Britain's Blair Faces Call for Resignation

By Astrid Zweynert

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), dogged by speculation about his future, faced a call for his resignation Sunday by a senior member of his Labor Party as a new poll suggested he had become an electoral liability.

Lord David Puttnam, a Labor peer and personal friend of Blair, said months of negative headlines about Iraq (news - web sites) would damage the party's electoral prospects and the prime minister should make way for finance minister Gordon Brown.

"The prime minister is synonymous with Iraq, and Iraq will only deliver bad news," Puttnam told ITV News television, the ITV Web site said. "If I were him, I would go before the summer (parliamentary) recess."

Former foreign secretary Robin Cook also waded into the debate, saying Blair was having enormous difficulty focusing attention on the domestic agenda instead of what he called the "major mistake" of Iraq.

"There will come a time when he has to ask himself whether he can succeed in that task or whether somebody else should do it," Cook told BBC Television.

Blair's support for the war in Iraq, a U-turn on a referendum on a European Union (news - web sites) constitution and an immigration policy widely seen as bungled have crushed public trust and prompted speculation Brown will take over.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20040509/wl_nm/britain_blair_dc

I'll telling ya. I've got a sixth sense! aWol's next.

a house of cards...dominos...if one goes, the others will follow... from my lips to God's ears!