Blair's Fatal Week

This week has been rough for Tony Blair, and may well have dealt a fatal blow to his premiership, but perhaps not in the way most people might think. Although Blair has weathered the expected storms of top-up fees and the Hutton report, there are quieter threats he faces. Included on the list are the continued non-appearance of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, a resurgent Conservative party, and a resurgent Gordon Brown.

Unsurprisingly, despite the hype, the Hutton report turned out to be a damp squib. Criticisms in the report are few and far between - almost all of them deservedly reserved for Andrew Gilligan. Tony Blair was spared all blame, which should surprise no one, as his involvement was tangential at best. The only slight surprise was that Alistair Campbell, or at least his team, did not receive some criticism for encouraging the JIC to beef up the wording. That the JIC was a willing accomplice in this does not, to my mind, make the influence any less inappropriate.

Slightly more interesting was the vote for a recessive graduate tax. Sorry, "top up fees". Why the comfortable pretence that these aren't a hidden tax? In a generation, the vast majority of people earning a reasonable wage will have to repay these "fees", which only exist to save the government from paying for universities through some other means. This is a graduate tax in all but name, recessive since those on high incomes will pay proportionately far less.

The likelihood of a government defeat was always slim. If defeat looked likely, the sensible move would have been to delay the vote to allow time for more consultation. None the less, a margin of just five votes is far too slim, and seriously undermines Blair's appearance of authority. Especially since he only gained that victory by making this a vote on his authority, not the issues.

If these were the only issues, Blair would be swiftly putting this week behind him and moving on. However, the last seven days have hidden other problems. The fees vote was only won in the end through the actions of Gordon Brown. His last minute pronouncements swayed a number of rebels, signalling that he, rather than the Prime Minister, has the necessary authority to deliver difficult votes. The idea that Brown organised the rebellion is strictly for the conspiracy theorists, but there is no doubt that the rebellion has greatly strengthened his position.

If Blair's problems have helped Gordon Brown, they have helped the Conservatives more. How did the Tories go from unelectable to leading by five points in the polls? Michael Howard becoming leader is a possible explanation, but given his previous unpopularity, and the idiotic comments he has made since taking over, does that make sense? While the odd media pundit or party loyalist might be impressed with his clever arguments at Prime Minister's question time, for the average man on the street he remains a slightly creepy non-entity.

So why the resurgence? To understand that, you need to realise that the British first past the post system means that most people don't vote for a party, but against one. If voters want to give the government a bloody nose, but not to change it, they vote for a party they don't believe can form a government. In the UK that means the Liberal Democrats. However, if the voters want to change the government, they vote for the party they think can beat the incumbent. The resurgence of the Tory party is best explained by a general distrust of the Labour party.

To explain that distrust, you need to look at the last of Blair's recent problems. David Kay has, as expected, announced his resignation from his position as leader of the Iraq Survey Group. The problem for Blair is that in doing so, he has also announced that he believes there are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Iraq has had no significant weapons programs since 1991. Not a great surprise, but particularly compelling from the man in charge of the hunt, with access to all the information, and who originally supported the war. Small wonder that the British public is turning against New Labour when Blair still insists that Iraq's weapons programs justified the war.

There is the real danger of the Hutton report. With the massive failure of British intelligence becoming more clear, and the distraction of Hutton over, there is a chance to pressure Blair into calling an enquiry into that intelligence failure. Such an enquiry would have overlapped sufficiently with Hutton that running the two in parallel was practically impossible. Now there is no excuse, especially since Hutton clearly states that the accuracy of the intelligence was not covered by his remit. Calls for such an enquiry are already beginning. Should Blair ignore them, he risks being seen as covering for the failures that helped him argue his point.

This week, Tony Blair has seen his integrity and authority questioned. His small victories cannot overshadow the simple fact that he is becoming an electoral liability. For Labour, the current Tory lead is surmountable, but they cannot do so with Blair in charge. Quite simply, Labour will only win the next election under Gordon Brown. This is a fact that must be becoming increasingly clear to the party hierarchy. Blair will paddle on for a few more weeks, then resign for health or family reasons, probably in May. But the real reason will be this last seven days.

Graham Robinson. 28th January 2004.

archives :: links :: faq :: feedback

Find out how you can support Online Opinion

Online Opinion is a trademark owned by Graham Robinson. All rights reserved. The copyright on all articles, columns, and letters on this site is owned by the original author. The copyright on all other material is owned by Graham Robinson. Permission is granted to download and store these pages for personal or research purposes only, and only as is consistent with normal viewing of web pages. All other rights reserved. Permission is granted to freely link to any page within this site, as long as ownership of the material linked to is clear. No advertisements may be associated with this site, whether explicitly or implicitly, without prior written permission.