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| Monday, 23 February 2004 |
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Blair vows to bid for third term LONDON, Sunday (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair, facing rising public doubt and a revitalised Conservative opposition, is determined to lead his increasingly rebellious Labour Party into a third successive term in government. "I will be putting myself forward," he told the News of the World newspaper. "Whatever the problems and pressures this is an immensely enjoyable and fulfilling job and I intend to carry on doing it." "The times are tougher but I am a tougher person than I was six or seven years ago. You have people kicking lumps out of you, but you can live with it, and I do," he said. Blair, the country's longest serving Labour Prime Minister, dragged Labour from the left to the centre and led it out of 18 years in the electoral wilderness to a landslide victory in 1997 - repeating the feat in 2001. He is expected to call a new general election in the first half of 2005, but has seen his own trust ratings tumble in the wake of the invasion of Iraq nearly a year ago and the failure to find the much vaunted illegal weapons of mass destruction.He took a further hit months later over the suicide of a weapons scientist at the heart of a row between the government and the BBC over allegations Blair's office had deliberately exaggerated the threat from Iraq to support its case for war. |
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