Britons angry over Iraq have given Prime Minister Tony Blair a drubbing in local elections, relegating his ruling Labour Party to an unprecedented third place.
"It's a bad night for us, but it's not meltdown," Blair's Home Secretary David Blunkett said yesterday. "On Iraq, we are very clear about that -- it has damaged us."
PHOTO: REUTERS
Thursday's local council poll outcome -- likely to be echoed in European Parliament results tomorrow -- will inevitably renew speculation about Blair's leadership.
But analysts still expect him to take Labour to a third general election victory next year despite his humiliation at the polls, the biggest test of public feeling both since the Iraq war and since Blair won a second term in 2001.
With nearly half the results counted by early Friday -- 82 of 166 councils up for grabs -- Labour had lost a net 211 seats, closing in on the overall loss of 400 or more which analysts had projected as a benchmark of seriousness for Blair.
The BBC projected Labour's vote share at just 26 percent, way behind the Conservatives on 38 percent, and also behind Britain's third party, the Liberal Democrats, on 30 percent.
"What you have got is a government that is clearly unpopular but a main opposition party that is not capitalizing," pollster Peter Kellner said, adding that the Conservatives needed 40 percent to be on course for victory next year.
"Blair will not be as shiningly popular as he was in 1997 but I think people will prefer to trust him again."
The Conservatives were in upbeat mood.
"It has been Labour's worst electoral performance in living memory and it is the first time that a government has been pushed into third place in mid-term elections," crowed party chairman Liam Fox.
The message of disillusionment will not be lost on Blair and will undoubtedly heighten calls from for him to give way to Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.
Thursday's turnout was around 40 percent.
‘CORRECT IDENTIFICATION’: Beginning in May, Taiwanese married to Japanese can register their home country as Taiwan in their spouse’s family record, ‘Nikkei Asia’ said The government yesterday thanked Japan for revising rules that would allow Taiwanese nationals married to Japanese citizens to list their home country as “Taiwan” in the official family record database. At present, Taiwanese have to select “China.” Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said the new rule, set to be implemented in May, would now “correctly” identify Taiwanese in Japan and help protect their rights, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. The statement was released after Nikkei Asia reported the new policy earlier yesterday. The name and nationality of a non-Japanese person marrying a Japanese national is added to the
AT RISK: The council reiterated that people should seriously consider the necessity of visiting China, after Beijing passed 22 guidelines to punish ‘die-hard’ separatists The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has since Jan. 1 last year received 65 petitions regarding Taiwanese who were interrogated or detained in China, MAC Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday. Fifty-two either went missing or had their personal freedoms restricted, with some put in criminal detention, while 13 were interrogated and temporarily detained, he said in a radio interview. On June 21 last year, China announced 22 guidelines to punish “die-hard Taiwanese independence separatists,” allowing Chinese courts to try people in absentia. The guidelines are uncivilized and inhumane, allowing Beijing to seize assets and issue the death penalty, with no regard for potential
‘UNITED FRONT’ FRONTS: Barring contact with Huaqiao and Jinan universities is needed to stop China targeting Taiwanese students, the education minister said Taiwan has blacklisted two Chinese universities from conducting academic exchange programs in the nation after reports that the institutes are arms of Beijing’s United Front Work Department, Minister of Education Cheng Ying-yao (鄭英耀) said in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) published yesterday. China’s Huaqiao University in Xiamen and Quanzhou, as well as Jinan University in Guangzhou, which have 600 and 1,500 Taiwanese on their rolls respectively, are under direct control of the Chinese government’s political warfare branch, Cheng said, citing reports by national security officials. A comprehensive ban on Taiwanese institutions collaborating or
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
RSS