Blair Wins Election for a Third Term, but...

"Tony Blair looked on course to win a historic third term as British prime minister

in Thursday's election but with a hugely reduced parliamentary majority as voters punished him over Iraq. A television exit poll issued as polling stations closed at 10 p.m. (2100 GMT) predicted Blair will have a majority of only 66 seats in the 646-seat parliament, down from 161 last time."

For those who aren't familiar with parliamentary elections, basically, the party of the Prime Minister must retain a majority of seats in parliament in order for him or her to remain in power. In today's election it appears that Blair's Labour Party has won, but their majority of seats in parliament has slipped significantly, which leaves this political scholar with the following conclusion:

"'If the exit poll holds true this is incredibly bad news for Blair,' said Mark Wickham-Jones, senior lecturer in politics at Bristol university. 'The result is much better than the Conservatives thought they were going to get. There is a sense in which this election has been a referendum on Blair and I think it is going to leave him considerably weakened,' he told Reuters."

Yes, PM Blair is a member of the Labour party which is socialist in nature, but he has been a staunch ally in the War on Terror. He has taken a lot of shit in his country for it, and has in many ways been a much better spokesman than President Bush for the War and why we are in Iraq. Hey, at least he doesn't say "NUKE-U-LER."