England Politics

Promising a just and dynamic new Britain, political modernizer Tony Blair led his restructured Labor Party to a landslide election victory of historic proportions here today. Five days short of his 44th birthday, Blair and his newly middle-of-the-road party dealt ruling Conservatives under Prime Minister John Major their worst defeat in more than a century. "You have put your trust in me, and I want to repay that trust.

Amid terrorist menace and the rumble of an approaching landslide, Britain votes today in a national election with strong signs that a new left will topple a Conservative establishment worn down by 18 years of power. After repeated disruptive attacks on railroads, highways and airports, with a few token bombs and many hoaxes, the Irish Republican Army is a major election-day question mark. Authorities have warned that new disruptions seem likely today.

When Britain's last state-run passenger train whistled out of Euston station here one recent night, it evoked nostalgia and knowing smiles: Fifty years after a socialist government nationalized railroads, the farewell service of much-mocked British Rail left 24 minutes late.

Upholding a universal truth of politics, there was more action inside the bar than in the main hall for most of the day at this month's Labor Party annual conference in Scotland. The drink was Calder's Dark and Smooth, Tetley Bitter and Guinness in deep dark pints as thick and opaque as the rainswept sky.

The long-anticipated call to arms finally came on a brilliant spring morning. Wearing a jaunty smile and a pink shirt before the prime minister's front door at 10 Downing St. on Monday, John Major invited Britain to a national election May 1 that is expected to write his political epitaph. After his ritual consultation with Queen Elizabeth II, Major's announcement of the election date ended months of political skirmishing, conjecture and maneuvering.

These are suddenly perplexing times for conservatives--both here and in the United States. Their ancient antagonists on the left are moving toward them in accepting limits on government's role in society. Yet on both sides of the Atlantic, the conservative parties paradoxically find themselves in retreat. In the United States, the Republican congressional majority is approaching disarray. Their term limits constitutional amendment crashed in the House.

David Hill, who speaks for the juggernaut Labor Party, basked Friday at the happy junction where partisan analysis merges with conventional wisdom in a country marching toward potentially lopsided national elections. "Every night [Prime Minister] John Major must pray that we make a big mistake," Hill said at a morning-after encounter. "As things stand now, it's his only salvation."

The opposition Labor Party won a special election in northwest England, leaving Prime Minister John Major with a minority government, officials announced. Ben Chapman, a retired civil servant, won the seat of Wirral South, a longtime Conservative district. The seat became vacant with the death of the previous legislator last year. The election was seen as a key test for Major, who must call a nationwide election by May.

She'd make quite a stir at your neighborhood marina, for Britannia, standard-bearer of a great seagoing nation, is to most yachts as palaces are to condos. Built for empire-hopping, Britannia is longer than a football field and has a crew of 250, including two dozen musicians. All hands on deck, though, for as Britannia makes her farewell voyage, Britain's royal yacht is leaving a turbulent wake of political squabbling in the House of Commons--and a sense of bereavement in the House of Windsor.

Ideology is dead, historic differences are blurred, personalities dominate. Sex and sleaze grab bigger headlines than ideas and issues. Sound familiar? Well, this time it is the British who are voting. Not Bill and Bob, but close enough: John and Tony are waging a "presidential-style" election campaign with a strong American accent. The winner, incumbent Conservative John Major or Labor Party challenger Tony Blair, gets a five-year term as prime minister.