Labour told not to focus on leadership

BRITISH Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday urged Labour to focus on the challenges facing the country — not the challengers after his job.

But ahead of Chancellor Gordon Brown’s keynote speech to the party’s annual conference today, the tussle for the leadership continued to dominate the gathering as it opened in Manchester.

Mr Brown’s address to delegates will be seen as his official application for the post Mr Blair will vacate some time in the next year.

And two senior Cabinet ministers — Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett and Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain — have again declared support for him.

Yesterday Mr Blair warned his party it had “gone awol” from the British public during events of the past weeks, which forced the premier to announce this would be his last conference as leader.

He said: “What I want to do this week is say to the party: We have had a difficult time recently. Go back, focus on the public, the public’s concerns and things that really worry people.

“Set out the big ideas on the health service, on education, on immigration, on law and order, how we keep a strong economy in the new global world.

“If we do that, then all the stuff of the last few weeks will be forgotten and we can concentrate on the future.”

He added: “For the first time since I became leader, the Labour Party went awol from the British public, it looked in on itself, it started all the infighting and the rest of it.

“The public out there are angry about that. They don’t want to see their Government do that. They want us to govern. Actually, we have the capacity to govern. We have the programme that’s the right programme for government.

“If you take pensions or energy, two of the trickiest issues in the world today, we have come up with answers capable of unifying party and country.

“Concentrate on that — the leadership issue will look after itself in due course.”

He sent a message to anyone considering trying to revive the leadership row during the conference: “The best thing for anybody who has the interests of the Labour Party at heart this week is to concentrate on that forward agenda.”

Mr Blair would not express a preference about his successor at this stage. And he revealed he agreed this approach with Mr Brown and other senior ministers at last Wednesday’s political session of the Cabinet.

Mr Blair said he would not “resile” from previous comments he has made about Mr Brown — including the prediction that he would make a brilliant Prime Minister.