Early in 2006, Prime Minister Tony Blair began being investigated for the "cash for honours" scandal. Critics assert that his party, the Labour Party, attempted to give positions of nobility (which can be given by non-inherited means) to individuals who donated large sums of money to their party. The money was given as loans, which means the donors do not have to announce the sums they provided the party and since then the party has gone into considerable debt since these allegations have arisen.
According to The Guardian, the Prime Minister is under considerable pressure to step down, but is resisting because the party fears that stepping down will be an admission of failure and guilt.
The former minister Stephen Byers [...] insisted yesterday Mr Blair would not be forced to go. "The prime minister is going to remain Labour leader, and is not going to be forced out of office by a combination of suspicion or innuendo. The time is not for calls for him to go. This is the time for the Labour party to stand together and stay loyal to the man who has led us to three general election victories."
But [the leader of the conservative party] David Cameron claimed that the prime minister was "losing it" in an interview with the Daily Telegraph, repeating his call this week for Mr Blair to quit.
The Tory leader added: "The cabinet is dysfunctional ... The government's reached that tipping point of losing internal and external confidence. It's got to that point where everyone in parliament, everyone in government, everyone in the press, everyone in the country is thinking: 'Hello! It's over,'"
Mr Blair's allies insist that he not only deserves to remain in office, but he has a personal contribution to make - given his personal contacts - to securing peace in Northern Ireland in March, progressing peace in Palestine, and securing the next steps to an international agreement on climate change at the G8 in June.
Many Labour MPs or ministers will disagree, especially if polls show his expected successor Gordon Brown could lift the party's standing. Mr Blair used yesterday's half-hour BBC interview yesterday to robustly insist that he would not "beg for his character in front of anyone".
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If Tony Blair steps down, British involvement in the Iraq war is expected to decrease considerably, as only 33% of the United Kingdom supported the war as of April, 2006. (You'll notice, those are similar numbers with the United States, except in the UK the politicians tend to be intelligent and listen to their constituents).
The Prime Minister expects the controversy to fizzle out within the next few weeks. We'll see what happens.
1 comment:
I have wondered for some time if the Bush regime had dirt on Blair and were using extortion to get him to support the nutty war in Iraq.
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