BLAIR TO STEP DOWN AS PRIME MINISTER ON JUNE 27

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Tony Blair on Thursday marked the beginning of the end of his decade as Britain's prime minister when he announced his intention to step down as prime minister on June 27, paving the way for a transfer of power to Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer.

Mr Blair's long-awaited resignation plans, delivered to party activists in his Sedgefield constituency in north-east England, bring down the curtain on the longest-serving Labour prime minister, and the most dominant British political figure since Margaret Thatcher.

“Sometimes the only way you conquer the pull of power is to set it down,” he said.

The 54-year-old leader acknowledged that he had made mistakes and had provoked “grievances that fester”. Expectations of him were possibly too high when he won his first of three general election victories in 1997, he said.

But he issued a powerful appeal to his critics to consider his achievements in the round and to accept that he took decisions, including the one to go to war in Iraq, in good faith. “I ask you to accept one thing: hand on heart, I did what I thought was right.”

Mr Blair summed up his legacy as leaving behind a Britain that is “comfortable in the 21st century, proud of its past, confident of its future”.





英国首相托尼•布莱尔(Tony Blair)周四宣布，他打算在今年6月27日辞去首相一职。此举标志着他的10年首相生涯开始倒计时，也为权力移交给英国财政大臣戈登•布朗(Gordon Brown)铺平了道路。

昨日，在英格兰东北部塞奇菲尔德选区向工党活跃分子讲话时，布莱尔宣布了人们等待已久的辞职计划。对这位在任时间最长的工党首相，以及玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)以来英国最重要政界人物来说，帷幕终于落下。

布莱尔表示：“有时，征服权力诱惑的唯一方式就是放下权力。”
这位现年54岁的英国领导人承认，他曾犯过错误，并激起了“人们的严重不满情绪”。他表示，当他1997年赢得三次大选胜利中的首次时，人们对他的期望可能过高了。

但他强烈恳请批评人士全面评估他的成就，并请求他们接受，他做的决定都是出于善意的，包括参加伊拉克战争的决定。“我请求你们接受一件事：凭良心讲，我做了我认为正确的事。”

布莱尔将他的功绩总结为：留给人们一个“在21世纪自在、对过去感到自豪，以及对未来充满信心”的英国。