Blair wins third term

Labor Party loses majority in parliament

? Tony Blair won a historic third term as prime minister Thursday, but exit poll projections indicated his Labor Party suffered a sharply reduced parliamentary majority in punishment for going to war in Iraq. A chastened Blair said “we will have to respond to that sensibly and wisely and responsibly.”

The outcome could set the stage for Blair to be replaced in midterm by a party rival such as Gordon Brown. As Treasury chief, Brown was widely credited for the strong economy that appears to have clinched Labor’s victory, outweighing the bitterness many voters said they felt about Iraq.

With 570 of the 646 House of Commons seats counted, official results showed 337 seats won by Labor — enough to form a government — 167 went to the Conservatives, 54 went to the Liberal Democrats, the only major party to oppose the Iraq war, and 12 to other smaller parties.

The BBC projected Labor would win 79 more seats than all the other parties combined — down from its 161-seat margin in the outgoing House of Commons.

The projections, based on a survey of more than 16,000 voters in 115 closely contested districts, showed Labor with 37 percent of the popular vote, the lowest winning share ever. The Conservatives were projected to take 33 percent. The Liberal Democrats were estimated in third place with 22 percent.

A big part of the Conservative strategy was to make it a referendum on Blair, urging voters to “wipe the smirk” off his face. Although Howard supported the Iraq war, he attacked Blair during the campaign, accusing the prime minister of lying about intelligence and the legality of the invasion and lacking a plan to win the peace.

Blair acknowledged that Britons had punished his 8-year-old government.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has won a third successive term, an unprecedented feat for the Labor Party, but he will take office with a greatly diminished majority in Parliament. Blair voted Thursday with his wife, left, Cherie Blair.

“I know too that Iraq has been a divisive issue in this country, but I hope now that we can unite again and look to the future there and here,” said Blair, as he was comfortably returned to his parliamentary seat in Sedgefield, northern England.