Blair strives to appease unions

Tony Blair today pledged a new focus on domestic issues - but refused point blank to apologise for the war in Iraq.

The Prime Minister told trade unionists he understood their dismay that he had spent so many weeks on the Iraq crisis and other foreign affairs.

But extending the hand of partnership to the TUC in Brighton, he promised Labour's third term would concentrate on bread-and-butter issues.

"I frankly admit that too many people look at the past few years and see how the political and media agenda has been dominated by nothing but foreign affairs," he told the gathering, which was picketed by anti-war demonstrators.

"I can't apologise for what I think about the world since September 11 or what I have done in the war against this vicious terrorism we face. That would be insincere and dishonest.

"But vital though that war is, the daily lives of our citizens here in Britain are not about foreign affairs."

Mr Blair added: "It's interest rates, the workplace, taxes and bills, schools and hospitals.

"Their stage is not the world; it's here on our streets, our towns, villages and cities."

Mr Blair extended a hand of partnership to the TUC, using his most emollient language since being elected Labour leader. He even urged people to join unions, saying they were relevant and needed in the modern workplace.

But, with some union delegates calling for a return to secondary industrial action, he said: "There can be no return to the industrial relations framework of the 1970s.

"This is not an agenda about flying pickets, secondary action or the closed shop. Leave the past to the past." The Prime Minister was greeted with polite but lukewarm applause. He signalled no let-up in New Labour's plans for radical new policies but promised to enact the 56-point deal struck between Labour and the unions at talks in Warwick this summer.

He assured delegates: "I come here to praise Warwick, not bury it. To advocate social partnership, not belittle it."

Mr Blair was addressing the TUC amid threats of the biggest civil service strike in more than a decade and the resurgence of old-style union dominance. He faced demands that he rein back proposals to axe more than 100,000 civil service jobs.

The unions will make clear to Mr Blair they remain a force to be reckoned with, and the "Big Four" - Amicus, the Transport and General Workers, Unison and the GMB, which together have nearly four million members - have formed an unprecedented alliance for greater power.