Blair scrambles to avert disaster

5.00pm

LONDON - Tony Blair has made a last-ditch scramble to avert a stinging defeat on education reform ahead of a crunch week on Iraq that could define the British prime minister's future.

The government rolled out a fresh concession to rebels likely to oppose its education policy in a make-or-break vote on Tuesday that comes a day before the release of a potentially explosive report into the suicide of an expert on Iraq's arms.

The vote and judge Lord Hutton's report into the death of government scientist David Kelly pose a seismic threat to Blair's authority, which is already under attack following the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Asked by Sunday's Observer if he would still be leading the country by the end of the week, Blair said: "I have every intention of doing that, yes."

But defeat over plans to allow universities to charge students more for their education through "top-up" fees would be humiliating for a prime minister with a massive parliamentary majority and could trigger a confidence vote.

Locked in battle with Labour rebels, Education Secretary Charles Clarke said on Sunday the education bill would now carry a guarantee that the upper threshold for fees would not rise above 3,000 pounds for two general elections.

"I think we will win the vote on Tuesday but there is certainly a hill to climb," Clarke told BBC television.

The Labour rebellion follows an erosion in Blair's public trust ratings following his decision to back the US-led war on Iraq on the basis its lethal weapons posed a threat.

Most analysts believe Blair will survive this week but the row over Iraq's weapons -- a key Anglo-American justification for war -- shows no sign of abating and could prove more decisive than this week's events in shaping the political landscape ahead of the next general election, expected in 2005.

David Kay's resignation on Friday as head of the US-led Iraq Survey Group, which is searching for weapons, gave fresh ammunition to those who accuse Blair of waging war on a false premise. Kay said Iraq had no biological and chemical arms.

"Was this country taken into that war in Iraq on a dodgy basis?" Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, asked on BBC television on Sunday.

Lord Hutton is expected to touch on the basis for the Iraq war in his report into Kelly's suicide last July.

Kelly killed himself after being named as the source of a BBC report that claimed Blair's team had hyped the threat from Iraq. Blair's government is in the dock over its role in exposing Kelly's name to the media.

Blair's office declined to comment on Sunday newspaper reports that said Blair had not received a letter from Hutton warning him of potential criticism.

Blair, who led Labour from the political wilderness to two landslide election victories, said he saw Hutton's findings as a test of his integrity as prime minister.

"The issue vis-a-vis my integrity is: did we receive the intelligence and was it properly relayed to people? And obviously I believe that we did," Blair told The Observer.

A YouGov poll for ITV Television showed on Sunday that 56 per cent of people believe Blair should resign if he or his staff are found to have acted improperly in naming Kelly.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq