Posted on 04/27/2005 6:27:53 PM PDT by West Coast Conservative
British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party had a bad case of the pre-election jitters as new opinion polls showed next week's vote could be uncomfortably close, rather than the long-predicted re-election stroll.
With the May 5 election just eight days away, the pressure was being felt on all sides, with the prime minister's opponents stepping up attacks on his character, a tactic Blair condemned as "personal abuse".
Blair's Labour Party has long been expected to win a third consecutive term in office, an outcome which most pundits still see as a near-certainty.
However, a pair of polls -- one conducted privately for Labour -- appeared to indicate that the main opposition Conservative Party could make the outcome surprisingly tight.
A survey conducted for the Financial Times showed that if people were simply asked which party they supported, Labour had a 10 percentage point lead on the Conservatives.
However, when the question was addressed only to those who said they would definitely vote, the lead was cut back to just two percent, a small comfort margin for Blair and his ministers.
The survey threatened to "throw a wobbly into the election", said Robert Worcester, the veteran head of polling firm MORI, who has been measuring opinion in British elections for more than 30 years.
"The size of the (Labour) party's victory all depends on the turnout next week," he wrote in the Financial Times.
According to a separate report in the Guardian newspaper, similar worries have been reflected in Labour's own private polling.
An internal party study said that a low turnout could badly hit the government in the small number of key "marginal" parliamentary seats, where the race between Labour and other parties is especially close.
The Labour report cited four example constituencies where the party hoped to hold off the Conservatives, and warned that the race was currently "neck and neck" in each of them, the Guardian said.
"It is the number of definite-to-votes who will make or break this election," Labour's election co-ordinator Alan Milburn told the paper.
The sudden fright mirrors the famous "wobbly Thursday" endured by then-Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1987 general election, when a poll suggested an expected easy victory could be snatched away from her by Labour.
In a hopeful omen for Blair, Thatcher eventually ended up winning another massive majority in the House of Commons.
Labour are still likely to win a majority, but a sharp drop in the party's vote could badly undermine Blair's authority, potentially even prompting his removal in favour of Gordon Brown, the finance minister and long-time heir apparent.
However, at the same time a pre-election fright could even help Blair by persuading more Labour backers to go out and vote.
Over recent days, the prime minister has faced a relentless assault from Conservative leader Michael Howard over his reasons for backing the Iraq war, and -- in an unusually personal attack for British politics -- was openly labelled a liar in a new Conservative poster.
Howard repeated the charge on Wednesday, saying he had backed the war, but adding: "You could have gone to war and told the truth. That's what Mr Blair didn't do."
Blair rejected the accusation head-on in an interview late Wednesday.
"I have never told a lie", he said on Sky News. "I don't intend to go telling lies to people. I did not lie over Iraq."
He said he would restrain from a verbal slugging match with Howard, saying he did not want "a debate with people who want to trade insults".
Ivan I don't know enough about UK politics......but if Blair should lose is that bad news?
Maybe Mad Ivan has a comment.
Dumb Blair, he KNOWS Clinton is the KISS OF DEATH when he campaigns for people....I hope the damage ain't frightful!
Well, we know who the Beeb is rooting for.... :p
Ivan and I discussed this last week. He can correct me if I misunderstood him, but his opinion seemed to be that the Tories won't gain enough seats to knock off Labour, but will make it close enough to keep Labour from veering too far left under Gordon Brown. Unfortunately, Tony Blair doesn't look to be PM much longer either way. He and John Howard of Australia have been our best friends since 9-11.
Blair said he was staying for the duration. But of course that is what you would expect him to say. From playing with the swingometer on the BBC site, it seems just about impossible that Labor will lose its majority. It would have to be a Torie blowout. That just isn't going to happen.
Blair is an unrepentant liberal, but we couldn't have had a better friend during the War with Terror.
Check with Ivan on whether or not Blair is still at 10 Downing St. in another 6 months or so. Gordon Brown's name didn't make it's way into the article by accident....
Labour constituencies have a lower voting rate and a lower population than average. The Boundaries Commission tolerates a much wider range of population in constituencies than American courts would and the difference favors urban constituencies and isolated bits of the Celtic fringe.
"if Blair should lose is that bad news?"
No the opposite. It'll be the best news of the decade!
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