Blair should quit, say nearly 40% of voters
With 39% of voters thinking he should quit according to a new survey, Mr Blair is grappling with the biggest crisis of his career as he continues a trip to East Asia, even facing calls for his resignation from within his own party.
Despite the growing furore over the part played by the government in the apparent suicide of former UN weapons inspector David Kelly, Mr Blair said he intended to stay in office, and rejected demands to recall parliament from its summer recess.
A poll for the right-wing Daily Telegraph newspaper found that almost as many voters 39% thought he should quit as thought he should stay on 41%.
Mr Blair had fallen in the estimation of 59% of voters since the affair began, according to the survey, carried out by YouGov.
And 47% felt the government was to blame for the death of Dr Kelly.
"Tony Blair and his government's relationship with the British people, once respectful and even affectionate, would seem to have soured, possibly beyond redemption," the Daily Telegraph said. "In the eyes of many, Mr Blair and the government appear tawdry."
The body of Dr Kelly, a 59-year-old Ministry of Defence consultant on biological weapons, was found on Friday. His family said he had been under "intolerable pressure" after being grilled over suspicions that he was the anonymous source of a BBC news report in May hotly denied by Downing Street that a key official dossier last September on Iraq had exaggerated the threat of Saddam Hussein's arsenal.
While the government has taken most of the flak for Dr Kelly's death, which has dominated the news in Britain in recent days, the BBC has also come under fire for its role, with questions raised over the accuracy of its reporting.
After insisting for weeks that it needed to protect its sources, the public broadcaster confirmed for the first time on Sunday that Dr Kelly was the main source of its story in May.
A BBC statement issued on behalf of its defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, the author of the report at the centre of the controversy, said: "I want to make it clear that I did not misquote or misrepresent Dr David Kelly."
But the left-wing Daily Mirror said the BBC's defence of Mr Gilligan's story and insistence that Dr Kelly was its source meant the corporation was effectively accusing the dead weapons expert of lying.
"Either Dr Kelly lied to MPs when he said he was not the main source or Mr Gilligan exaggerated his own report," the tabloid said. Dr Kelly's local MP Robert Jackson, a member of the opposition Conservative Party, said BBC chairman Gavyn Davies should quit and Director General Greg Dyke "should consider his position".
Meanwhile, Clare Short, who resigned as Britain's international development secretary, saying she was misled over Iraq by Mr Blair, said attacks on the BBC were a "distraction from the main questions about how we got to war in Iraq".
Mr Blair was the staunchest ally of US President George W Bush in the military campaign launched in March, which the two leaders claimed was justified by Saddam Hussein's refusal to give up weapons of mass destruction.
Four months on, Mr Blair and Mr Bush are suffering political fallout from the fact no convincing proof has been uncovered that Baghdad had such weapons.
