Tony Blair has been urged to quit as prime minister early into his third term, days after Labour's election win.

Despite securing a historic third victory, the government's Commons majority was slashed from 161 to 67.

Several Labour MPs have called for Mr Blair to resign as a "liability", among them former minister Frank Dobson.

However, senior party figures including David Blunkett and Peter Hain have rallied in support of Mr Blair, urging MPs to "get behind" their leader.

Downing Street has said there is "no change" from Mr Blair's statement last year that he would serve a full third term.

'Negative factor'
Some MPs have suggested the prime minister should step down within a year to 18 months, with Chancellor Gordon Brown tipped as the most likely successor.

Mr Dobson, who served as health secretary in Mr Blair's first Cabinet, told GMTV's Sunday programme the prime minister had been an "enormous liability" in this election who had cost the party seats.

"I don't think we can go into important local elections next year... with Tony Blair as leader and expect to keep many of the councillors we've got now," he said.
John Austin, MP for Erith and Thamesmead, told The Sunday Times the prime minister had been "a liability and not an asset during the election".

He said: "You can't beat about the bush. Blair was a negative factor on the doorstep, time and time and time again."

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North and a fierce critic of the Iraq war, predicted Mr Blair could be out of Downing Street within a year.

He told Channel 4's Morgan and Platell Programme: "I think he might well decide that the end of the G8 presidency (at the end of 2005) is the time to go. I don't think he would want to go in the middle of it."

Desmond Turner, the Brighton Kemptown MP, said: "It would be nice to see Brown crowned as early as the next party conference.

'Toy Town Cabinet'
"There is only one choice for leader. I don't think anyone else need apply for the job."

However ex-Labour minister and government critic Frank Field warned "gang warfare" between Blairite and Brownite factions could lead some MPs to look elsewhere for leadership contenders.
He acknowledged Mr Blair's election successes but dismissed his reshuffle as "like a Cabinet for Toy Town" and lacking "substantial" figures apart from Mr Blunkett.

Mr Field said: "He [Mr Blair] is clearly the best we've ever had at winning elections. The trouble with that of course is what we do after we've won an election."

Mr Blunkett, the new Work and Pensions Secretary, told the BBC's Breakfast with Frost the Iraq war had been a "major factor" in eroding confidence in the prime minister but said people had to move on.

"We now - all of us - have to build that confidence behind our prime minister who, after all, not only got a historic third term but got the kind of majority in that third term that we expected in 1997."

Mr Blunkett urged MPs to back the manifesto on which they were elected and "get stuck in... and deliver to the British people".

Otherwise, he said, they were being "as self-indulgent as the better-off who voted Lib Dem".
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell also defended the prime minister, saying "serving a full term doesn't mean leaving office after a year or two".