But Exit Polls Indicate a Slightly Smaller Majority

Tony Blair and the Labour Party swept to victory Thursday in Britain's parliamentary election, sending the once mighty Conservatives to their second consecutive large-scale defeat and guaranteeing his own party its first ever re-election to a full term in office. According to a BBC exit poll made public after the 10 p.m. end to balloting, Labour had won 44 percent of the vote, the Conservatives 32 and the Liberal Democrats 17. The network estimated Labour's new majority at 160 seats, down from the 179 it won four years ago but still a landslide total. The final count will not be known until late Friday. For Mr. Blair, the victory represented a satisfying conquest of what he has often described as the shame of the Labour Party - its inability in its 100-year history to win two full successive terms in power. He has set as his long-range goal making Labour the natural party of government in Britain this century the way the Conservatives, long the greatest vote-getting machine in Europe, were throughout the 20th century. Possibly sensing that, former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher warned this week that Britain was heading for "elective dictatorship" if Mr. Blair succeeded in winning another landslide election. He came to power in May 1997. On expectations of a big Blair victory and the increased likelihood that, under him, Britain would be joining the European common currency, the pound fell to a new 15-year low against the dollar Thursday. During the campaign, Mr. Blair said he would decide within two years whether the time was right to hold a referendum on the issue, and he predicted that the Government could overcome the current public hostility toward the idea if it decided it was in Britain's interest to swap the pound for the euro.