Blair to retain powers to go to war

The British government today rejected a parliamentary call for the prime minister to give up his prerogative powers to take the country into war.

In a report in July, the House of Lords Constitution Committee said that the British parliament should in future have the final say in going to war.

The royal prerogative of the prime minister to declare war was "outdate" and should not be used in a 21st century democracy, the all party committee said.

But in reply to the report, the government rebuffed the call, arguing that the prime minister had to have to ability to respond to conflicts immediately and said that allowing a full parliamentary debate would delay this too much.

The committee chairman Lord Holme said that it was disappointment at what it called the Government's "tardy and unsatisfactory" response to the report on Waging War: Parliament's Role and Responsibility.

"This response is really not adequate. It demonstrates a complete failure on the part of the Government to give any real consideration to our key recommendation," said Holme, who is also a former military officer.

Support for giving MPs war-making powers has been expressed by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who is expected to replace Blair as prime minister next year, as well as the leaders of the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

Holme, who is a Lib Dem peer, described the government's response as 'temporizing and woolly' and said that it reflected divisions within the government rather than being based on the merits of the case on what was a fundamental democratic issue.

He said his committee would be meeting shortly to determine how best to proceed and that it would certainly press for an early debate.

"I expect we shall ask the Government to think again -- when the occupancy of Number Ten has changed, if not before," the committee chair said.

Meantime, Blair yesterday expressed concern at a recent poll that found most Britons see US President George W. Bush as a great danger to world peace.

Speaking at his monthly press conference, Blair described the findings, published in last Friday's Guardian newspaper, as both 'shocking' and "worrisome."

He said that he had the greatest respect for the views of the British public, but argued that 'sometimes we have to challenge conventional wisdom'.