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CNN LIVE AT DAYBREAK
Britain Votes: Prime Minister Tony Blair Expected to Win in Landslide
Aired June 7, 2001 - 07:40 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Britons are going to the polls at this hour. Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labor Party is up for reelection.
And CNN's Sheila MacVicar is covering the story for us.
And, Sheila, if you believe the opinion polls, Mr. Blair looks pretty unstoppable.
SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: He looks pretty much like a shoe-in, Colleen.
The opinion polls overnight have Labor at about 15 or 16 points ahead of the second run of the Conservative Party. And frankly, in Britain, as the polls open today, the question is not who is going to be prime minister but by how much?
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): Opinion polls show that Labor leader Tony Blair is set to increase his party's majority in the House of Commons. In fact, pollsters are predicting a Labor victory they describe as historic and huge.
If he is reelected prime minister, Tony Blair will become the first Labor Party leader elected to two terms in office. But the election campaign has been boring and lackluster. Voter turnout is expected to fall. And what worried Mr. Blair on his last day of campaigning was that his supporters might just decide the election is in the bag and they couldn't be bothered to vote.
TONY BLAIR, PRIME MINISTER: And I say, use your voice. You're the boss. You the British people decide this, not polls, not pundits, not bookmakers. You decide.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
BLAIR: So vote on Thursday, I ask you. Or on Friday, people will wake up to William Hague as prime minister.
(BOOING)
MACVICAR: That's a result that would surprise even William Hague. For days, the Conservative Party has been quietly conceding defeat. Mr. Hague's campaign focused on Britain's relations with Europe.
WILLIAM HAGUE, CONSERVATIVE CANDIDATE: We've been on the road, really, for 30 days or so. And we've had the most tremendous campaign. And it's a successful campaign.
MACVICAR: Polls show they failed to build any support. British bookmakers, who will bet on anything, are now taking bets on how long Mr. Hague lasts as Conservative leader. It all depends on how many seats his party holds after the votes are counted.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MACVICAR: But there is no one in Britain today who is looking for moving vans to be pulling outside No. 10 tomorrow -- Colleen.
MCEDWARDS: Sheila, I think people in the United States can probably relate to some of the issues in this campaign. There have been concerns about the health care system, concerns about the education system, foot-and-mouth disease. I mean, why haven't the Conservatives emerged as an alternative, as someone who can fix these problems?
MACVICAR: On the face of it going into this election, Tony Blair had a whole host of problems. He had foot-and-mouth disease. He had a really bad year in the transportation system, rail disasters. There are all kinds of things going wrong. But to a certain extent, he has proven himself to be the Teflon prime minister. Nothing seems to stick to him.
On the other hand, you have a campaign run by William Hague, where you have squabbles in the Conservative Party, fights over -- in Europe, out of Europe -- fights over Mr. Hague's leadership. None of that has done the party any good. The way that they have fought this campaign, the issues that they chose, they decided that they would make this campaign revolve around the issue of Europe. And for Britain, that's one of those issues: Are they in, are they out?
The issue now is the European single currency: the euro. Frankly, Mr. Blair just took the wind out of those sales by saying: Well, before we make any decisions, the British people will get another chance to vote in a referendum. And the Conservative campaign just didn't go anywhere.
MCEDWARDS: OK, understood, thanks, CNN's Sheila MacVicar for us in London.
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