British Prime Minister Tony Blair caused a stir back home on Monday after suggesting he may have made a mistake by stating publicly that he would not stand for a fourth term in office.
Blair’s remarks — pounced upon by British journalists travelling with him on his Asia-Pacific tour — were made in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.
The 52-year-old politician was asked specifically if the announcement was a ”strategic mistake”, given that it fuels speculation he will step down sooner every time either he or his governing Labour Party face controversy.
He told ABC radio there would always be calls for a change of leadership when a prime minister reaches his third term and nearly 10 years in office.
”You just get on with the job because this speculation, I think, probably would happen whatever decision you take,” he said.
”Now, it was an unusual thing for me to say but people kept asking me the question so I decided to answer it. Maybe that was a mistake,” he said.
The remark featured prominently in television news bulletins in London, prompting Blair’s official spokesperson to offer clarification that he had been cut off by the interviewer’s follow-up question.
”If he hadn’t been interrupted, what he was going to say was that his mistake was the hope that it [the public comment about stepping down] would kill the speculation about his future,” the spokesperson told Agence France-Presse.
”It wasn’t that he believed that making the announcement was a mistake.”
The question surrounding Blair’s departure from Downing Street has dogged him since he made the statement in October 2004.
Speculation has been rife about when he will quit, as he has given no firm departure date. The next general election is due by 2010 at the latest.
Some commentators have pencilled in 2008 as likely, although much could depend on whether Blair pushes through his much-cherished public sector policy reforms by then.
Others say it could be earlier as he attempts to weather an ongoing storm after wealthy businessmen gave secret loans to Labour and were later nominated for seats in Britain’s unelected upper house of Parliament, the House of Lords.
Blair is already facing growing dissent from his own backbenchers over his reformist agenda in areas such as education and health and continued opposition to Britain’s involvement in Iraq.
His successor is widely tipped to be his 55-year-old Finance Minister Gordon Brown, whose annual Budget statement to Parliament last week was lauded by the British press and commentators as that of a prime minister-in-waiting.
In the ABC interview, Blair refused to give a timeline for his departure and declined to comment on a similar situation involving Australian Prime Minister John Howard and his long-serving treasurer and heir-designate Peter Costello.
Liberal Party leader Howard (66) was elected a year before Blair in 1996. – AFP
