Will Tony Blair (have to) resign?

'Rejoice over Iraq': fury at Blair's echo of Thatcher
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
21 July 2004


Tony Blair, on the eve of his tenth anniversary as leader of the Labour Party, echoed one of the most famous quotations from Lady Thatcher yesterday by telling critics of the war in Iraq to "rejoice".

Lady Thatcher told Britain to "Just rejoice... rejoice" when British forces recaptured South Georgia on 25 April 1982. She was under pressurefor allowing the Falkland Islands to be invaded by Argentina.

Mr Blair's use of the word "rejoice" - loaded with all the defiance that Lady Thatcher had given it - made Labour backbenchers wince during the Commons debate on the Butler report. "We couldn't believe it when he said that," said one Labour MP. "We shouted 'Thatcher' at him."

Mr Blair immediately recognised the gaffe, and quickly added: "Yes - let us be pleased."

A former whip, loyal to Mr Blair, said: "Rejoice is a word that we will have to wipe from the dictionary. I was appalled he used it."

But the damage was done. Alice Mahon, one of 41 MPs of all parties who staged a token protest vote against the Government on Iraq last night, said: "I don't know how he could say 'rejoice' when thousands of lives have been lost. They never counted the number of Iraqis who died, but how can he say rejoice? It is an insult to those who have died."

Alan Simpson, another leftwing Labour MP who campaigned against the war, said: "The only one who will rejoice with Tony Blair is Osama bin Laden."

Mr Blair painted a rosy picture of life after Saddam Hussein in Iraq, completely at odds with many eye-witness accounts of the Iraqi people's suffering.

Declaring "the blessings from the fall of Saddam are great," Mr Blair spoke of the 35 local elections in Iraq; the doubling of public-sector salaries; and schools and hospitals which were now open. "Removing Saddam was not a war crime. It was an act of liberation for the Iraqi people," he said. "My view is whatever mistakes have been made, rejoice that Iraq can have such a future."

He was immediately criticised by opposition MPs. Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader said: "He still doesn't get it. He does not know that he has got to show genuine contrition." Tam Dalyell, the Father of the House, called for Mr Blair to resign. Robin Cook, who resigned from the Cabinet over the issue, said the invasion of Iraq had created the conditions in which al-Qa'ida was "thriving". Michael Howard, the Conservative leader, said: "Why is it that for this Prime Minister, sorry seems to be the hardest word?"

The Prime Minister's denial that he lied over the war was under fresh scrutiny last night after Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, admitted he knew in September last year that two pieces of intelligence about Saddam's chemical and biological weapons had been withdrawn by MI6. Downing Street insisted that the Prime Minister did not know the intelligence had been withdrawn until the Butler inquiry was under way, but Mr Straw's admission will raise fresh doubts about assurances from No 10. It will also raise questions as to why no minister told the Hutton inquiry, and it will fuel calls for the inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee to be reopened today.

Admitting mistakes, Mr Blair announced four measures to respond to criticism in the Butler report.

There will be an end to "Government by sofa" - in a future crisis, Mr Blair will set up an ad hoc committee of the Cabinet with proper minutes. William Ehrman, the new head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, will be replaced in 2005 with an appointment of "someone beyond influence" by ministers. Senior intelligence officers will review the Butler report's findings and, finally, JIC assessments will be kept separate from the Government's case in any future dossier.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party could win a historic third term in power in elections expected next year despite widespread public distrust over Iraq and broken promises, polls show.

The news will be music to Blair's ears on the day he appealed to Labour members not to jeopardise the chances of party winning three consecutive elections for the first time by pushing for a return to a left-wing agenda.

A Populus poll in the News of the World said 30 percent of people would vote Labour, against 28 percent for both the main opposition Conservative and Liberal Democratic parties.

It followed an ICM poll in the Daily Mail showing two-thirds of people felt Labour had not lived up to its promises and 61 percent did not trust Blair personally.

Despite seeing his public trust ratings plummet over the war in Iraq, Blair on Friday ignored sharp criticism from within the party to declare his long term ally Peter Mandelson sole European Commissioner.

Mandelson has twice been forced to resign from the cabinet over scandals, and analysts said Blair's move showed his self confidence and determination to shrug off his critics.

The ICM poll said 59 percent of people believed Blair had lied over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The government said Saddam Hussein had stockpiled and primed the arms but they have not been found in the 15 months since the invasion.

Tony Blair will go into hospital today for heart treatment after suffering a health scare while on holiday in August.

The fresh question mark over the Prime Minister's health comes as The Independent can reveal that he has bought a Georgian house for about £3.5m in an exclusive part of central London. It will become his family home when he leaves Downing Street.

Mr Blair signalled last night that he intends to serve at least another four years as Prime Minister, which would enable him to match Margaret Thatcher's 11 years in power. However, he announced that he would quit shortly before the following general election and would not seek a fourth term.

The Prime Minister, 51, who was admitted to hospital a year ago with an irregular heart beat, suffered a recurrence during his month-long summer break. Today he will have a "catheter ablation", under which a catheter will be fitted to give off pulses of energy to stop his heart "short-circuiting" again. Doctors advised Mr Blair to have the medical procedure, described by No 10 as standard, after his second flutter.

It will not require surgery but he will have a local anaesthetic and be sedated for a couple of hours. He may stay overnight in hospital but intends to return to work on Monday and go ahead with a long-planned visit to Africa next week.

Aides brushed aside suggestions that a second scare would cast doubt on how long Mr Blair would stay on. They said he would serve a "full term" if Labour wins the next election but would stand down "towards the end" of the parliament to allow time for his successor to establish himself before the election. "He wants to do at least another four years," said one close ally. That message will not be welcomed by Gordon Brown, the front-runner to succeed, who fears he will inherit a Labour government in its dying days.

Speculation that Mr Blair might leave sooner rather than later will be fuelled by the revelation that he has bought a home in Connaught Square, which will be rented out until he leaves No 10. The Blairs have financed the purchase partly on the basis of Mr Blair's future earnings when he is no longer Prime Minister, which include a likely seven-figure sum from his memoirs.

Close allies insisted yesterday that the Blairs' move reflected their desire to get back into the property market after a gap of almost eight years rather than anything about his political intentions.

When approached by The Independent last night, Downing Street confirmed that the Blairs had bought a house in central London. It is understood that sale was completed recently and that the house will provide a family home and offices for Mr and Mrs Blair.

In addition to Mr Blair's future earnings, the couple will also raise money for the deal by selling the two flats they bought in Bristol two years ago which were at the centre of the "Cheriegate" controversy. It emerged almost two years ago that Peter Foster, a convicted conman and the then boyfriend of her lifestyle guru Carole Caplin, had helped Mrs Blair with the purchase despite initial denials by No 10. One flat was bought for the Blairs' eldest child, Euan, who is attending Bristol University but he has barely lived in the property.

When Labour won power in 1997, the Blairs sold the family's London house in Richmond Crescent, Islington, after they were advised that the security arrangements would have disrupted their neighbours. They deeply regret missing out on the London property boom and not buying another house. Instead, they moved into a flat above 11 Downing Street, previously the Chancellor's residence, which is bigger than the flat above No 10.

The cost of the new house is bound to raise eyebrows in the Labour Party and there will be some relief in Mr Blair's circle that his purchase did not emerge during the party's annual conference in Brighton, which ended yesterday. A source said: "The loan is to be raised on the strength of his future earnings. This is going to be a difficult moment for Blair because he will be seen to be deserting his Islington roots. Apart from the fact that it is shockingly vulgar to buy such a large property in that part of London, more importantly it raises serious questions about his future role in Downing Street."

A local estate agent said last night that the square had seen a very high turnover of property with four houses sold this year and at least six more on the market. The Blairs' is believed to have been owned by a fine art expert who last night said he did not know the purchaser's identity. Neighbours say he was so delighted at the price that he was prepared to have the transaction delayed over the summer.

The house is a four-storey five-bedroom house with a small garden at the back. It backs onto a mews and a private nursery school that would be suitable for Leo, the youngest of the Blairs' four children.

Connaught Square, which is near Marble Arch and borders Hyde Park, comprises 45 grand Georgian houses. The square's most infamous resident was the disgraced former Tory minister Jonathan Aitken.

Tony Blair is facing mounting pressure from Labour MPs to depart much sooner than the five-year deadline he set himself last week.

As he emerged from successful hospital treatment for a minor heart condition, the Prime Minister told friends he was feeling "liberated" after a week in which he half apologised for faulty intelligence that sent the UK to war in Iraq, and announced his intention to stand down in five years.

Mr Blair believes he has given himself time to fight for public service reforms and other domestic policies, free from suspicion that he wants to cling to power indefinitely.

But even old cabinet allies were warning that he would have to leave sooner than he would like, to avoid putative successors engaging in a power struggle up until the moment the next but one general election is called.

Clive Soley, a long-standing Blair loyalist and former party chairman, said: "If I were him I would go very quickly, as Harold Wilson did, at a time when people are least expecting it."

Frank Dobson, the former health secretary and Blairite candidate in the London mayoral election, forecast that damage from the Iraq war would make it impossible for the Prime Minister to hang on for another five years. He said: "He has two to two and a half years tops of actually being in charge."

Mr Dobson added that the evidence from opinion polls, and from comments he had heard from the public, suggested that the Prime Minister is no longer the electoral asset he used to be, because of the damage done to his credibility by the Iraq war.

"He isn't an asset, because he is so closely associated with our disastrous policies in sucking up to the Americans over Iraq. Opinion polls show that if Gordon Brown were the leader of the party, we'd be doing better," Mr Dobson said, in an interview with GMTV, broadcast today.

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, told the BBC: "We don't know exactly when he would intend to stand down towards the end of the term, but I'm sure it would be to allow sufficient time for the successor to be appointed by the party and then to fight a fourth general election."

His comments contrast with Mr Blair's announcement that he wanted to stay for the "full" term of the next Parliament, implying that he expected to be in office until 2009. His cabinet ally Alan Milburn underlined the point by saying: "I really don't know what it is that people don't understand about the word 'full'."

A smiling Tony Blair left Downing Street yesterday morning for a recuperative weekend in Chequers cleared of official meetings. Asked how he was feeling, Mr Blair replied "excellent". A statement thanked the London hospital for the "fantastic" care he received during the procedure on his heart on Friday.

He will go back to Downing Street tomorrow, before flying to Ethiopia for a meeting of the Commission for Africa in the capital Addis Ababa on Wednesday.

Publicly, he was bolstered by a call for party unity yesterday from the Chancellor Gordon Brown, in Washington for a meeting of the International Monetary Fund.

Before flying back to Britain, Mr Brown said: "The priority is to get on with the job of ensuring prosperity for the British people."