BLAIR MOVES INTO HOME OF PRIME MINISTER; MAJOR QUITS LEADERSHIP.

Byline: Warren Hoge The New York Times

Tony Blair became prime minister of Britain on Friday, and his predecessor, John Major, said he would give up the leadership of the Conservative Party, which suffered its worst defeat of this century in the election Thursday.

Blair, the 43-year-old leader of the Labor Party, entered 10 Downing St. to the jubilant cheers of flag-waving supporters and, in keeping with his campaign of restrained expectations, promised them ``a government of practicable measures in pursuit of noble causes.''

An hour earlier Major, 54, had vacated the same official residence to turn in his resignation to the queen at Buckingham Palace and, in his final comments before the famous black door with the brass No. 10 on it, he said, ``When the curtain falls it's time to get off the stage.''

Resisting private pleas to hold off abandoning the party leadership at a time when the Conservatives were in such disarray, he asked the Tories in Parliament to pick his successor as soon as possible.

The full extent of the rout and the prospects for bloodletting over the choice of a new leader became clear with the latest tallies.

Of the 659 seats in the House of Commons, Labor now has 418 seats, a gain of 146; the Conservatives have 165, a loss of 178; the Liberal Democrats have 46, a gain of 26 from the 1992 election and the best showing for the center-left third party since the 1920s. The other 30 seats went to smaller parties, including the Scottish Nationalists and Welsh Nationalists and parties from Northern Ireland like Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists.

Despite weather that was uncharacteristically warm and sunny throughout the United Kingdom, the turnout Thursday among the 44 million voters was 71.3 percent, a postwar low. In the 1992 election, 77.7 percent of the electorate voted.

The scorched-earth policy that voters adopted toward the Tories left them with no seats in Scotland and Wales and greatly reduced numbers through the prosperous swath called Middle England that had long been their stronghold. The party did not gain a single seat anywhere in the country, and among the casualties were seven members of Major's Cabinet, including Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind and Defense Secretary Michael Portillo.

Portillo was planning a run for the party leadership and seemed to be the favored choice of the party's right wing, which has been vocal in its hostility to further integration in Europe, an issue that has divided the Conservatives and contributed to their loss.

That division was sure to deepen with the entry Friday of the first announced candidate to succeed Major: the departing chancellor of the Exchequer, Kenneth Clarke, the most pro-Europe member of Major's Cabinet. London bookmakers placed best odds on Michael Heseltine, the Conservative deputy prime minister, who is also viewed as a moderate on the divisive issue of Europe.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: New British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie, embrace in front their new residence at 10 Downing St. in London on Friday.

Associated Press