Word: labouring
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...Even if he's not a fan of The Clash, Tony Blair - a former rock musician himself - must be hearing these lyrics in his head this week. Having led the Labour Party to a historic third term victory just a year ago, he now confronts a party in turmoil, dominated by the question of when exactly he will vacate 10 Downing St., presumably to make room for his long-time ally and sometime rival Gordon Brown, the Chancellor of the Exchequer...
...Blair is now the most unpopular Labour Prime Minister since World War II, with a 26% approval rating. Last week's local elections saw Labour take a drubbing, falling into third place behind the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. A YouGov poll now shows the Conservatives would beat Labour if a general election were held tomorrow...
...Numbers like these concentrate the minds of Labour MPs. Certainly they feel gratitude to Blair for leading them out of the political wilderness into power, and they also share a tribal conviction, seared into their consciousness from 17 years of Tory rule in the 1980s and 90s, that disunity equals death. But now even Blair loyalists are thinking he may be past his expiration date...
...Over the weekend a passel of Brownites and left-wingers came out and practically said it, openly agitating for Blair to leave quickly. In response, they were virulently denounced by Blairites as wreckers of party unity, raising disturbing echoes of the bitter factionalism that used to dog Labour. The conflagration surely made Blair regret the promise he made last year, in order to secure Brown's enthusiastic participation in the general election campaign, to stand down by the end of this parliament, which is expected to end with elections in 2009. For a British Prime Minister fixing a term starts...
...recent bad news by playing on his reputation for strong leadership. He thoroughly reshuffled his Cabinet last week, even removing his longtime foreign minister Jack Straw, as if to say: I'm still in charge. At a Monday press conference, as well as at a gathering of Labour MPs, Blair declared he absolutely would not specify a timetable for departure...