UK News 06-05-2005 Election 2005: Nobody`s Triumph who: Tony Blair what: Wins historic third term in general election when: Thursday snippet: Almost two out of every three voters voted for a party other than Labour on Thursday, giving them the lowest share of the vote by a winning Party in any British election. Tony Blair had some reason to celebrate - after all, Margaret Thatcher is the only other prime minister before him to win a third term in office. Not to mention the fact that he turned 52 on Friday morning. But at the same time, Labour had just 353 seats, down by 47, while the Conservatives had 196, up 33, and the Liberal Democrats had 61, their most seats ever - up by 11. Labour received a dismal 36.3% of all the votes cast, only narrowly ahead of the Conservative Party with 33.2%. The Liberal Democrat Party received 22.5% of the vote. 26 seats were yet to declare and Labour can look forward to a majority of 66 seats - more than Mrs Thatcher had in her first term. "It`s a very mixed picture," says Philip Webster, political editor at The Times. "Labour are back, but with only half their majority, the Tories have made an improvement but not enough. The Lib Dems have made gains, but from their own point of view, not enough. It`s nobody`s triumph." "For the Conservative Party it marks a real advance towards our recovery," claims Tory leader Michael Howard, quoted by the BBC. "The task which faces us in the next Parliament is to complete that recovery and it is a task I am sure everyone in the Conservative Party will address with real relish." "Many marginals turned blue as anti-war voters who would have voted Labour switched to the Lib Dems in protest allowing the Tory candidate in by the back door," says The Sun. The Conservatives made history with the election of their first ever black MP, entrepeneur Adam Afriyie, in Windsor. "In Wales, the previously rock-solid Labour stronghold of Blaenau Gwent was captured by an Independent Labour candidate and the Liberal Democrats cashed in on opposition to university top-up fees to win Cardiff Central," says The Independent. "Perhaps the most spectacular reverse came in Manchester Withington, a residential area with a high student population. It was captured from Labour by the Liberal Democrats on a 17.3 per cent swing." The Liberal Democrats had hoped to unseat a number of Tory frontbenchers, but they were largely unsuccessful, with Oliver Letwin, Theresa May and David Davis keeping their seats. Only shadow education secretary Tim Collins (Westmorland and Lonsdale) fell to the Liberal onslaught. He proclaimed himself "gobsmacked". Leader Charles Kennedy claimed: "The era of three-party politics right across the UK is now with us". Their popularity is inextricably linked to a public backlash against the government over the war in Iraq. This backlash was no more apparent than in the Bethnal Green & Bow contituency in East London, where Labour exile George Galloway swept in for his own Respect Party, narrowly beating Blair loyalist Oona King in what should have been a safe Labour seat. "This is for Iraq," Mr Galloway said in a potent speech sending a message directly to Tony Blair and quoted in The Telegraph. "This defeat that you have suffered and all the other defeats New Labour has suffered this evening is for Iraq. All the people who have been killed, all the lies you have told have come back to haunt you and the best thing that Labour can do is sack you." Although that seems highly unlikely, many pundits are speculating that Tony Blair will not be able to see this term to the finish after suffering such a reduced majority. "He believes he can carry on for four more years, with a new Labour leader elected just months before the next general election," says The Mirror. "But few in Westminster think he will be able to survive as PM for that long - with Gordon Brown now poised as his anointed successor." The Telegraph predicts a rapid cabinet reshuffle which will "aim to show that the Blair/Brown division of recent years has been healed and that the last period of the Blair premiership will be one of teamwork between the two camps". [... more]

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