As a British reader this saddens but doesn't surprise me. I don't think that many US readers will understand it, but many many people here were of the opinion that the war was fought purely because Bush\Blair were going to find stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Since it hasn't happened, the mood is one of defeat.

Of course, it's not the only issue that makes Blair unpopular. Public services are the key battleground. This also depresses me. The public still think that governments should be in charge of hospital administration. Nobody is willing to tell the truth, that socialised medicine can't work.

Of course if you were to tell the average Briton that the government were to organise and plan his holidays, eating, drinking and leisure arrangements, he would be horrified. But he's been made to believe that he could never purchase or select his own healthcare without the government's help. Truly pathetic.

DY

I know this probably won't sound right but the Labour party is the party closest to our Republican party. Blair has been a staunch ally in the war but lets not forget that he is true socialist.

The message may be that invading a country that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks on the United States, dropping bombs and killing thousands of innocent civilians, is perhaps not the best way to deal with the terrorist threat.

Lying about all those weapons of mass destruction likely did not help, either.

This has nothing to do with democracies holding together. This has everything to do with honest and rational behavior.

This has everything to do with democracies holding together, and it is terrible news.

All future Labor prime ministers and potential prime ministers can see the tremendous punishment that the formerly invincible Tony Blair is taking for doing the right thing.

Ultimately the politicians will go where the votes seem to be. If the people make it a dumb play to support your ally and a smart policy to watch your the polls and your back at home, not what's really happening in the world, then we can expect to see a lot of shabby, unreliable, inward-looking behaviour.

Woe to the United Kingdom, if it punishes men who bravely do the right thing!

Looks like Labour took a big hit, while both the Tories and the Lib Dems did significantly better. IIRC, the Tories backed Blair on the Iraq war, despite being the official opposition party. The Lib Dems were the only one of the big three to officially take an anti-war stance.

My guess is that Blair's problems revolve around straddling a pro-war position and a pretty much socialist (by American standards) domestic policy. The Lib Dems were able to siphon off votes on the left, as the anti-war contigent of the Labour party ducked out, and the Tories managed to recover from their post-Thatcher doldrums and put together something coherent along more conservative lines.

While Blair himself may be in some trouble, note that the Tories are doing quite well. Given the historic affinities between the British Tories and the American Republicans, I wouldn't call this election an unmitigated disaster.

Question for any Brits: if this election leads to a big shuffle in Parliament, what are the chances of Blair pulling the tatters of his pro-war backing in Labour into a coalition with the Tories to form a new majority? It doesn't look like anyone has captured an outright majority, and I'd think Blair would want to partner with the Tories over the Lib Dems, given his recent foreign policy priorities.

And- more bad news- he's going to be Moore-d pretty soon, I hear.

If you want a good history on what message different leaders in different parties send to terrorists, you need look no further than Israel. Blair's political future won't send any message of any kind to "the terrorists". They don't make their decisions based on elections.

Britons, angered over Iraq, have handed Prime Minister Tony Blair a drubbing in local government elections but the prime minister won a little respite on Friday as his Labor Party retained the London mayoralty...
Well, was it not Ken Livingston who said that Tonny Blair should be put on trial for crimes against humanity?

Ah, Blair. Of course, he gets my gratitude for supporting us in the war (Thanks, Blair!).

It's just, Margaret Thatcher was more manly than he is.

"angered over Iraq" Heh.

Couldn't possibly be handing him a message over his nanny-statist policies, doing everything he can to drag Britian kicking and screaming into the EU at the expense of British Soverienity, gutting of Britian's military, stringent gun-control advocacy resulting in ever increasing violent and gun crime in Britian, openly socialistic policies, and openly anti-British citizen's liberty oreinted policies could they... ?

Naaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.

Perish the thought. ;]p~

Tony Blair: goodbye, good riddance, get thee the fuck gone, and don't let the doorknob hit you on the way out.

Eeewww. Horrid thought: we need to make sure that Orrin Hatch's ammendment dies aborning so that there's no chance Tony can ever run for high office here.