Blair arrives for heart treatment
LONDON, England (CNN) -- British Prime
Minister Tony Blair has been admitted to a West London hospital to
undergo what he called "a routine procedure" to correct the return
of a heart flutter he first experienced last year.
"I feel fine," Blair told reporters Friday as he left his Downing
Street home smiling and waving with his wife Cherie.
"I'll be back at work on Monday flat out," he said in an
interview Thursday with the British television network ITN.
Blair, 51, also used the interview to confirm that he intends to
seek a third term as prime minister, but would retire from politics
after completing that term.
"It is my intention to lead the Labour Party into the next
election." Blair said.
"If elected, and that's the decision of the British people, then
I would serve a full term. I do not intend, however, to put myself
forward for elections after that."
Asked if his doctor was concerned the heart problem could be a
sign of more problems, Blair said, "He assures me that it
isn't."
"I think they call it an atrial flutter that I had last year
recurred again in August," Blair said.
Blair said his condition "was not debilitating at all."
"I feel fine. You just get a flutter every so often," he
said.
Last year, doctors diagnosed his condition as supraventricular
tachycardia -- irregular heartbeat -- that caused shortness of
breath. He was given an electrical treatment to stabilize his
heartbeat and was sent home a few hours later with orders to
rest.
Blair will be sedated during the two-and-a-half hour procedure,
called a catheter ablation.
The procedure involves inserting a catheter through the groin and
up to the heart, where radio-frequency energy is used to kill off
the cells conducting the extra impulses.
Blair's office at No. 10 Downing St. said the prime minister will
spend Friday night in the hospital and rest over the weekend before
returning to "normal duties" on Monday. He will go ahead with a
scheduled visit to Africa on Tuesday, the office told Reuters.
Blair became prime minister in May 1997 when he led his Labour
Party to its first electoral victory since 1979. He was re-elected
by a landslide in 2001.
He is a father of four children. His youngest, 4-year-old Leo,
was the first baby born to a serving prime minister in 150
years.
The terms of British parliaments are for up to five years. While
Blair would have to call an election by 2006, the next general
election is expected to happen in 2005. If Blair is re-elected next
year, he could remain prime minister through 2010.
CNN's European Political Correspondent Robin Oakley says that
Blair's announcement of a finite end to his premiership means that
if reelected he will step down during the next parliament --
probably towards the end of a five-year term.
Commentator Peter Stothard told CNN that the Iraq issue had put
Blair under "extraordinary pressure" and that his family had been
"fantastically supportive" of him.
In the United States, a senior Bush administration official said:
"The Prime Minister is in our thoughts and prayers and we wish him
the speediest of recoveries."
Blair received a political boost Friday with a win for his Labour
Party in a parliamentary by-election in Hartlepool, northeast
England, which was seen as a pointer to the result of national polls
expected next year.
Labour candidate Iain Wright held the seat for Labour with 12,752
votes, with the Liberal Democrats second on 10,719 votes. The main
opposition Conservative Party slumped to fourth place, narrowly
behind the UK Independence Party, which opposes British membership
of the European Union.
Wright succeeds Blair's close ally Peter Mandelson, who recently
stepped down as a British MP to become Britain's EU commissioner.
