Blair questions his own 'time to go' decision

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has admitted he may have been wrong to announce he would step down before the next election.

“People kept asking me the question so I decided to answer it. Maybe that was a mistake,” he told Australia’s ABC Radio yesterday.

Downing Street aides later said that Mr Blair meant it was a mistake to think he could stop speculation by answering the questions, and not that it was a mistake to announce his intention to leave.

Mr Blair has insisted he will serve a full third term in office before resigning – but has been bedevilled by speculation as to exactly when he will quit.

The “cash for peerages” row has fuelled a fresh bout of feverish Westminster talk about when he might hand over to his successor, expected to be Chancellor Gordon Brown.

Mr Blair, in Melbourne to attend the Commonwealth Games as part of the Australian leg of his seven-day Asia-Pacific tour, was asked by ABC whether it had been “a strategic mistake” to announce his departure.

He replied: “I think what happened when you get into your third term and you are coming up to your tenth year is that it really doesn’t matter what you say, you are going to get people saying it should be time for a change.

“This speculation, I think, probably would happen whatever decision you take. Now, it was an unusual thing for me to say but people kept asking me the question so I decided to answer it. Maybe that was a mistake.”

The Deputy Prime Minister said he did not think Mr Blair’s comments would hasten his departure from Number 10.

He told BBC1’s Politics Show he did not consider the announcement to not serve a fourth term a mistake because it meant “you could get on with the peaceful transference of power”.

Asked if the Australian interview would speed up that process he added:

“I still think that the time table in people’s minds is still reasonably the same.”

He insisted he played no part in persuading Mr Blair to step down, but conceded the decision to speak out “caused an awful lot of uncertainties once he said that and that was a concern expressed by a number at the time”.

In a speech to the Australian Parliament today, Mr Blair warned of the “madness” of European hostility to America and said there was a danger the US could walk away from world affairs.

He also staunchly defended his policy on Iraq, saying: “If the going gets tough, we tough it out.”

And he repeated his call for a global struggle of ideas and values against the worldwide threat of Islamic terrorism, stressing the importance of international alliances.

He told the Australian House of Representatives: “I do not always agree with the US. Sometimes they can be difficult friends to have. But the strain of, frankly, anti-American feeling in parts of European and world politics is madness when set against the long-term interests of the world we believe in.

“The danger with America today is not that they are too much involved. The danger is they decide to pull up the drawbridge and disengage. We need them involved. We want them engaged.”