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| quote: | Blair's Fortunes Bolstered by Opposition
By ED JOHNSON, Associated Press WriterSat Apr 30, 4:41 PM ET
He's loathed by sections of his own party, has been heckled by voters and accused of lying over the Iraq war. Yet Prime Minister Tony Blair heads into the final days of Britain's election campaign leading the polls — thanks in part to alienated Labour Party stalwarts who will hold their noses and vote for him anyway.
The war opponents nonetheless value the Labour government's increased spending on education and health; some disappointed by the party's shift to the center simply see no attractive alternative in the vote on May 5.
Blair's fortunes have also been bolstered by the unpopularity of the main opposition Conservatives, who dominated British politics for most of the 20th century. Under Margaret Thatcher, who championed individual initiative and the free market, the party commanded was unassailable.
But throughout the 1990s its popularity slipped, because of an unpopular new local tax, internal feuding over European integration, an economic recession and repeated sleaze scandals.
"I don't like him, but there is no one better to take his place," said David Server, 44, working at his fruit stall in central London. "He doesn't tell his own party what he is doing, let alone anybody else. But we haven't got an alternative."
Blair's credibility has been badly dented by the war and accusations that his government exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. In recent days he has been buffeted by renewed questions about the legality of the Iraq war.
Blair has transformed the socialist Labour Party, broadening its appeal to the middle classes and big business. Since Labour won the first of two landslides in 1997, the Conservatives have struggled to find a message and a leader to recover lost ground.
Michael Howard, the third Conservative leader since 1997, took the helm 18 months ago and has enforced discipline in a party which had indulged in public feuding.
Labour's "forward not back" slogan is intended to remind voters that Howard was a prominent member of the government they decisively rejected in 1997. The approach appears to have damaged Howard.
"I just don't think as a leader he is imposing enough," said Toby Bowers, 28, who says he's disillusioned with Labour but cannot bring himself to vote Conservative.
"This is the gritted teeth election," said professor Steve Reicher at St. Andrews University. "People are thinking, what choice do I have? They think, 'I don't like what Blair has done, but I don't like Howard.'"
Some Labour candidates have flaunted their opposition to Blair; even more have pointedly omitted his picture from their campaign literature. But every Labour candidate wants to win, and each Labour victory will build toward the majority needed to keep Blair in office.
Blair has long been unpopular with left wing of his party, which was unhappy with his shift to the right but willing to embrace him as a winner.
"Iraq is a big issue and it is so big that some people won't vote," said former Labour lawmaker Alice Mahon, a vehement critic of the war and Blair. "I am still going round asking people to vote Labour. There is a lot to defend," she added.
She cited his accomplishments as high employment, the minimum wage law legislated by his government and a new hospital in her area.
Robin Cook, who resigned from Blair's cabinet in opposition to the war, wrote in The Guardian newspaper that an acquaintance "seethes at the very mention of Iraq but is resolved to vote Labour because of parents whose lives have been transformed by (a) pension credit" of the equivalent of $85 a week.
Labour's fear is that disaffected supporters will either stay at home or switch allegiance to the Liberal Democrats, the only major party to oppose the war.
"If people drift off, and either stay at home or vote Liberal Democrat ... the result will be not that they remove the difficulties, problems, or disappointments that they have had with this government; they actually end up with a Conservative government that will remove the very things they want to keep," Blair said on Friday.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050430...rites&printer=1
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