Blair party hit by Iraq effect in by-election

But the count in the early hours of Friday morning showed victory for Sarah Teather, whose Liberal Democratic party opposed the Iraq war. She becomes parliament’s youngest member at 29 and brings the number of her party’s MPs in the 659-seat House of Commons to 54.

Although the loss to Blair’s huge Commons majority is itself inconsequential, it was the first time Labor had been voted out in a by-election since he took office.

"We are going through a bad patch, no doubt about it," acknowledged government minister Nick Raynsford.

The defeat comes in an atmosphere of post-Iraq recriminations, with polls showing most Britons no longer trust him and as the annual Labor Party conference looms, with activists angry about a war they opposed.

It was Labor’s own natural urban, left-leaning core constituency that turned on Blair in Brent.

As she arrived to cast her ballot at the Willesden Green Library, pensioner Mary Farrell, told Reuters: "We voted Labor and we put in Tony Blair and nobody likes what is happening now. We are disgusted and fed up. We want to send him a message and the only way to do that is to vote for someone else."

Blair’s public trust ratings have eroded since the war, with most Britons now doubting the case he made for attacking Iraq.

The skepticism has worsened since the suicide of government weapons scientist David Kelly, who slashed his wrist after being exposed as the source of a news report that said the intelligence community thought Blair had hyped the case. Many blame the government for his death.

Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy, a consistent opponent of the war who has positioned Britain’s centrist, third-biggest party to take advantage of the left’s rising discontent toward Blair, said the doubts go deeper than Iraq.

"Iraq has really led to a lot of questions about trust, motivation," he told the BBC. "It led to an awful sense of doubt both about Tony Blair personally and about this administration."

Labor Party Chairman Ian McCartney said the media was partly to blame for focusing on Iraq, distracting voters from Blair’s domestic agenda.

Blair, once seen as his party’s greatest asset, was barely mentioned by Labor in the by-election campaign. His one consolation was that the main opposition Conservatives, who backed him on the war, finished a poor third.

Pollsters say the Conservatives must perform far better to harbor any hopes of forming the next government. The next general election is due by 2006 but expected in 2005.