The Guardian, voice of Britain’s middle-class liberals, added its voice on Monday to calls for Prime Minister Tony Blair to step down sooner rather than later, amid a scandal over financing for his Labour Party.
”He should go this year,” the paper said in an editorial, ideally before the end of September, when Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown should take his place.
”He is left with narrowing options and increasingly at the mercy of events,” the paper said.
The Guardian is the third major British periodical in five days to suggest that it is time for Blair — in power since May 1997 — to resign, after The Economist on March 17 and The Independent the following day.
Blair’s credibility is at stake after revelations that rich Labour Party supporters have been nominated for the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament, in return for substantial loans which, under political-party financing laws, need not be declared.
Blair led the Labour Party to its third straight general election victory in May last year, several months after he publicly announced that he would step down as prime minister during a third term.
Brown — who sets out his 2006/07 Budget on Wednesday — is credited with the longest period of economic prosperity in Britain in modern times and is unrivalled as Blair’s heir apparent.
The Guardian said: ”To Tony Blair’s immense credit he can still control the circumstances of his departure from office.”
”But this orderly transition [to a Brown-led Labour government] places a responsibility on Mr Blair. The departure must be timely. There is no excuse for foot-dragging.”
”This is a truth about political magic. It fades. In most spheres where Mr Blair might claim he needs to finish the job, the job is either done or beyond his capacity to complete.”
”Mr Blair needs to ask himself: why drag things on for another 12 or 24 awkward and empty months just because he can?” – AFP
