Blair: Under pressure to stand down

Senior ministers have dismissed suggestions that Tony Blair should step down soon.

Following a series of calls from the Labour left for the prime minister to resign, or at least set out a timetable for his departure, colleagues have rallied round the Labour leader.

Having endured a difficult election campaign, and suffered a series of losses to both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, Blair has been personally blamed for Labour's reduced Commons majority.

Although he has already announced he will not fight the next general election, many MPs are calling on him to reverse his previous decision to serve a full third term in Number 10.

However Cabinet members have insisted the prime minister does have a mandate to govern while potential rebels should remember they were elected on a common manifesto.

New work and pensions secretary David Blunkett also reminded MPs that many of them won because of Blair.

He acknowledged there was a need to "build confidence" back in the prime minister following attacks on his integrity and the war in Iraq.

But Blunkett told the BBC: "We have nearly 160 seats more than the Conservatives and yet people are going around as if we have virtually lost.

"I have got enormous sympathy for the people who have lost their seats but lets face it, they would not have had their seats in 1997 and 2001 if it was not for the appeal and the reach-out of Tony Blair to middle England.

"It is time people took a deep breath and took a look backwards."

'Consent'

Meanwhile, new Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain said most of the calls for resignation had come from well known critics.

"The same people who have been making the same case, who didn't support Tony when he was elected leader 10 years ago and haven't supported him ever since are now making the same arguments they made all over again," he told Sky's Sunday with Adam Boulton.

"If people really didn't want Labour re-elected and didn't want Tony Blair as prime minister they'd have voted us out. They didn't. In fact we got a very good result."

However he conceded Labour had "taken a hit" over Iraq and with a majority of 66 or 67 would need to consult more with backbenchers.

"We may have to proceed in a way that doesn't assume you are necessarily going to win a vote before you've started as perhaps we were able to in our first two parliaments.

"We will need to build more consent, we will need to engage the parliamentary party and we will need to engage the whole of the House of Commons in a more active way than we always had to in the past."

Culture secretary Tessa Jowell added on GMTV: "One of the reasons that we won is because of the leadership of Tony Blair and the stability of the economy."