Blair's allies dismiss calls for him to quit soon

Members of Tony Blair's Labour party called yesterday for him to stand down sooner rather than later even after he won a record third term as British Prime Minister but his allies dismissed them as isolated mavericks.

Mr Blair could have been forgiven for thinking he had lost Thursday's election as members of Parliament from his centre-left party used media interviews to urge a swift handover to heir apparent and finance minister Gordon Brown.

Mr Blair, the first Labour leader to win three successive elections and once seen as his party's greatest asset, has insisted he plans to serve a full term of four or five years.

But with public trust in the prime minister battered by his unpopular decision to go to war in Iraq and other issues, some Labour members say he was a liability in the election campaign.

"Large numbers of people on the doorstep said that they wouldn't vote for Labour because of the war and very many of them went on to say they wouldn't vote Labour so long as Tony Mr Blair remains leader of the Labour party," said Frank Dobson, a former health minister.

"That's a major consideration for any political party," Mr Dobson told Sky television.

Labour won 356 parliamentary seats on Thursday, a decrease of 47 over the last election but enough for an absolute majority of 67 with one seat still outstanding. The main opposition Conservatives have 197 seats, a gain of 33.

Some Labour members said Mr Blair should quit before the party's annual conference in the autumn. Others said he could wait until Britain finishes presiding over the Group of Eight leading nations and the European Union at the end of the year.

A third group has suggested he waits until after a referendum on the new EU constitution, a tough battle expected next year.

"The sooner we could have a reasonably smooth handover, the better," Ian Davidson, a Labour member of parliament for a constituency in Glasgow, told The Sunday Times.

The public calls so soon after the election are likely to be seen as a sign power is already ebbing away from Mr Blair. But his supporters said many of those complaining were longtime critics who did not represent the mainstream.

"The problem is people have got used to us delivering landslides," Alastair Campbell, Labour's election strategist and a former spokesman for Mr Blair, told BBC television.

"Some of the people that are quoted in the papers today, you could have got them to say 'Blair must go' any day of the week."

David Blunkett, a former interior minister who quit after his office fast tracked a visa application for his lover's nanny, issued a blunt call to Labour members of parliament to stop sniping and support Blair's government.