Labor Makes Quick Work of It

LONDON — Political reformer Tony Blair became Britain’s new prime minister Friday, immediately launching his Labor Party’s new government in the jubilant aftermath of a stunning election victory.

By midafternoon, Blair had named key Cabinet ministers and was at work at 10 Downing St., wrestling with an already overflowing calendar at the start of a five-year term.

After seven years in office, defeated Prime Minister John Major resigned his leadership of the divided and shattered Conservative Party, triggering an immediate battle for succession.

Final returns Friday gave Blair’s newly middle-of-the road party a staggering 179-seat majority in the new 659-member House of Commons. It was the best showing in Labor’s history, and the Conservatives’ worst since 1832.

Labor won 43% of the vote and 419 seats, while the Conservatives, which had ruled for 18 years, took 31% and 165 seats.

The third-party Liberal Democrats more than doubled their seats to 46. The remaining 29 seats in the new Parliament went to minor parties. Two of them from Northern Ireland went to Sinn Fein, the political arm of the Irish Republican Army.

Standing before a cheering, flag-waving crowd outside his new official residence at 10 Downing St. at lunchtime Friday, the 43-year-old Blair, the first British prime minister born after World War II, promised a forward-looking centrist government.

“We have secured a mandate to bring this nation together, to unite as one Britain, one nation,” said Blair, who transformed an old ideological workers’ movement into a modern, centrist, electable party.

“This is not a mandate for dogma or for doctrine or a return to the past, but it was a mandate to get those things done . . . that desperately need doing for the future of Britain,” he added.

Among the congratulations to Blair came one from President Clinton, whose spokesman said that the president “looks forward to working with Prime Minister Blair, but our agenda is one of common purpose--has been, and will continue to be.”

Blair’s victory raised few hackles even in some entrenched Conservative quarters: Stocks traded at near record highs Friday, and the pound was buoyant.

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While Major went off to a cricket match in the brilliant spring afternoon, Blair went to work. His first Cabinet appointments contained no surprises. Deputy prime minister is former ship steward and union organizer John Prescott, one of the last remaining working-class leaders of the party.

Blair’s fellow modernizer Gordon Brown, a 46-year-old Scot, is chancellor of the exchequer. Bearded intellectual Robin Cook is foreign secretary after 18 years as shadow foreign secretary. At work on Friday, Cook said: “I am delighted that I have at last shed my shadow.”

Britain’s foremost foreign policy objective, he said, is “to make Britain a leading player in a Europe of independent nation states.”

Jack Straw, who pledges to attack the causes of crime, becomes Blair’s home secretary, while David Blunkett becomes education secretary.

The 21-member Cabinet should be complete by Monday, with its first meeting scheduled for Thursday--two days after Blair’s 44th birthday. After that comes the state opening of the new Parliament on May 14, which will include key government white papers on crime and education.

That same day, Blair is expected to lay the groundwork for a referendum on home rule for Scotland and Wales and to propose a legal minimum wage to a Parliament that contains a record 120 women, and Britain’s first Muslim lawmaker, an Asian businessman elected by Labor in Glasgow.

The extent of Blair’s majority, which exceeded Labor’s most optimistic expectations, and the disarray of his opposition should make for smooth early sailing, analysts say.

The Conservatives, who have ruled a total of 68 years during the 20th century, have seen their parliamentary representation drop to its lowest level since 1906. In the carnage, the Conservatives were erased from the political maps of Scotland and Wales.

Seven members of the Major Cabinet also lost their seats, including Defense Minister Michael Portillo, long seen as a potential successor. Hats began falling into the bloody Tory ring Friday, including that of outgoing Chancellor of the Exchequer Kenneth Clarke, but it will be some time before serious maneuvering begins.

Watching from on high, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who was Major’s immediate predecessor, said that she had thus far seen little substance behind Blair’s campaign promises but will be watching carefully.

“The Conservative Party rebuilt Britain over the last 18 years. . . . It was our policies that did it, and it is our policies . . . that they [Labor] are taking now.”

Asked if her legacy would be safe in Blair’s hands, Thatcher replied, “I shall have something to say if it isn’t.”

The “Iron Lady,” as she is known, said, “I am sorry for those who lost. It is an experience I have never had.”

Thursday’s election drew a 71% turnout and went off smoothly at the 45,000 polling stations. That in itself was a surprise, for police and security forces were braced for disruptive bomb threats from the IRA as a climax to repeated threats that snarled rail lines, highways and airports during the campaign.

There wasn’t any major hassle, though, leaving observers to speculate that IRA leaders, having drawn attention to British rule in Northern Ireland, decided it would be counterproductive to strike on polling day when their own sympathizers were running in the disputed province.

Sinn Fein contested districts across Northern Ireland on Thursday and, increasing its share of the vote from 6% to 16%, managed to get party leader Gerry Adams and chief negotiator Martin McGuinness elected to seats.

In the wake of the election, some analysts in Ireland believe that the IRA will soon test Blair by declaring a new cease-fire and demanding admission to all-party peace talks.