Blair tries to fend off widespread losses in local elections ...

Section: News, Pg. 11a

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Tony Blair, under fire over government scandals, defended his record Wednesday, the eve of local elections that could further weaken the grip of his ruling Labor Party.

The prime minister and his party have been rocked by embarrassing headlines and sinking public opinion polls for more than a week.

Today's vote for council members -- the equivalent of mayors and county supervisors in the USA -- will be a referendum on Blair, one of the Bush administration's closest allies, and his ruling party. "Traditionally, people use local elections as a form of protest against the party in power, without the fear that a rival party will take over leadership on a national level," says Andrew Cooper of the London-based polling group Populus.

According to a Populus poll published April 4 in the daily Times of London, 47% of respondents said Blair should step down now or at the end of the year -- a 6% jump since January. Blair has said he will leave office before the next general election in 2009 or 2010.

An ICM survey last week for The Guardian newspaper found the Labor Party has a 32% approval rating, 5 points lower than a month ago and the party's lowest rating in its nine years in power.

"This government has suffered an irreversible loss of authority," David Cameron, leader of the rival Conservative Party, told BBC Radio Tuesday. "A government that lives by headlines will die by headlines, and deservedly so."

Blair has tried to bolster Labor candidates in today's voting. "Nine days of headlines should not obscure nine years of achievements," he told trade union members in the northwest resort town of Blackpool on Tuesday.

Brushing off the recent scandals and bad publicity won't be easy:

*Home Secretary Charles Clarke, roughly the equivalent of the U.S. attorney general, is under pressure to resign over the release of 1,023 foreigners who faced possible deportation after serving prison sentences for such crimes as rape and murder. Clarke said Friday that at least five of those released were convicted later of serious new crimes.

"There has been a systemic failure at the Home Office, which I do regret and which I have apologized for," he told House of Commons legislators Wednesday.

*Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, 67, admitted he had a two-year extramarital affair with his secretary, Tracey Temple, 43.

*Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt was heckled and jeered April 26 at the Royal College of Nursing over her claim that the National Health Service, the publicly funded health care system, was enjoying its "best year ever," despite thousands of job losses and a $1 billion deficit.

*The Labor Party revealed in March that it had received $24 million in secret loans from wealthy businessmen, some of whom were recommended later for peerage titles in the House of Lords, one of the two houses of Parliament.

*The war in Iraq remains unpopular among Britons and Europeans, says Cooper, the Populus pollster. "The Iraq war was the key turning point in Mr. Blair's approval numbers," he says.

Of the 4,360 council seats up for grabs today, 1,768, or about 41%, are held by Labor politicians.

If Labor suffers widespread losses, Blair could be pressured by the opposition to resign or set a specific date for his departure.

That is unlikely, says Patrick Dunleavy, a political science professor at the London School of Economics. "It's not going to be good news for Labor at the polls," he says. "But they would have to do extremely badly for that to happen."

(c) USA TODAY, 2006