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Blair: I won't go early
02/02/2007 11:22 - (SA)
London - British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused on Friday to heed opposition calls to resign over the cash-for-honours criminal probe, saying it was not "distracting" him from his work.
Interviewed on BBC radio, Blair said he intended to continue with health and other reforms before fulfilling his promise to resign by September this year and hand over to a successor in his Labour Party.
Blair said he understood how the probe was "distracting and obsessive for the media" but added: "It isn't for me."
"You'll have to put up with me for a bit longer," he said.
David Cameron, the leader of the main opposition Conservative Party, repeated on Thursday that Blair's authority was draining away, adding that the fact he was questioned a second time in the probe "only confirmed" that he should go "and go soon".
Blair, who in December 2006 became the first serving British premier to be questioned by police, was interviewed again last week - once more as a witness rather than as a suspect, his office was quick to stress.
Meanwhile Lord Michael Levy, Blair's Middle East envoy and chief party fundraiser, was arrested on Tuesday for a second time in the probe.
Snowballing towards a conclusion
Two weeks ago another key figure close to Blair, Ruth Turner, director of government relations at Downing Street, was also arrested.
Levy was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice before being released on bail, while Turner was held on suspicion of breaching the Honours Act 1925 and perverting the course of justice.
Their arrests, as well as Blair's second round of questioning, have prompted speculation that the police investigation is snowballing towards a conclusion.
The so-called "cash-for-honours" probe was launched in March 2006 and has seen Blair and his entire cabinet interviewed by detectives.
It is trying to establish if his Labour Party and other parties illegally offered people seats in parliament's unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, in return for financial assistance.
- AFP
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