PM confident of rebels backing
The prime minister today insisted he could win over Labour rebels and push through his programme for reform.
Saying he was “very confident”, Tony Blair told BBC’s One O’clock News: “We were elected on a very clear manifesto.
“We put very substantial extra investment into schools and hospitals and the public services. We’ve seen real improvement as a result of that.
“But we are also changing the service and making it more amenable to the patient and to the parent, making sure that it works in a way that people expect a modern public service to work.”
“I’ve no doubt at all that we will persuade those people who – as a minority in the Labour party at the moment – don’t agree with some of those proposals.”
He was speaking after suffering his first Commons defeat last week over anti-terror legislation, when 49 Labour MPs voted against the government.
Critics have since queried whether Mr Blair has the support required to push through his ambitious reforms for health, education, and pensions.
Ex-health minister Frank Dobson has already declared that he believes up to 100 Labour MPs could revolt against the government’s proposed reforms.
But Mr Blair insisted the reform programme would win enough backing from the parliamentary Labour party, saying that manifesto commitments were a different kettle of fish to the debate over detention laws.
He added: “This is a very different issue to the national security issue of last week. It is something that we will engage with … in the normal way. But I’m actually very confident about it.
“As for the rest of the reform programme, we’ll see it through.”
Radical reform to education, health and welfare policy, in particular incapacity benefits, is planned over the coming months and the prime minister will launch a campaign this week to drum up support for the government’s schools white paper.
