Blair bowing out?
Tony Blair 'consideró renunciar'
'Premier Blair overwoog aftreden'
Blair erwog nach Europawahl Rücktritt
Allies pleaded with Blair to stay
Gb, il primo ministro Blair "pensò di dimettersi"
Blair in firing line over Iraq
Tony Blair 'will stay on as PM'
Colleagues of Tony Blair have insisted he will stay on as prime minister despite indications that he considered stepping down last month.
On Saturday morning, the BBC learned that four cabinet ministers were so concerned he may quit that they personally urged him to stay.
Downing Street has pointed to recent remarks made by Mr Blair when he said he was "absolutely up for" staying on.
And one of the ministers, Tessa Jowell, says she is confident he will carry on.
It is thought that, in separate meetings, Ms Jowell, John Reid and Charles Clarke assured Mr Blair he had wide government support, while Patricia Hewitt wrote to the PM.
Their intervention came at a time of poor poll ratings, increased violence in Iraq and Labour's dire performance in local elections.
'No deal'
BBC political editor Andrew Marr said that "underlying tensions in the cabinet are now as bad as at any stage in recent years".
Cabinet gossip was now of a deal between Mr Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown last November involving the prime minister handing over "around about now".
But the prime minister had told friends this was "absolute rubbish", Mr Marr said.
Mr Blair had come through "something of a long night of the soul about whether to carry on" but was now "in steely mood".
But it was also a crucial time for Mr Brown.
This July may mark his last real chance to control the timing of any succession and to win a general election in his own name.
The "tug of love" between Mr Brown and Mr Blair was now "fragile, angry and not entirely stable", Marr added.
'Ministerial business'
Tessa Jowell insisted on Saturday that the prime minister was not about to step down.
But she refused to discuss reports that she had urged him to stay on.
She told BBC Radio 5 Live: "I don't think that Tony Blair has at any time indicated he is on the brink of resigning."
She said she would not talk about conversations she had "in the normal course of ministerial business" because "that is what you would expect between cabinet ministers and the prime minister".
She said Mr Blair's launch of a plan for health to cut waiting times showed this was "not a prime minister on the point of giving up".
"The prime minister has the support of his cabinet behind him in what he is doing", she added.
A Downing Street spokesman said on Saturday that Mr Blair had always insisted he would fight the next election as Labour leader.
Last month, the prime minister said he was "absolutely up for" the next general election.
"You have got to have the support of the people and that's decided in an election", he said.
'Intelligence limitations'
The PM next week faces the publication of the Butler report into intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
The findings will be published on Wednesday, on the eve of key by-elections for Labour in Birmingham Hodge Hill and Leicester South.
The report will highlight the "limitations" of intelligence on Iraq, according to a member of the inquiry team Tory MP Michael Mates.
It is also expected to criticise John Scarlett, who takes over as head of MI6 in August and who drew up the government's Iraq weapons dossier as chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).
Mr Blair has been criticised for appointing Mr Scarlett to head MI6 before seeing the Butler report's conclusions.
LEADERSHIP IN CRISIS?
16 May - Cabinet ministers are speculating about the PM's future, Mr Prescott says
29 May - Mr Prescott suggests that Mr Blair could step down mid-term "like Harold Wilson"
3 June - In a TV interview, Mr Blair refuses to endorse Mr Brown as the next PM
20 June - Mr Brown denies the PM is a "liability" for Labour after poor local election results
2 July - Mr Blunkett warns that senior ministers should not covet other people's jobs
7 July - Mr Blair admits the odd row with Mr Brown but says the media magnifies them
10 July - The BBC learns that the PM was considering resignation in June
He is mired in leadership speculation (again), is braced for the Butler report on Iraq, and fears by-election wipe-out. Is it make-or-break time for Tony Blair?
Today: THE LEADERSHIP ISSUE
The Blair and Brown camps are at loggerheads over mysterious reports that the Prime Minister considered stepping down last month. The Prime Minister's camp believes the Chancellor is too impatient to grasp the reins of power; the Chancellor's people suspect some murky tricks at No 10 to get out an "I'm-still-in-charge" snub to Mr Brown. So, did Mr Blair really wobble? Were the four, five, or six cabinet ministers who went to him simply pledging support in difficult times, or pleading with him to stay on? Or were Mr Brown's supporters trying it on? One thing seems certain: at the beginning of such a make-or-break week for Mr Blair, relations between the two key players are at an all-time low.
BROWN'S SPENDING REVIEW
Mr Brown grabs centre stage today with his spending review, an opportunity - no doubt, to be grabbed with aplomb - to demonstrate his credentials as the prime-minister-in-waiting. Big winners are likely to be the police and security services. But there will be losers, with £20bn of cuts among civil service staff. As far as his No 10 ambitions go, will Mr Brown eventually prove to be a winner or a loser?
Tuesday: MEETING AN OLD FRIEND
A rare respite as Mr Blair meets one of his few unquestioning allies, the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, for an Anglo-Italian summit in London. The pair are likely to discuss the EU and Iraq in a wide-ranging meeting.
Wednesday: SEXED UP, OR NOT?
Lord Butler of Brockwell, hitherto seen as an establishment figure, delivers his verdict on the British intelligence concerning Iraqi WMD. His terms of reference were limited, excluding how the Government handled the information. He is likely to go beyond his remit. It is suggested that John Scarlett, the next head of MI6, will be criticised, as well as Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General. A word of caution: in the run-up to the release of the Hutton report, all sorts of leaks were suggesting a hard-hitting report. It proved to be anything but.
Thursday: BY-ELECTION BLUES?
Mr Blair, battered in local and European elections last month, faces losing two safe seats in one day: Leicester South, where the majority is 13,243, and Birmingham Hodge Hill, where Labour won by 11,618. Many Muslim voters are likely to use their votes to protest against the war in Iraq.
Friday: TIME OUT
Mr Blair is expected to keep a low profile and will probably retire to Chequers, his country residence, to mull over the week's events with his advisers and family.
Saturday: ONE YEAR ON
The first anniversary of David Kelly's disappearance. There had been deep misgivings about the war in Iraq long before the MoD scientist's suicide, but the Government's handling of its campaign against the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan and the Today programme was seen in a much more sinister light after his death. Dr Kelly was the source for Mr Gilligan's reports that the Government sexed-up the case for war. Mr Blair struggled in the immediate aftermath - while visiting Japan he was asked at a press conference if he had blood on his hands.
In quotes: Blair and Iraq weapons
As the Butler Report is published into the pre-war intelligence on Iraq's weapons, here are some of the key statements made by the prime minister about Saddam Hussein's weapons - before and after the war.
10 April 2002, House of Commons
"Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked.
"He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also."
24 September 2002, House of Commons
"It [the intelligence service] concludes that Iraq has chemical and biological weapons, that Saddam has continued to produce them, that he has existing and active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which could be activated within 45 minutes, including against his own Shia population; and that he is actively trying to acquire nuclear weapons capability..."
25 February 2003, House of Commons
"The intelligence is clear: (Saddam) continues to believe his WMD programme is essential both for internal repression and for external aggression.
"The biological agents we believe Iraq can produce include anthrax, botulinum, toxin, aflatoxin and ricin. All eventually result in excruciatingly painful death."
11 March 2003, MTV debate
"If we don't act now, then we will go back to what has happened before and then of course the whole thing begins again and he carries on developing these weapons and these are dangerous weapons, particularly if they fall into the hands of terrorists who we know want to use these weapons if they can get them."
18 March 2003, House of Commons
"We are asked now seriously to accept that in the last few years-contrary to all history, contrary to all intelligence-Saddam decided unilaterally to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd."
4 June 2003, House of Commons
"There are literally thousands of sites. As I was told in Iraq, information is coming in the entire time, but it is only now that the Iraq survey group has been put together that a dedicated team of people, which includes former UN inspectors, scientists and experts, will be able to go in and do the job properly.
"As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction."
8 July 2003, Evidence to Commons liaison committee
"I don't concede it at all that the intelligence at the time was wrong.
"I have absolutely no doubt at all that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction programmes."
16 December 2003, Interview with British Forces Broadcasting Service
"The Iraq Survey Group has already found massive evidence of a huge system of clandestine laboratories, workings by scientists, plans to develop long range ballistic missiles."
16 December 2003, Interview with BBC Arabic Service
"I don't think it's surprising we will have to look for them. I'm confident that when the Iraq Survey Group has done its work we will find what's happened to those weapons because he had them."
4 January, 2004, Speech to British forces near Basra, Iraq
"Repressive states are developing weapons that could cause destruction on a massive scale."
11 January 2004 , Interview with BBC Breakfast with Frost
What you can say is that we received that intelligence about Saddam's programmes and about his weapons that we acted on that, it's the case throughout the whole of the conflict.
I remember having conversations with the chief of defence staff and other people were saying well, we think we might have potential WMD find here or there.
Now these things didn't actually come to anything in the end, but I don't know is the answer. And what I do know is that the group of people that are in there now, this Iraq survey group, they produced an interim report."
25 January 2004, Interview with the Observer newspaper
"I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the intelligence was genuine.
"It is absurd to say in respect of any intelligence that it is infallible, but if you ask me what I believe, I believe the intelligence was correct, and I think in the end we will have an explanation."
3 February, 2004, evidence to Commons liaison committee
"What is true about (ex-Iraq Survey Group head) David Kay's evidence, and this is something I have to accept, and is one of the reasons why I think we now need a new inquiry - it is true David Kay is saying we have not found large stockpiles of actual weapons."
6 June, 2004, BBC Radio 4 Today programme
"What we also know is we haven't found them [weapons of mass destruction] in Iraq - now let the survey group complete its work and give us the report... They will not report that there was no threat from Saddam, I don't believe."
6 July, 2004, evidence to Commons Liaison Committee
"I have to accept we haven't found them (WMD) and we may never find them, We don't know what has happened to them. "They could have been removed. They could have been hidden. They could have been destroyed."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3054991.stm
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