Minister Tony Blair

LONDON - British Prime Minister Tony Blair said yesterday that the allegation made against him in a radio news report in May - that he misused intelligence about Iraq's weapons for political purposes - was so serious that he would have left office had it been true. Blair denied trying to put pressure on the government scientist who was the anonymous source for the report. The scientist, David Kelly, a former United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq, apparently committed suicide July 17 after the government, with Blair's approval, devised a plan to make his name public.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's influential communications director announced yesterday that he will step down as his boss grapples with the toughest political challenge of his rule amid allegations that the government hyped intelligence on Iraqi weapons to justify war. The resignation of Alastair Campbell, 46, leaves Blair without the services of his closest and most trusted aide. The two have worked together since 1994, three years before Blair became prime minister. Campbell's resignation comes as a judicial inquiry is examining the possibility that government pressure may have contributed to the apparent suicide of David Kelly, a government scientist and weapons expert.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair narrowly defeated last night a revolt in his party over legislation in Parliament to revamp the country's higher education system, avoiding a political humiliation that threatened to bring down his government. The close victory was a substantial boost for Blair on the eve of an even greater challenge. Lord Hutton, the senior judge charged with investigating the events surrounding the death of a government weapons scientist, David Kelly, is to issue the findings of his investigation today.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair argued yesterday that the possibility that Islamic militants will collaborate with states that possess unconventional weapons to carry out acts of terror justifies an aggressive new standard in international law for breaching the sovereignty of nations. In a spirited defense of Britain's decision to go to war in Iraq, Blair said the United States and Britain were right in acting last year because the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks demonstrated a new and "mortal danger" to the West.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party suffered huge losses in local elections across Britain on Thursday, as voters expressed their anger about the Iraq war and their growing disillusionment with Blair's leadership. With about three-quarters of local councils reporting their results by late yesterday afternoon, Labor was set to finish third, behind the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties - the first time in living memory, the Press Association reported, that a governing party has fared so poorly in off-year elections.

A STRIKING CONTRAST between Britain and the United States is the huge amount of attention that the British people have paid to the plight of an English civilian held hostage in Iraq and threatened with beheading. No such anguish has gripped America when the victims have been Americans. Part of the explanation for this could lie in the energies of the tabloid press in London. The British, too, are less accustomed to violent death than Americans are. But in any case, the fate of Kenneth Bigley has riveted America's most significant ally - and underscored the political change that the United Kingdom is undergoing.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair said he would enter the hospital today for treatment of an irregular heartbeat. Blair, 51, said the procedure was routine and would not affect his plans to seek a full third term in office next year, the first for a Labor prime minister. However, speaking to the British Broadcasting Corp., he ruled out serving beyond a third term. Doctors recommended the procedure, a catheter ablation, to correct a tachycardia, or accelerated heartbeat, that has bothered him repeatedly in recent months, Blair said.

LONDON - Prime Minister Tony Blair dismissed as "nonsense" yesterday the notion that his Iraq policy prompted London's terror bombings, as police confirmed the latest two suspects named in the attacks are legal East African immigrants, one of them a naturalized citizen. In an often testy news conference, Blair said he wouldn't "give one inch" on Britain's deployment of troops in Iraq, despite a new poll in The Times of London finding nearly two-thirds of Britons believe that policy puts them at greater risk of attacks.

LONDON -- British lawmakers rejected a tough new policy for detaining terrorism suspects yesterday, the first major parliamentary defeat suffered by Prime Minister Tony Blair during his eight years in power. Blair, after the deadly July 7 bombings in the London transit system, had called for terror suspects to be held without charge for up to 90 days - and had rejected any compromise. The House of Commons voted instead to double the detention period from 14 to 28 days, a rebuff that observers said raises questions about how long Blair might be able to hold onto power.

LONDON -- Gordon Brown, Britain's chancellor of the Exchequer, made a bid yesterday for the post of prime minister during a speech at the annual Labor Party conference in the northern industrial city of Manchester. Brown, whose ambitions for the office have been at the heart of his party's divisions over the tenure of Prime Minister Tony Blair, told a packed audience of party devotees that he would "relish the opportunity to take on" the opposition Tory party. Laying out a centrist agenda notably similar to that of the incumbent, Brown gave fulsome praise to Blair's premiership.