LONDON, May 2 (UPI) -- Amid a series of ongoing political crises and scandals, British Prime Minister Tony Blair Tuesday moved to stem potential losses in Thursday's local elections, urging voters not to let "nine days of headlines obscure nine years of achievement."
Campaigning ahead of the countrywide polls which analysts predict will result in a Labor humiliation, he exhorted voters to focus on "the big picture" and judge the government on its economic record rather than its recent difficulties.
"No government ever fails to make mistakes, no government ever fails to encounter difficulties, but the question is, when you step back and look at the big picture, not just each and every detail, is there improvement happening?" he said.
Blair argued: "It has been difficult, but nine days headlines should not obscure nine years of achievement.
"The economy today is stronger with low mortgage rates, low unemployment, more jobs, investment in the National Health Service, which has the lowest waiting lists on record, investment in schools, in teaching..." he told the shop-workers' union Usdaw in Blackpool.
Two weeks ago the government was already fearing a drubbing in the local elections following a number of damaging rows, notably allegations that Blair nominated wealthy businessmen for seats in Parliament's House of Lords in exchange for secret loans to the Labor Party, and internal controversy over education reforms.
Senior party figures attempted to downplay the polls, warning already disgruntled Labor parliamentarians not to use the expected poor results as an excuse to call for Blair's resignation.
But things have gone from bad to worse following the government's admission Tuesday last week that over 1,000 foreign prisoners who should have been considered for deportation had instead been mistakenly released since 1999, and that their whereabouts were unknown.
Home Secretary Charles Clarke was forced to admit Friday that at least five of the prisoners had reoffended since being accidentally set free, prompting opposition calls for him to quit. While Blair has so far refused Clarke's resignation twice, the position of this key prime ministerial ally remains highly precarious.
And Clarke is not the only minister Blair is battling to save. Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott was last Wednesday forced to admit a two-year affair with his diary secretary, and is under pressure to resign over claims he may have misused his ministerial privileges to entertain his lover. On Saturday a small quantity of cannabis resin was found in the home of Defense Secretary John Reid, though there is no allegation that the drugs were in his personal possession.
Meanwhile, Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt found herself in hot water over the current cash crisis consuming the National Health Service, which has announced over 7,000 job cuts in recent weeks due to rising deficits.
Hewitt received hostile receptions at two separate conferences of health worker unions last week, and faces the prospect of industrial action over the mounting job losses. As the traditional "third rail" of British politics, the perception that the government is losing its grip on the NHS could herald disaster.
But Blair insisted that while the NHS still faced challenges, it was in far better shape than it had been 10 years ago under the Conservatives.
Likewise schools were in need of improvement, he said, "but don't let anyone tell you ... our schools are not better today than they were in 1997."
Britain was "better, fairer and stronger" than it had been when Labor took office, he claimed, due to the radical and sometimes painful changes that the government had implemented.
He added: "There never is a difficult decision taken without challenge, and there never is a successful government that doesn't make difficult decisions."
And in a tacit attempt to stave off internal criticism, he insisted: "Yes it's difficult when you're in government, especially as you go on, and when you're in the third term it's especially difficult. (But) the third term of government is better than the fourth term of opposition."
However, the scale of disaster that some are predicting could prove difficult for the government to overcome. Senior political analysts have speculated that the local election results could mirror those of 1968, when, just months after sterling was devalued under then Labor Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the party achieved only 28.5 percent of the vote in London against the Conservatives' 60.1 percent.
The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are both keen to capitalize on the government's woes. Conservative Leader David Cameron stated during a walkabout in West Sussex that his party could offer a "dramatic alternative" to a failing Labor government, a notably similar strategy to that used by Labor during the last days of John Major's crumbling Conservative administration.
Meanwhile, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said that this was not just about nine days of bad headlines, but about the position the government had reached through "bad policy, bad management, and bad judgment."
"Nowhere is this truer than on the major issues of crime, the environment and the National Health Service," he said, adding: "It should not be nine years or nine days that the prime minister should be worried about, but the fact that his nine lives are almost used up."
The greatest danger to Blair comes from his internal critics, who, fearful that their party's star is on the wane, will interpret a bad election result as a sign that a rapid change of leadership is needed if Labor is to win the next general election in 2009.
Tony Travers, director of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics, said Wednesday that the local elections were essentially a "huge opinion poll" on what would happen at the general election. "There will be judgments made on party leaders based on the results," he added.
He told a press briefing that a bad result for Labor would lead to "significant murmurings" and could accelerate Blair's departure.
"He's a very resilient politician," Travers added. "But you can't rule anything out."
