by critics as a tilt towards Israel in the latest Lebanon war.

Some among his foes had urged him to use the conference in three weeks to announce a schedule for redeeming a two-year-old pledge to step down as Labor Party leader — and thus as prime minister — before the next national election, to be held by 2010 at the latest.

But Mr. Blair declined to commit himself to a formal schedule.

“I’ve said I won’t fight another election. I’ve also said that I will give ample time to my successor,” he told The Times of London. “If people want stable and orderly change they should not keep obsessing about it in the meantime but, instead, get on with the business of government.”

The debate reflects a concern among some Laborites that Mr. Blair has become an electoral liability and should make way for his anointed successor, Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, to avoid defeat at the polls. “If an election was run tomorrow,” said Tony Woodley, a prominent labor union leader, “Labor would be most likely to lose.”

Urging a change of leader, he declared: “The sooner we do it the better now.”

The calls for Mr. Blair’s departure come from within his Labor Party. The opposition Conservatives, buoyed by a recent opinion survey showing they command 40 per cent of the vote — a proportion that suffices, in the British system, to form a government — seem happy to bide their time. Their strategy suggests that the Conservatives are hoping to leave Labor to internecine feuding while they snipe from the wings and focus on burnishing the image of their leader of nine months, David Cameron.

Mr. Woodley, the labor union leader, said, “Mr. Cameron is devoid of policies, he is shallow. But right now he’s got a very decent spin machine out there and he’s finding favor.”

The extent of the Labor rebellion against Mr. Blair is difficult to gauge as the contest over his future is generally fought out in surreptitious background briefings by the protagonists or their champions. Currently, the word from such oracles is, according to The Guardian today, that Mr. Blair wants another year or so, announcing a timetable for his departure before the local elections set for next May and quitting during the summer.

David Blunkett, a former cabinet minister, urged Labor supporters to give Mr. Blair time to orchestrate his departure in leisurely and “a perfectly civilized way” and suggested that the matter had been discussed at a high level.

“We have got three and a half years before the general election, and I am absolutely certain discussions have taken place with very, very senior colleagues ensuring that there will be a lengthy period before that general election date had to be chosen,” he said in a BBC radio interview. “I think he should do it in his own time, without pressure, in a reasonable fashion, ensuring that there is a long period for the handover.”

Mr. Blair’s standing among Britons has been damaged by leading them into a broadly unpopular conflict in Iraq and by appearing to some as an excessively pliant junior partner in his dealings with President Bush.

During the summer he ignored demands from his followers to urge an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon or label Israel’s military tactics disproportionate. Some critics also questioned his decision to remain on vacation in the Caribbean while Britain went through one of its highest security alerts, following the discovery of what the police called a conspiracy to bomb transatlantic airliners.

But he has spoken dismissively of those who demand a schedule for his departure, effectively challenging them to show their hand or be silent before the Labor Party conference.

“I really think it is absurd for the people who say we must stop this continual speculation about the leadership to continue to speculate about it,” he told The Times of London. “I have done what no other prime minister has done before me. I’ve said I’m not going to go on and on, and said I’ll leave ample time for my successor. Now at some point I think people have to accept that as a reasonable proposition and let me get on with the job.”