LONDON, May 9 (UPI) -- British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott urged Labor parliamentarians not to go to "war" over the leadership, warning this would severely damage the party.
In an interview with the Independent newspaper published Tuesday, Prescott said that internal feuding over when Prime Minister Tony Blair should step down was an "unnecessary distraction" from the business of governing the country.
His comments came as Blair faced a torrent of calls to name his departure date from Labor parliamentarians dismayed at the party's poor performance in last week's local elections.
The government lost over 300 councillors in Thursday's polls and was relegated to third place in the popular vote with 26 percent, behind the Conservatives on 40 percent and the Liberal Democrats on 27 percent.
Blair -- whose announcement last year that he would not serve past the next general election in 2009 initiated the current speculation -- Monday refused to set a timetable, saying that to do so would "paralyze" the government. However he insisted he would hand over to his likely successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, sufficiently ahead of the election to allow him to stamp his mark on the party.
Prescott said an "orderly and smooth" transition was both possible and desirable, and warned the various internal factions against expressing great divisions "as we all know that is damaging to the party."
In the clearest hint yet that Blair may make his intentions known at the annual party conference, he continued: "Whatever you do it's a decision by conference and the national executive and that cannot take place until October.
"So whatever the feelings about this and conference, I do say to people, don't get into the war about it now. It is an unnecessary distraction."
