January 31, 2002	Thursday	Ziqa’ad 16, 1422

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair was not pleased when a Labour Party MP welcomed him on his “current visit” to Britain. Increasingly Blair is coming under pressure for a role as international statesman in which he is seen as neglecting issues at home.

“Come home Tony, your country needs you,” wrote Jackie Ashley, editor of the New Statesman. Tony Blair who for years has been the leader who could do nothing wrong is under attack now as never before.

Conservative Party leader, Iain Duncan Smith, has been quick to pounce on what is being seen as Blair’s frequent absence from Britain. Instead of working for a new international order, Blair should look to the “new domestic disorder” back home, the Conservative leader says.

Blair is under attack not just from the media, or even the opposition. He has begun to encounter more opposition within his own party than he ever has before.

Blair returned from his last tour of Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan to face hostility within his own party over domestic chores. For the first time, MPs usually loyal to Blair too turned on him.

Labour MPs warned Blair at a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party that he was getting “out of touch” with the public over the state of public services.

“Get out and meet the people,” Dennis Skinner, MP told Blair at the meeting. “Being out of touch did for Mrs Thatcher, it must not happen to us,” Ian Gibson, MP, said after the meeting.

Warnings were fired at Blair from all around the political spectrum. Margaret Thatcher had become out of touch and lost, he was told. Winston Churchill led Britain to victory during the Second World War but lost the election that followed because he had neglected domestic issues. Blair was under attack at home for the very qualities for which he was being lauded abroad.

His own defence of his international role provoked even stronger criticism of Blair’s defence that in today’s world domestic and foreign policies are a part of the same thing drew strong attacks.

The Times wrote in a leader that Blair’s assertion is ”patently wrong for much of the time in many parts of the world.” It said: “The claim suggests, moreover, that Mr Blair is beginning to view his international meanderings as at least part-fulfilment of his domestic duties, a belief his British electorate would be entitled to regard as both irritating and crass. If there is to be a moral ambassador to the world, let it be somebody else.” —Dawn/InterPress Service.