POLITICS : Blair Says Tide Is Turning for Labor Party : By appealing to a broader spectrum of voters and exuding confidence, the opposition leader rallies hopes of regaining power in Britain.

The opposition Labor Party wound up its annual conference with a buoyant confidence not felt for years, its delegates convinced they are on the way to winning Britain’s next national election.

Rent in the past by party infighting, delegates this week rallied behind Tony Blair, their new leader, who gave a spirited keynote speech to energize the party faithful and bring in new voters.

Analysts say party members sense an unparalleled opportunity to regain power in Britain because the faltering, beleaguered Conservative administration of Prime Minister John Major has run far behind Labor in opinion polls.

Major still has 30 months in which to call a national election. Labor’s strategy is to show that its leaders are moderate and competent, particularly in dealing with the economy, which the party hopes to make its core election issue.

In an address widely regarded as forward-looking and pragmatic, Blair appealed to a wide spectrum of British voters, rather than focusing on trade unionists, the poor, government workers and academics--those who have formed the party’s base.

“The tide of ideas in British politics is at last on the turn,” the member of Parliament told his audience. “For the first time in a generation, it is the right-wing that appears lost and disillusioned.”

During the conference, Blair, an Oxford graduate, eschewed the usual cliches, offering none of the socialistic shibboleths or calling fellow delegates “comrades.” Instead, he argued for realistic discussions on managing a modern, market-oriented economy. He proposed a package of higher employment, better education and an improved health system, a crackdown on crime and a pro-Europe stance.

But Blair pointedly avoided any details of how to pay for the programs--a vagueness for which Conservatives criticized him sharply.

On more concrete footing, Blair, 41, went so far as to suggest that Labor consider updating its constitution--including dropping Clause 4, which is inscribed on every party member’s card. This clause calls for “common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.” It is a symbol of Labor’s attachment to a collectivist past that favored broad nationalization.

Blair, deputy leader John Prescott, and other senior members of the party--having seen state socialism discredited in Eastern Europe--are trying to move Labor into a position to deal with contemporary realities. They are opposed by militant leftists like Dennis Skinner, a member of Parliament, and Arthur Scargill, a miners’ leader who described Blair’s speech as “an outright declaration of war” on Clause 4.

The left-wingers narrowly won a floor victory supporting Clause 4, but the vote was non-binding and could easily be overturned in the future, according to political observers.

In general, though, the mass of delegates supported the new look that Blair and Prescott have been giving Labor as they walk the fine line of making the party electable while keeping it recognizable to the rank and file.

Veteran labor leader Bill Jordan, of the engineering union, declared of Blair’s modernizing the party’s basic document: “It’s a 19th-Century constitution, and he was saying that people out there want one for the 21st Century.”

Blair’s widespread Labor support was, in uncustomary fashion, echoed in the conservative British press. Media here suggested that he was the first Labor candidate in 15 years who could pull votes from British Conservatives.

The right-leaning Daily Mail said: “Here, you felt, is a thoroughly modern politician in charge of a cussed old party, which he is determined to remake in his own image.”

And the Independent suggested that Blair’s journalistic nickname “Bambi”--given him because of his pleasant looks, manner and message--should be replaced by a new Disney-title moniker: “The Lion King.”