Blair, facing rising public doubt and a revitalized Conservative opposition, is determined to lead his Labour Party into a third successive term in government.

　　"I will be putting myself forward," he told the News of the World newspaper. "Whatever the problems and pressures this is an immensely enjoyable and fulfilling job and I intend to carry on doing it."

　　"The times are tougher but I am a tougher person than I was six or seven years ago. You have people kicking lumps out of you, but you can live with it, and I do," he said.

　　Blair, the country's longest serving Labour Prime Minister, dragged Labour from the left to the center and led it out of 18 years in the electoral wilderness to a landslide victory in 1997 - repeating the feat in 2001.

　　He is expected to call a new general election in the first half of 2005, but has seen his own trust ratings tumble in the wake of the invasion of Iraq nearly a year ago and the failure to find the much vaunted illegal weapons of mass destruction.

　　He took a further hit months later over the suicide of a weapons scientist at the heart of a row between the government and the BBC over allegations Blair's office had deliberately exaggerated the threat from Iraq to support its case for war.

　　Sensing his weakening grip, a revolt by large numbers of his own party brought the government to within a whisker of defeat over highly controversial education reforms.

　　A report made by judge Lord Hutton last month exonerated Blair of knowingly exaggerating the case for the war against Iraq, but prompted charges of a whitewash in a graphic illustration of the once unblemished Blair's fall from public grace in the country.

　　The education revolt and sliding polls fueled speculation that Blair was now electorally damaged and could relinquish his leadership in favor or his ambitious and successful Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

　　"I have made it clear this is a decision in the end for the British people at the next election. They are the ones who decide," Blair said.

　　(Reuters)