Blair's popularity plummets to new low
September 08, 2003 Edition -1
London - More voters think Prime Minister Tony Blair should quit than back him.
A survey in The Mail on Sunday newspaper showed 43% of those polled believed Blair should resign over the suicide of a weapons expert at the heart of a furious row over the government's reasons for going to war in Iraq.
Some 42% believed he should stay in office and 15% were undecided, according to the YouGov poll.
It is the first to indicate more voters are against Blair than for him.
It was taken the day after the judicial inquiry into the death of scientist David Kelly adjourned for 10 days.
Meanwhile, increasingly militant trades unionists - the former backbone of the Labour Party - have gone on the offensive, as have some of Blair's own former cabinet ministers.
Former international development secretary Clare Short, who quit her post in May because she disapproved of the war in Iraq, wrote in The Independent on Sunday newspaper that Blair should resign over the Kelly affair.
"The prime minister has told us that the claim that he had knowingly exaggerated the threat from Iraqi chemical and biological weapons would be a resignation issue. It is now clear that the threat was exaggerated," she said.
Short, a maverick with a track record of speaking her mind, accused Blair and his chief aide Alastair Campbell, who quit a week ago, of effectively mounting a coup in the party, imposing their own policies by bludgeoning their opponents and lying.
"Beneath the smiling demeanour (there is) a ruthlessness that is accompanied by a lack of respect for proper procedure, and a willingness to be 'economical with the actuality'," she wrote.
"The cabinet has not functioned as a decision-making body since 1997."
Short's attack followed a newspaper article on Saturday quoting former environment minister Michael Meacher, who left the cabinet in June.
He said there were some unanswered questions about why the US did not follow up intelligence leads about the September 11 attacks. Meacher questioned why the US failed to act after at least 11 countries warned of possible attacks.
The article by inference accused Blair of at best naivety in his unflinching support of President George Bush in his invasions of Afghanistan and then Iraq. - Reuters
