Blair: Ignore the headlines
Tony Blair says voters should look at the bigger picture
Tuesday, 02, May 2006 12:00
Nine days' headlines "should not obscure nine years of achievement", Tony Blair insisted today as he hit the campaign trail 48-hours before the local elections.
The prime minister is in the north-west of England in an attempt to divert attention from the attacks on his cabinet ministers, and in a speech in Blackpool, he urged supporters not to be deterred by the past week's bad headlines, and to look at "the big picture".
"Yes, it's difficult when you're in government, especially as you go on and when you're in the third term it's especially difficult. [But] the third term of government is better than the fourth term of opposition," Mr Blair said.
This year's local elections were always going to be tough for Labour, but the party is bracing itself for a major defeat, with some analysts predicting it could lose up to 200 council seats across England and Wales.
Home secretary Charles Clarke is facing calls for his resignation over the release of more than 1,000 foreign prisoners without considering them for deportation, while deputy prime minister John Prescott is also engulfed in a sex scandal.
Last week, health secretary Patricia Hewitt was also booed and heckled by nurses as she defended her assertion that, despite more than £700 million of debt and almost 8,000 job losses in the past few months, the NHS was having its "best year ever".
However, today the prime minister tried to remind voters of all Labour's achievements, citing increased investment in education and the NHS, a stable economy and a new crackdown on anti-social behaviour.
"The whole point about government is that there are challenges. No government ever fails to make mistakes. No government ever fails to encounter difficulties," he said.
"But the question is, when you step back and you look at the big picture, not each and every detail of it, is there improvement happening?"
The Conservatives are calling for Mr Clarke to make a Commons statement today to update MPs on progress made in tracing the 1,023 foreign prisoners who were released over the past seven years without being considered for deportation.
Both they and the Liberal Democrats insist he must resign for the "serial incompetence" in handling the issue – particularly given that the problem was first raised last summer.
Shadow home secretary David Davis told BBC Breakfast: "The public have a right to know what the government is doing to clear up a pretty sizeable disaster."
The Home Office has now confirmed Mr Clarke will return to the House tomorrow – despite previously insisting he would not making another statement until the end of the week.
Meanwhile, John Prescott has been lying low ever since news of his affair with Tracey Temple, his diary secretary, emerged last week and was fuelled by details in the Sunday newspapers.
However, Labour officials have insisted Mr Prescott – the cabinet minister in charge of local government – will play a "full and active part" in the party's local election campaigning over the next two days.