UK's Blair defies critics over departure date

LONDON, Sept 1 (Reuters) British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged an end to speculation about when he will leave office and asked to be allowed to get on with his job in an interview published today.

The Times newspaper said Blair had defied critics in his Labour Party by refusing to name a date for stepping down.

Dashing expectations, he insisted he had no intention of saying more about his future either before or during the Labour Party annual conference that opens on September 24, The Times said.

Blair has faced constant rumours about when he will step down after he pledged before winning a third successive general election last year that he would not seek a fourth term.

With his popularity plunging, calls have grown within the Labour Party for Blair to set a date for handing over power to his expected successor, finance minister Gordon Brown.

''I have done what no other prime minister has done before me.

I've said I'm not going to go on and on and on, and said I'll leave ample time for my successor. Now at some point I think people have to accept that as a reasonable proposition and let me get on with the job,'' Blair said.

''I think if it is speculation that people are worried about, there is a simple answer -- stop speculating,'' said Blair, who has just returned from a Caribbean holiday.

Blair, in office for nine years, said members of parliament who ''carried on and on'' about his leadership really wanted the party to change direction away from Blair's free-market ''New Labour'' policies, The Times said.

Despite Blair's refusal to give a timetable, the Guardian newspaper quoted sources as saying that Blair's ''current thinking'' was that he would stand down in the summer of 2007.

Under pressure to set out a transition timetable, Blair promised in May to give his successor ample time to settle in before the next election, expected in 2009.

But the Sunday Telegraph reported in August that Blair planned to stay on for at least another year, longer than many Labour politicians wanted. It said this could cause friction with Brown, who is impatient to take over.

A poll in the Guardian last week said Britain's opposition Conservatives, under leader David Cameron, had opened a nine-point lead over Labour -- enough to give them a slim parliamentary majority if repeated at a general election.

Blair's popularity has plunged after a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and mismanagement. He has also faced sharp criticism recently -- some of it from Labour politicians -- for failing initially to call for an immediate ceasefire in the war between Israel and Lebanese Hizbollah guerrillas.

REUTERS MQA BST1013