Blair wins his 3rd term

LONDON — Tony Blair won a historic third term as prime minister Thursday, but exit poll projections indicated his Labour Party suffered a sharply reduced parliamentary majority in punishment for going to war in Iraq. A chastened Blair said "we will have to respond to that sensibly and wisely."

The outcome could set the stage for Blair to be replaced in midterm by a party rival such as Gordon Brown. As Treasury chief, Brown was widely credited for the strong economy that appears to have clinched Labour's victory, outweighing the bitterness many voters said they felt over Iraq.

With 561 and the 646 House of Commons seats counted, official results showed 331 seats were won by Labour, enough to form a government, 167 went to the Conservatives, 50 went to the Liberal Democrats — the only major party to oppose the Iraq war — and 13 to other smaller parties.

The BBC projected Labour would win 79 more seats than all the other parties combined — down from its 161-seat margin in the outgoing House of Commons.

The projections, based on a survey of more than 16,000 voters in 115 closely contested districts, showed Labour with 37 percent of the popular vote, the lowest winning share ever. The Conservatives were projected to take 33 percent. The Liberal Democrats were estimated in third place with 22 percent.

Conservative opposition leader Michael Howard offered the prime minister his congratulations but said Blair had to do more to deliver better health care and lower crime for Britons.

"The time has now come for action and not talk from him," Howard said.

Blair, bruised by opposition claims that he lied over the war, acknowledged Britons had punished his 8-year-old government.

"I know too that Iraq has been a divisive issue in this country but I hope now that we can unite again and look to the future there and here," said Blair, as he was comfortably returned to his parliamentary seat in Sedgefield, northern England, despite a challenge from the father of a British soldier killed in the Iraq war.

"It seems as if it is clear ... that the British people wanted the return of a Labour government but with a reduced majority. And we have to respond to that sensibly and wisely and responsibly."

Never before has the Labour Party won three straight elections. Margaret Thatcher accomplished the same feat for the Tories, the only other prime minister in modern British history to do so.