The Hindu : Front Page : Labour in the driving seat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, May 05, 2005

Front Page

Front Page

Labour in the driving seat

Hasan Suroor

Conservative campaign hits a dead-end as Britain goes to the polls today

— Photo: AP

READYING FOR A THIRD TERM: British Prime Minister and Labour Party leader Tony Blair addressing a news conference on the last day of electioneering in north London on Wednesday. Britain goes to the polls on Thursday.

LONDON: Britain goes to the polls on Thursday in a general election, which Prime Minister Tony Blair says he is not taking for granted despite the Labour Party's strong and seemingly unsurpassable lead in opinion polls.

Barely 24 hours before polling, an inexplicably defensive and jittery Mr. Blair warned that the Conservatives could slip in through the "back door'' if too many voters stayed home assuming that a Labour victory was assured. The party took out advertisements in newspapers telling people that "if one in 10 Labour voters don't vote, the Tories win''.

Domestic issues

In a last-ditch effort to move the campaign away from Iraq, Mr. Blair sought to focus on domestic issues, such as the economy and public services, and urged the voters not to allow their anger over Iraq to act in a way that they could "wake up with Michael Howard'' as the next Prime Minister.

Mr. Blair's message was directed at traditional Labour supporters who threatened to "punish'' him over Iraq either by abstaining or voting for the Liberal Democrats, who are contesting on an anti-war platform.

Iraq continued to dog the Labour campaign as families of British soldiers killed in that country threatened to take Mr. Blair to court for "lying'' unless he ordered an independent inquiry into the legality of the war.

The Conservative campaign, which began unexpectedly well, appeared to have hit a dead-end with opinion polls placing it way behind the Labour party. Even pro-Conservative newspapers conceded that the party was on the verge of its third consecutive electoral rout, saying Mr. Howard's appeal to the voters to "cut'' the Labour majority, rather than ensure victory for the Conservatives, amounted to acknowledging defeat.

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