Word: labour
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Blair and the Labour Party certainly gave him reason to expect better when, in 1997, they swept away a Conservative Party exhausted after 18 years in power. Labour's promise to fix such things as the National Health Service was enough to win a huge parliamentary majority. Now, as Blair asks voters to give him another term in No. 10 Downing St. in this week's general election, his campaign uneasily straddles two Britains. One is the sunny, upbeat land shown in Labour's emotive TV broadcasts: unemployment, inflation and interest rates all at 25-year lows; real incomes...
Strangely, it is on the stony ground of unfulfilled hopes that Labour has made its stand--like a builder who tells you six months into the job that renovating your house will take twice as long as promised. "We have a long, long way to go," Blair says repeatedly. Voters are buying it, even if it makes them grimace. Not only do voters consider Blair more capable than Tory leader William Hague (50% to 16%) but they also reject the Tories' key domestic pledge, an American-inspired plan to cut taxes at least $12 billion a year...
...late '90s Labour M.P. Chris Mullin led two Parliamentary inquiries into allegations that Masonic corruption pervades Britain's police forces and judiciary. "You cannot have at the center of your criminal justice system an organization ... which swears oaths in secrecy to each other," he said. UGL spokesman Chris Connop, a former teacher, claims that in addition to fueling paranoia, the inquiries' recommendation that names of Masons who are members of the police and judiciary be made public was impossible to carry out. "They wanted us to provide a list of magistrates" who are Masons, he says. "Well...
...mouth disease. Blair had earlier postponed local elections from May 3 to June 7 to avoid a campaign during a national emergency. Analysts said that this week he would also call the general election for June 7 to take advantage of the double-digit lead that polls show his Labour Party enjoys over the opposition Conservatives...
West African countries are taking steps to stop the trade. Most have signed the International Labour Organization's Convention 182 against the Worst Forms of Child Labour, which went into effect last November. Last year Ivory Coast and Mali agreed to crack down on the trade between the two countries and announced a range of rehabilitation efforts to help children who return home. But the region's porous borders and ill-equipped police forces make it easy for smuggling to continue. Yai says it's time for West Africa to get tough: "Are you going to tell me that...