Many British voters still undecided: Poll
Iraq continues to haunt Blair
AFP, London
Just 48 hours before Britain's general election, as a poll showing more than a third of voters have yet to make up their minds caused fresh jitters for his Labour Party. Blair remains the favourite to triumph in the election on Thursday, but repeated controversies over the war in Iraq and other issues have ensured the campaign is anything but a victory parade. Having spent last week forced to deny he lied about advice on the potential illegality of the March 2003 conflict, Blair found himself savagely criticised late Monday by the widow of the latest British soldier killed in Iraq. Asked in an interview whether she blamed the prime minister for the death of her husband, Anthony John Wakefield, 24, who was killed earlier that day by a roadside bomb in southern Iraq, Ann Toward replied: "Yes." She said she wanted to say to Blair: "You should not have sent the troops over, you should not have done that." "If it was not for Mr Blair's actions, "my children would still have their father today and I really do blame him for that," Toward told the ITV News channel. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, on BBC television Tuesday, said he understood the Wakefields' feelings -- "our thoughts must be, initially, with them -- but defended Blair for taking the country to war. "At the end of the day, we wanted the security of Britain and the British national interest to be advanced," he said. "Iraq, of course, being a democracy means that the Middle East is a safer place." While Iraq is seen as unlikely to prompt many voters to change sides, Labour strategists fear the repeated bad publicity might further disillusion core supporters, causing them to stay at home on Thursday. With backers of the main opposition Conservative Party and the smaller Liberal Democrats likely to be more motivated, the cumulative effect could be a nasty surprise for Blair, his aides say. Nonetheless, opinion polls have consistently tipped Blair to earn a third stint in Downing Street, where he has been in residence since 1997. The Labour Party holds a commanding lead among people who say they are absolutely certain to vote, a poll in Tuesday's Financial Times newspaper said, winning 39 percent of the support among this group.
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