Tony Blair's domestic problems over his foreign policy will intensify this month when a new political party launched by the families of British soldiers killed in Iraq lays out its plans to contest every by-election and field up to 70 candidates at the next general election.
Reg Keys, who stood against Mr Blair in last year's general election, is to unveil details of the launch of his party, Spectre, today. His son Thomas was killed with five other Royal Military policemen in Iraq in 2003.
"We all feel we've been lied to, ignored and, frankly, insulted. But now it's different. Now we're going to make ministers pay with their seats," Mr Keys said. He said the bereaved relatives behind the new party would meet to establish its strategy over the next two weeks.
The move came as Mr Blair unexpectedly postponed his holiday yesterday to thrash out terms of a UN resolution on the Israel-Lebanon war, which, he believes, is in sight. But the political problems he faces continued to mount.
Today, thousands of protesters are expected to join a march in London to demand an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon, arranged by the Stop the War Coalition, CND and the British Muslim Initiative.
This is supported by and reflects anger in the parliamentary Labour party over Mr Blair's stand. Anti-war campaigner Walter Wolfgang, thrown out of the Labour conference last year for heckling then foreign secretary Jack Straw, was voted on to the party's national executive committee this week.
Yesterday, Tony Woodley, leader of the Transport and General Workers' Union, sent letters to Mr Blair and all Labour MPs, calling on the prime minister to "stop being, and being perceived to be, the European voice of the Bush administration" and warned that his failure to demand an immediate ceasefire "is seriously undermining Britain's moral authority across the globe". - (Guardian service)