BLAIR IS BEING OUSTED !..........As a news-aholic, I find myself flipping through the various cable news programs every night. I have always felt that you have to flip through in order to try to piece together some level of truth. But I am extremely disappointed in our media this week. They've been running stories about the 9/11 movie, Paris Hilton's DUI, the shuttle lift-off, even the Senate Report declaring that Saddam had no connections what so ever with Al-Queda. But the biggest story in the world news is basically nowhere to be seen. So we, little old me, has to serve as the news guy to make certain that Americans know what's going on. TONY BLAIR IS BEING OUSTED ! That is super huge news. The fact is that due to British outcry protesting Blair's support of the Bush regime Tony Blair has agreed to step down as Prime Minister, a position he has held for over 10 years. He originally stated that he would leave office in about a year. But the mutiny within his own party (Labour Party) has prompted Blair to speed up his departure, now setting the date at May 2007 for his step-down. In a half-hour special report by the BBC News protesters by the thousands were shown marching and carrying signs which read 'Blair Must Go'! Even school aged children joined in protest stating that Blair should be spending money for British schools, NOT the Iraq war. What is sad is that this HUGE story is not being reported here in America at all. In fact, CNN just did a report on Blair visitng the Middle East and just happened to leave out the part that HE'S BEING OUSTED ! Is American media being muzzled by this Bush Administration to NOT inform Americans? Is this administration afraid that Americans may begin to rally and protest as the Brits have, calling for Bush's head next? In order to see this HUGE story one has to go to newspapers outside the U.S., like the Sun Newspaper U.K. or the Times U.K., which have headlines for this huge story so big that the headlines look like billboards ! But not here in America. It's really sad. We, here in America, are absolutely being led, controlled, propogandized and lied to on such a daily basis that it is time for us to do as the Brits have done. ENOUGH IS ENOUGH ! Time ... Blair says he'll quit a decade after landslide poll win -->
Blair: How long will he stay?
• Labour MPs quit over Blair • Webwatch on Labour quit MPs • Brown odds on favourite for PM • The Sun Says • Mixed messages for PM Blair • I'll still be Prime Minister in May • PM tells critics: Shut up • Brown's civil war warning
FULL NEWS INDEX ››
Blair tells aides he quits May 31 By GEORGE PASCOE-WATSONPolitical EditorSeptember 06, 2006 TONY Blair will leave 10 Downing Street for the last time as Prime Minister more than a decade after his historic 1997 landslide win.
The Sun can reveal that he has finally decided to step down as Labour leader on May 31 next year — exactly ten years and 30 days after becoming PM.
He will call an eight-week leadership election and, once a successor has been chosen, go to Buckingham Palace and formally quit on July 26, 2007. That will be TEN YEARS AND 12 WEEKS in power.
Mr Blair and a hand-picked circle of advisers are now working on the details of his resignation timing. Only last week he defiantly declared he would NOT do that. His refusal to bow to MPs’ demands sparked the beginnings of a coup from his own troops.
Yesterday he sanctioned a U-turn to let it be known he will be gone this time next year.
But he has told only a handful of his closest staff he will turn his back on being the nation’s Premier at the end of July.
Environment Secretary David Miliband, a key Blair lieutenant, told BBC Radio 4: “The conventional wisdom is that the Prime Minister sees himself carrying on for about another 12 months and it seems to me that conventional wisdom is reasonable.”
Changing faces ... Blair
Sir Jeremy Beecham, chairman of Labour’s ruling national executive committee, said: “I am confident that by this time next year there will be a new leader who will make his first big speech at the next party conference.”
Commons Leader Jack Straw has yet to confirm the dates of the Commons’ summer recess.
But it is odds-on he will choose Thursday July 26. Mr Blair has pencilled in this date on his calendar.
The eight-week leadership contest will start on May 31, although disastrous results in the Scottish and Welsh elections next May could bring the resignation forward by one week.
The winner — likely to be Chancellor Gordon Brown — will then have the summer to bed in before a triumphant party conference in September next year.
Mr Blair is still working on the mechanics of how his successor should emerge. He will hope that his last ten months in Number 10 will be free of aggro. But there were fears last night at the highest level that his decision to quit in July will not stop demands for him to go sooner.
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More than 100 Labour MPs are poised to demand he publicly confirm his timetable for leaving.
But he is desperate to avoid naming a day, convinced it will paralyse his command of the country and the Whitehall machine.
And he has a full programme yet to deliver — like the Ulster peace process, Iraq and Afghanistan, NHS reforms, trust schools, pensions and nuclear power.
But a growing mutiny has forced him to set out a timetable.
Two previously loyal backbench MPs — Sion Simon and Chris Bryant — began the revolt over the weekend. They have amassed at least 21 names of other modernising Blairite MPs calling on the PM to go now.
Gordon Brown-supporting junior defence minister Tom Watson removed his name after discovering the letter called for an immediate resignation.
Mr Bryant and Mr Simon were wooed by the Chancellor’s team after they were passed over for ministerial jobs recently.
Loyal Cabinet colleagues of the PM were in despair last night.
One said: “Tony Blair is in tune with the majority of the British people. He has won three consecutive general elections.
“If any Labour MP thinks Tony Blair is the problem, not the solution, then they’ve lost what few marbles they had.”
Former Home Secretary David Blunkett issues a thinly-veiled warning to the Chancellor in his Sun column today. He writes: “It would be a disaster for Gordon Brown if Tony Blair were to be stabbed in the back now. The public would gasp in disgust.”
