UK News 12-05-2005 The Semi-Detached Prime Minister who: Tony Blair what: Shrugs off calls for early resignation where: House of Commons, LONDON when: Wednesday snippet: The united front presented by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on the campaign trail has continued with the latest Cabinet reshuffle. "Mr Blair promoted a sprinkling of both Blairites and Brownites," says the BBC`s Nick Assinder, "offering a pretty well balanced team as far as those two camps are concerned - little grist to the mill of those looking for a continuing turf war." Unless you`re writing the leader for Monday`s Telegraph. "One could say that Gordon Brown`s long-standing ambition to be prime minister is already being fulfilled," mused the author. "When historians look back at this administration, they will date the shift in policy to the 2005 election rather than to Mr Brown`s formal elevation to the top job." This is despite some of Mr Blair`s more controversial appointments, including the return of Beverley Hughes, forced to resign last year for misleading MPs about visas, the promotion of wealthy Labour Party contributor Lord Drayson to the post of junior defence minister, and the promotion of former education adviser Andrew Adonis to Lord Adonis, schools standards minister, replacing Stephen Twigg, who lost his seat last week. The Mail calls him "Blair`s yes-man". The Guardian says Mr Brown was "disappointed, though not inclined to make a fuss". "No amount of political stage management can conceal the truth," reckons The Mail`s leader writer on Thursday. "The clock is ticking for the Prime Minister. He acknowledged as much when he stressed the need for an orderly transition of power and pleaded for the `time and space` to hand over to his successor." There is some evidence for this opinion - The Mail is referring to a meeting on Wednesday during which the prime minister was forced to confront backbenchers at a private session of the parliamentary Labour party (PLP). Mr Blair faced direct calls for resignation from Frank Dobson, Glenda Jackson and Bob Marshall-Andrews. But Mr Blair responsed that "Our fourth victory will be under different leadership." In Thursday`s Guardian, Glenda Jackson paraphrases Bernard Ingham to call Mr Blair "the nation`s first semi-detached prime minister". "Some people are still trying to redefine the election result as a triumph," she writes. "Get real. It`s bad enough that we saw our majority slashed by almost 100 seats, lost scores of dedicated MPs and saw our share of the popular vote plummet to a pitiful 35%. But what`s unforgivable is the way we let that shambolic, extremist, reactionary political entity called the Conservative party come back from the brink." Earlier in the week, David Blunkett, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, "said he had sympathy for those who lost their seats," reports The Scotsman. "But let`s face it," says the former home secretary, "they would not have had their seats in `97 and 2001 if it was not for the appeal and the reach-out of Tony Blair." [... more]

What The Papers Say is delivered to thousands of readers every morning by web, WAP and email. Sign up today!