'Battered' Blair vows to fight on
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Blair with deputy PM John Prescott at the Labour conference Sunday.
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SPECIAL REPORT
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LONDON, England -- UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says he has no intention of resigning and will lead the Labour Party into the next general election, despite plummeting popularity ratings.
As delegates gathered in Bournemouth for the party's annual conference, the opinion polls made grim reading for Blair who admitted that he had been "battered" by recent events.
A YouGov poll for the Sunday Times put Labour on just 30 percent -- three points behind the Conservatives and neck-and-neck with the Liberal Democrats who saw a massive upsurge in support.
Blair is vowing not back down over controversial public service reforms, despite Labour's popularity rating slumping to its lowest ebb under his leadership.
Blair is also facing continued pressure over his support for the war in Iraq. In an interview with The Observer newspaper, he said the intelligence picture which he presented before the war was broadly correct.
"This wasn't an invention of British intelligence or the CIA. The intelligence that we got is essentially correct," he said.
"In my experience of intelligence, not every single item is correct but if there is a pattern as strong as the pattern here then it is (correct)."
And he told the BBC on Sunday: "What we have delivered in that country is freedom, and for all the difficulties, let's not ignore that but actually be proud of what we have done.
"I believe as powerfully as I did at the time that making sure that that man is no longer in charge of Iraq is a good thing for his country, the region and the world."
He acknowledged however that the continuing controversy over Iraq and the fall out from the Hutton inquiry into the death of the government weapons expert David Kelly had made it difficult to focus on domestic issues.
"I think it is a test, in a sense, for me and my leadership as to whether I can get back out and engage in a proper debate, so that these policies do not appear just to pop out of somewhere but are actually part of a process so that people understand why I am trying to do this," he said.
